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Old 01-20-2011, 05:32 PM   #1
John Yeoman
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Question Will Kindle handle RTF files?

I've read here that the new Kindle will handle .txt files but what about RTF?

I've been using Sony Reader happily for nearly three years. I use it solely to read academic papers that I can download free - and old texts in the public domain from Internet Archives, Gutenberg, etc. All are in pdf or rtf formats.

I have no interest in buying ebooks, pre-formatted for Kindle or other ebook readers, because few books I can use are available in commercially available ebook formats.

I don't want to be able to read just .txt files. The fonts and enhancements would be missing.

Surely the latest Kindle can handle little old pdfs and RTFs? I mean, they've been around for some 30 years. It's not rocket science

Could somebody please clarify for me whether Kindle can handle RTFs? If not, something is seriously wrong at Amazon...
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Old 01-20-2011, 05:34 PM   #2
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It can do PDFs natively but remember that the screen is smaller than the generally assumed A4 or letter size in PDFs. It has to have RTF files converted. Either use the Amazon conversion service where you email it to the Kindle or do it yourself using Calibre which is a free eBook conversion and formatting tool.
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Old 01-20-2011, 06:20 PM   #3
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Thanks for the fast reply

Thanks for the fast reply. I appreciate it. Your response time is awesome! Yet... it seems very sad that technology goes five steps forward and ten steps back, when a highly engineered product like Kindle has to resort to external utilities, and impose extra work on its customers, to read a basic format like RTF.

I think I'll stay with Sony...
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Old 01-20-2011, 06:41 PM   #4
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Okay.

I think you need to realize that the primary purpose of the Kindle is for it to display books obtained from the Amazon store and that is what they concentrate on. It is not, and Amazon has never claimed it is, a digital Reader that will read every document ever created. It does display some other formats - not all of them - but some. God knows it doesn't display ePub as we've all read 3 bazillion times.

If what you want to read is books that you already own in a different format without converting them to Kindle formats, then the Kindle probably isn't the optimum digital reader for you.

Kindle - (Mobi, PRC, AZW) .txt, PDF. There is a document conversion service for DOC, html etc but I find calibre does it better.
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Old 01-20-2011, 06:49 PM   #5
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I don't own a Kindle but if you have Open Office you can resize the RTF and save it as a smaller page size PDF or use the very good plug in to convert Open Office files to EPUB if that is what your reader uses. For any documents in DOC, RTF, TXT have a look at the very good plug-ins for Open Office to help convert files.
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Old 01-20-2011, 06:56 PM   #6
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Thanks, everyone. I truly appreciate your feedback. I'd sort of worked out that Kindle was a dispensing device for Amazon's ebooks, much as cheap inkjet printers are sold at cost-plus and the manufacturers make their profit on the consumables.

Problem is, if Kindle gets a lock on the market, it becomes a one-channel solution. Whatever color you want, provided it's black?

But thanks to your good advice, I've already downloaded Calibre. Thanks, everyone.
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Old 01-20-2011, 07:47 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John Yeoman View Post
Thanks for the fast reply. I appreciate it. Your response time is awesome! Yet... it seems very sad that technology goes five steps forward and ten steps back, when a highly engineered product like Kindle has to resort to external utilities, and impose extra work on its customers, to read a basic format like RTF.
Eh. They offer a conversion service and Calibre does it for you as I previously mentioned. The Kindle can't support every text document format out there. Your Sony doesn't support .HTML, .DOC and .DOCX either and I'd say the number of those files flying around is pretty high.

If you want something which can directly read ePub, Mobipocket, RTF, ODF, DOC, DOCX, TXT, the various versions of HTML, XML, TeX and Postscript with more to be added to the list then purchase a laptop with a mainstream OS like Windows or OSX as you're not looking for an eReader of any brand.

You're already plugging the Kindle into a computer anyway to transfer your documents on. If you're doing wireless delivery then you can get Amazon to do it for you. Getting Calibre to do the conversion and transferring isn't difficult. Think of Calibre as the doing what Sony Reader Library does.

Last edited by Tiersten; 01-20-2011 at 07:54 PM.
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Old 01-20-2011, 07:51 PM   #8
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Problem is, if Kindle gets a lock on the market, it becomes a one-channel solution. Whatever color you want, provided it's black?
You're free to read anything you want with the Kindle in PDF, plain text or Mobipocket format. Your Sony lets you read anything you want in PDF, plain text, ePub and RTF formats. The standards documents which tell you how to create Mobipocket files and ePub files are both online and freely available without needing to agree to any contracts or NDAs.

People successfully use the Kindle without registering or even using the Kindle store so no, there is no lock on the market.
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Old 01-20-2011, 09:40 PM   #9
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The kindle will also read plain text files (xxx.txt) and it will even read html files and honor the links by opening its web browser. The html files need to be renamed to a TXT extension.
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Old 11-09-2011, 10:46 AM   #10
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Quote:
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The kindle will also read plain text files (xxx.txt) and it will even read html files and honor the links by opening its web browser. The html files need to be renamed to a TXT extension.
Sorry to bump an old thread, but I've tried this, and it doesn't work.
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Old 11-09-2011, 01:08 PM   #11
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DOC support was on the earlier Kindles. When did it get taken away?

Kind of a bummer. but with Calibre you can convert anything, so it's not a major deal...just one extra step.
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Old 11-09-2011, 01:15 PM   #12
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Sorry to bump an old thread, but I've tried this, and it doesn't work.
Renaming an html file to *.txt still works fine for me... including the links opening the web browser.
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