Ideas for using the Kindle in the kitchen?

Nanoox · 12-06-2010, 02:41 PM

Hi, I'm new to the forums today, so I wanted to say hi and also scratch an itch.

I realize this has probably been discussed ad infinitum somewhere on the board, but the word "recipes" does not play well with the Calibre forum.

I've had my Kindle for a little under a month. An article I read recently listed as one of the best things to use it for is for recipes you find on the web.

I prefer to buy my cookbooks in physical form -- it's extremely practical for the way I cook. But to date I've never really taken advantage of the random recipes I come across in my everyday browsing because printing them out and managing piles of sheets of paper in the kitchen is a pain.

I have a wealth of saved recipes in my Delicious, as well as on cooksillustrated.com or allrecipes.com. It seems that having individual webpages sent to my Kindle would be a logistical nightmare, given the difficulty of organizing items on the Kindle (frankly, the most disappointing aspect of my otherwise positive noob Kindle experience to date).

How do other forum members use, view and manage individual recipes on their Kindles? How do you organize them? Is there some sort of best practice?

Thanks for your help!

desertgrandma · 12-06-2010, 02:45 PM

Welcome to Mobileread, Nanoox

kindlekitten · 12-06-2010, 03:23 PM

welcome to the forums!

whereas I am a TOTAL kindle convert, I don't like cookbooks on my Kindle. I'm actually in the process of taking years of clipped recipes, organizing and copying them to put into books for my kids. sorry no help here ;o(

TheKindleWorm · 12-06-2010, 04:31 PM

I love using my Kindle in the Kitchen

I used to have one big file with my recipes in which I stored on the Kindle but I soon got fed up with amending the file every single time I wanted to add a new recipe. Too frustrating.

So now I type up each recipe (or copy a recipe from the web) into an individual Open Office document (you can use Word) - save as an HTML file and email this to my Kindle.

My Kindle ends up with lots of individual recipe files which I add into a recipe collection. So easy to search your Kindle to find what you want.

If you want more specific information on the processes I use, please visit my blog post:

http://www.kinworm.com/2010/11/kindl...y-kitchen.html

Hope you find a method that works well for you.

Bratzzo · 12-06-2010, 05:10 PM

Hi,

I would use the Kindle in the kitchen if the screensaver wouldn't pop up every 10 minutes.

I would prefer if I could switch off the screensaver mode. Or if I could expand the time to 20 or 30 minutes.

@ TheKindleWorm
How do you handle this problem?

Bratzzo

TheKindleWorm · 12-06-2010, 05:19 PM

Hi Bratzzo - the screensaver doesn't bother me at all. When I'm using the Kindle, I rarely keep my hands off it long enough for it to come on!

But point taken. I see how it may annoy other people. There is a method of disabling the screensaver on the kindle but I'm not sure that it's something that a regular user should try as it involves placing your kindle into a debug mode and potentially could mess the Kindle up.

If you do a search in mobileread for disable screensaver you will probably find more info on that.

FF2 · 12-07-2010, 01:05 AM

On your blog, you mention zipping the html and jpg files together - how do you reference the images in the html file so that just being in the same zip, they will show up? I'm sure I need more html experience. But if there's a simple explanation - thanks.

TheKindleWorm · 12-07-2010, 01:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FF2

On your blog, you mention zipping the html and jpg files together - how do you reference the images in the html file so that just being in the same zip, they will show up? I'm sure I need more html experience. But if there's a simple explanation - thanks.

I use Open Office which is similar to using Word. Just add in text and insert images. When you're done, save as a HTML file and these references should magically be taken care of (heck I know nothing about coding HTML !) then try adding the HTML file to Calibre because I'm sure it zipped up my last file with pics for me. I use Windows Vista.

Nanoox · 12-07-2010, 10:45 AM

@KindleWorm:

That makes complete sense.

I've been wary of collections in my short Kindle experience, because I have trouble wrapping my head around the idea of them not being real folders per se -- in other words, it seems odd to me that documents that I've placed in a collection don't actually disappear into the folder, so it doesn't seem they've been cleaned up in the Home list.

But if I give Collections another chance and get them to work, your method of individual html files makes complete sense. I'll give that a try and report back!

Thanks!

Nanoox · 12-07-2010, 11:06 AM

OK, following up with this (I don't have my Kindle at hand at the moment, so I'm trying several options):
1. I tried sending a page from a website (seriouseats.com) with a recipe to my free.kindle address. I got a response saying the personal document service found nothing to convert.
2. I tried sending the text from a website in an email to my free.kindle address, with the same response.
3. In Google Chrome, I saved the page (the print version page for the same recipe) onto my hard drive. This resulted in an HTML file and a folder with supporting images and css/js. I emailed only the HTML to myself (as I'm only interested in the text, not the ads, logos, images, etc.). So far no error; still need to confirm the formatting on the Kindle when I get home.

It seems @KindleWorm is on to something with saving her documents in Word. I will report back with more info as things progress!

Nanoox · 12-07-2010, 11:14 AM

4. In Chrome, I saved the recipe page as a pdf (using the free CutePDF Writer plug-in), and emailed that to my free.kindle address. Need to see how the converter parses the pdf formatting on the Kindle.
5. In Chrome, copied and pasted the text with image into MSWord, which preserved all formatting from the web layout, and saved to hard drive as a .docx file, which I then emailed to my free.kindle address.

I think these are all the alternatives for getting the info onto my Kindle. (I haven't tried using Calibre -- if none of these work effectively, I'll try something with that.)

I'll let you know this afternoon which version seemed to work best!

Nanoox · 12-07-2010, 11:15 AM

P.S. - and thanks to everyone who's welcomed me to the forum!!

martinhinsch · 12-07-2010, 01:38 PM

Just wanted to mention that the Kindle can read simple html files directly. Just change the file ending to .txt (instead of .htm or .html) and copy them over.

Nanoox · 12-07-2010, 09:24 PM

And here are the results for this afternoon's tests:

1. and 2. Failed.

3. (Print page HTML, sent via email) Formatting from the HTML came through fine, text with good sizes and titling and bold fonts. There is some cruft from the images which were excised when I left out the saved image file. Very legible, and a fine alternative.

4. (Printed page to PDF file, sent via email) The PDF is presented exactly as it would appear on my Mac's screen, formatting and all -- Same line spacing and paragraph width too, which resulted in it being too small to read easily.

5. (Copied into MS Word, .docx file sent via email) Excellent. Layout is preserved, text size conforms to my Kindle's settings. Text is smaller than it appears in the HTML output, but that may have to do with the html formatting.

In the end, @KindleWorm had the best solution, but I found the HTML export superfluous. The .docx format works perfectly fine to get the file onto the Kindle.

Thanks for the help!

curstpriest · 12-08-2010, 10:40 AM

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

FREE print driver (like many others) I don't know how others works, this one works well.
Set up a custom paper size for your kindle (IDK the sizes off hand they have been posted before, k3 is probably like 3x5 inches or something)

If you don't set a custom paper size, it will assume 8.5x11 which will be almost unreadable on K3, fine on DX

when you want to print something from web, highlight the part you want, for "print range" select "selection" rather than pages, select PDFcreator printer, and it will create a file.

If you have a word document, or something else, just print the whole document into a PDF container.

Oh in the print driver, you can also set up zooming, scale, and compression and whatnot, to get better results and make stuff more visible, but it also depends on what you are using to print with (like web browser or whatever, so set up paper size correctly)

12-06-2010, 02:41 PM	#1
Nanoox Kindlicious. Posts: 12 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Monterrey, Mexico Device: Kindle 3 (2010)	Ideas for using the Kindle in the kitchen? Hi, I'm new to the forums today, so I wanted to say hi and also scratch an itch. I realize this has probably been discussed ad infinitum somewhere on the board, but the word "recipes" does not play well with the Calibre forum. I've had my Kindle for a little under a month. An article I read recently listed as one of the best things to use it for is for recipes you find on the web. I prefer to buy my cookbooks in physical form -- it's extremely practical for the way I cook. But to date I've never really taken advantage of the random recipes I come across in my everyday browsing because printing them out and managing piles of sheets of paper in the kitchen is a pain. I have a wealth of saved recipes in my Delicious, as well as on cooksillustrated.com or allrecipes.com. It seems that having individual webpages sent to my Kindle would be a logistical nightmare, given the difficulty of organizing items on the Kindle (frankly, the most disappointing aspect of my otherwise positive noob Kindle experience to date). How do other forum members use, view and manage individual recipes on their Kindles? How do you organize them? Is there some sort of best practice? Thanks for your help!

12-06-2010, 04:31 PM	#4
TheKindleWorm Guru Posts: 860 Karma: 177868 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: East Anglia UK Device: Kindle 3G, iPhone 3G, iPod 4G, PB 360, Sony 600 sold, Kindle 2i sold	I love using my Kindle in the Kitchen I used to have one big file with my recipes in which I stored on the Kindle but I soon got fed up with amending the file every single time I wanted to add a new recipe. Too frustrating. So now I type up each recipe (or copy a recipe from the web) into an individual Open Office document (you can use Word) - save as an HTML file and email this to my Kindle. My Kindle ends up with lots of individual recipe files which I add into a recipe collection. So easy to search your Kindle to find what you want. If you want more specific information on the processes I use, please visit my blog post: http://www.kinworm.com/2010/11/kindl...y-kitchen.html Hope you find a method that works well for you. Last edited by TheKindleWorm; 01-17-2011 at 01:49 PM.

12-07-2010, 09:24 PM	#14
Nanoox Kindlicious. Posts: 12 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Monterrey, Mexico Device: Kindle 3 (2010)	And here are the results for this afternoon's tests: 1. and 2. Failed. 3. (Print page HTML, sent via email) Formatting from the HTML came through fine, text with good sizes and titling and bold fonts. There is some cruft from the images which were excised when I left out the saved image file. Very legible, and a fine alternative. 4. (Printed page to PDF file, sent via email) The PDF is presented exactly as it would appear on my Mac's screen, formatting and all -- Same line spacing and paragraph width too, which resulted in it being too small to read easily. 5. (Copied into MS Word, .docx file sent via email) Excellent. Layout is preserved, text size conforms to my Kindle's settings. Text is smaller than it appears in the HTML output, but that may have to do with the html formatting. In the end, @KindleWorm had the best solution, but I found the HTML export superfluous. The .docx format works perfectly fine to get the file onto the Kindle. Thanks for the help! Last edited by Nanoox; 12-08-2010 at 10:42 AM.

12-08-2010, 10:40 AM	#15
curstpriest Confused Posts: 402 Karma: 5538 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Bay Area Device: Kindle DXG	http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ FREE print driver (like many others) I don't know how others works, this one works well. Set up a custom paper size for your kindle (IDK the sizes off hand they have been posted before, k3 is probably like 3x5 inches or something) If you don't set a custom paper size, it will assume 8.5x11 which will be almost unreadable on K3, fine on DX when you want to print something from web, highlight the part you want, for "print range" select "selection" rather than pages, select PDFcreator printer, and it will create a file. If you have a word document, or something else, just print the whole document into a PDF container. Oh in the print driver, you can also set up zooming, scale, and compression and whatnot, to get better results and make stuff more visible, but it also depends on what you are using to print with (like web browser or whatever, so set up paper size correctly) Last edited by curstpriest; 12-08-2010 at 10:55 AM.

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12-06-2010, 02:45 PM	#2
desertgrandma Enjoying the show.... Posts: 14,270 Karma: 10462843 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Arizona Device: A K1, Kindle Paperwhite, an Ipod, IPad2, Iphone, an Ipad Mini & macAir	Welcome to Mobileread, Nanoox

12-06-2010, 03:23 PM	#3
kindlekitten Professional Adventuress Posts: 13,368 Karma: 50260224 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: The Olympic Peninsula on the OTHER Washington! (the big green clean one on the west coast!) Device: Kindle, the original! Times Two! and gifting an International Kindle	welcome to the forums! whereas I am a TOTAL kindle convert, I don't like cookbooks on my Kindle. I'm actually in the process of taking years of clipped recipes, organizing and copying them to put into books for my kids. sorry no help here ;o(

12-06-2010, 05:10 PM	#5
Bratzzo Addict Posts: 342 Karma: 533558 Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: WOB / Germany Device: Kindle	Hi, I would use the Kindle in the kitchen if the screensaver wouldn't pop up every 10 minutes. I would prefer if I could switch off the screensaver mode. Or if I could expand the time to 20 or 30 minutes. @ TheKindleWorm How do you handle this problem? Bratzzo

12-06-2010, 05:19 PM	#6
TheKindleWorm Guru Posts: 860 Karma: 177868 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: East Anglia UK Device: Kindle 3G, iPhone 3G, iPod 4G, PB 360, Sony 600 sold, Kindle 2i sold	Hi Bratzzo - the screensaver doesn't bother me at all. When I'm using the Kindle, I rarely keep my hands off it long enough for it to come on! But point taken. I see how it may annoy other people. There is a method of disabling the screensaver on the kindle but I'm not sure that it's something that a regular user should try as it involves placing your kindle into a debug mode and potentially could mess the Kindle up. If you do a search in mobileread for disable screensaver you will probably find more info on that.

12-07-2010, 01:05 AM	#7
FF2 Wizard Posts: 1,105 Karma: 1025784 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: WiFi Kindle3	On your blog, you mention zipping the html and jpg files together - how do you reference the images in the html file so that just being in the same zip, they will show up? I'm sure I need more html experience. But if there's a simple explanation - thanks.

12-07-2010, 10:45 AM	#9
Nanoox Kindlicious. Posts: 12 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Monterrey, Mexico Device: Kindle 3 (2010)	@KindleWorm: That makes complete sense. I've been wary of collections in my short Kindle experience, because I have trouble wrapping my head around the idea of them not being real folders per se -- in other words, it seems odd to me that documents that I've placed in a collection don't actually disappear into the folder, so it doesn't seem they've been cleaned up in the Home list. But if I give Collections another chance and get them to work, your method of individual html files makes complete sense. I'll give that a try and report back! Thanks!

12-07-2010, 11:06 AM	#10
Nanoox Kindlicious. Posts: 12 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Monterrey, Mexico Device: Kindle 3 (2010)	OK, following up with this (I don't have my Kindle at hand at the moment, so I'm trying several options): 1. I tried sending a page from a website (seriouseats.com) with a recipe to my free.kindle address. I got a response saying the personal document service found nothing to convert. 2. I tried sending the text from a website in an email to my free.kindle address, with the same response. 3. In Google Chrome, I saved the page (the print version page for the same recipe) onto my hard drive. This resulted in an HTML file and a folder with supporting images and css/js. I emailed only the HTML to myself (as I'm only interested in the text, not the ads, logos, images, etc.). So far no error; still need to confirm the formatting on the Kindle when I get home. It seems @KindleWorm is on to something with saving her documents in Word. I will report back with more info as things progress!

12-07-2010, 11:14 AM	#11
Nanoox Kindlicious. Posts: 12 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Monterrey, Mexico Device: Kindle 3 (2010)	4. In Chrome, I saved the recipe page as a pdf (using the free CutePDF Writer plug-in), and emailed that to my free.kindle address. Need to see how the converter parses the pdf formatting on the Kindle. 5. In Chrome, copied and pasted the text with image into MSWord, which preserved all formatting from the web layout, and saved to hard drive as a .docx file, which I then emailed to my free.kindle address. I think these are all the alternatives for getting the info onto my Kindle. (I haven't tried using Calibre -- if none of these work effectively, I'll try something with that.) I'll let you know this afternoon which version seemed to work best!

12-07-2010, 11:15 AM	#12
Nanoox Kindlicious. Posts: 12 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Monterrey, Mexico Device: Kindle 3 (2010)	P.S. - and thanks to everyone who's welcomed me to the forum!!

12-07-2010, 01:38 PM	#13
martinhinsch Member Posts: 12 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2010 Device: Kindle 3 DXG	Just wanted to mention that the Kindle can read simple html files directly. Just change the file ending to .txt (instead of .htm or .html) and copy them over.