Moving from a Kindle Keyboard to a Paperwhite
 

Tomorrow I should hopefully recieve my Paperwhite, and I am wondering if there is anything I can do to ensure that my library carries over, for example keeping my progress in my books, and my catagories. Most of my books aren't from the Kindle store so as far as I know whispersync won't work with them.
If I drop my documents folder from my current kindle into my new one will that work?
Is there anything I can do to my books in Calibre that make them more compatible or anything like that? All my books are currently converted using the Kindle setting, but I notice there is a Kindle Paperwhite setting now. Should I use that? Will that make all my books have covers in the new OS?

I don't know what might be available for side loaded books, but the books that are already in your Kindle Archive (also called the Cloud on some devices) will have all the info like furthest page read, highlights, bookmarks, etc. Sending them to you PW won't affect that information.

As far as Collections (categories) go, you can easily import your Collections from another Kindle or app. The best procedure is this:

1. load all your books first
2. Import your collections second

If you use this order then when you import the Collections they will be populated with the Archived books you already loaded. If the book assigned to one or more Collection on your K3 has been loaded onto the PW before you import the Collections, then it will be automatically moved to those Collections on the PW.

Caveat: This only applies to books that are in the Archive (Cloud). It does not apply to side loaded books.

How do I go about putting my books in the archive, or can't I?

Is it a Windows or Apple? I read at Calibre website the new Kindles are not compatible with "collections". That is Windows XP and Mac OSX.

Go to your Manage My Devices page on Amazon.com. There is an email address listed next to your Kindle. You use that email address to send books to your Kindle, and this places those books in your Archive. Unfortunately, when a book is first placed in the Archive it does not have furthest page read, highlights, bookmarks, etc. recorded for it. It is treated as a brand new book. So placing books with this info into the Archive now won't transfer that info.

The Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle 4 Black are definitely compatible with Collections. The Kindle Fire models however are not.

Well, looks like its time to send 2GB of email!

Or not, I guess I'll just do it manually... I was kind of hoping the mbp files would do it. Thanks everyone.

Again, I'm not sure about side loaded books. You can try a few and see if that works with the info. You cannot simply copy over Archive books though as they are assigned to your specific Kindle/device/app.

Yep just copy all the files from Documents from your old Kindle to your new Kindle and you wont lose anything. Then go to Cloud on the paperwhite and tap Cloud and choose import Collections, Choose your old Kindle's name and you should be all set up. Any Amazon books will have to redownloaded but this should work for sideloaded and pdoc books.

To import Collections: (From Amazon)

From the Home screen, select Cloud.
Select Menu and then select Import Collections.
Select the device you want to import a collection from, and then select OK

Note: For this to work they must be the exact files from your old Kindle. So all I do is plug in my old Kindle. Copy the documents folder to desktop then eject, Plug in the new Kindle and copy over all files in the folder to the new documents folder and eject.

All info on sideloaded books are kept in local files so you wont lose anything if you copy those local files over. See this post for what those files are.

The more I read about this the more confused I get too. Since you are talking about Calibre and the setting for Kindle Paperwhite it raises questions for me too. I will be in the same boat whenever my PW gets here.

If you are talking about plugging in your PW USB to the computer isn't that the easier method for large library? Unless you have all of them in the Amazon account from when you (if you did) emailed them before.

I don't keep them on the Amazon account anymore. It gets to confusing. I like being able to see your device having checkmarks by them if you have them loaded, and no checkmarks if you have not transferred the book from your Calibre library.

When you say collections do you mean the Calibre Library?

When you plug the PW device into USB to your computer Calibre Library is it detected?

Sorry for the same question, but the Calibre website says the newer Kindles are not. Since I have a Fire and it is not detected by Calibre it was making me worry I will have the same experience with any newer Kindle.:blink:

Collections are a eInk Kindle feature. It has nothing to do with the Kindle Fire unfortunately. They are like tags that help organize your Kindle it has nothing to do with Calibre.