Kindle Scribe

[Quoth]

I have a reMarkable, and it's poor compared to my Elipsa. Inferior file transfer, inferior markup, no handwriting conversion on notes, zero Calibre Support. The earlier Elipsa FW was far poorer for PDF reading till they enabled page turn with "Crop/Zoom" setting. Also reMarkable only 6 G byte vs 32 G Byte storage on Elipsa. I like the MS / Kobo pen better than either regular Wacom or Wacom EMR.
However the Sage is a better size for notes and ePub. I only use the Elipsa for PDFs too big for Sage.

I have an Android 7.8″ likebook Mars. Best builtin PDF reader, better than Remarkable, but you need a different model (now Meebook) for Anotation. Only advantage of Android eink is being able to run the Irish Library app, Bolinda Borrowbox. If you had nothing else having Kindle, Kobo and Google eBook Apps at same time is an advantage.

[rem736]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Many (including myself) regard the original Oasis design as flawed, given that the cover had about 3/4 of the battery capacity. You had this nice, lightweight device without it attached, but only about 7 hours of reading time. You could not charge the cover independently of the Kindle, and it also precluded using 3rd party covers (unless you didn't mind charging your Kindle every 6 hours or so). And it entailed more charging cycles for the Oasis, usually not good for the life of the battery.

I think what would work better is something like the iPad covers which magnetically attach to one side and cover the display side only. But iPads had the necessary magnets to allow for the edge attachment, and Scribe doesn't.

i didn't mean that the cover should also be a supplementary battery. i just think the idea of a cover attaching and detaching via magnets is a very good idea. transferring what worked for the original oasis (magnetic cover feature only, not the battery part) to the oasis 2 would have been nice.
the reMarkable attaches this way as well.

[JoeC]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I don't think you'll be able to directly email to Evernote from Scribe: It will be sent to your Amazon email and you'll need to forward it from there. Maybe you can create a Rule to send it along, depending on your email client.

You are correct. Forwarding creates a link within an e-mail and you have to download it from there. You don't "send" the PDF, you send a link to download it.

I didn't get the Scribe for use with PDFs but I thought it might be worth experimenting. I'll be sticking with my iPad to interact with PDFs.

[JoeC]

I've been playing with the Scribe for little while now. The screen is very nice. Super easy on the eyes. I like using the stylus to highlight text, which I do a lot. Using my finger to highlight is not as accurate on a smaller Kindle but it works pretty well on the Scribe.

The raised power button and USB-C port on the side where you place your hands while holding it is weird. It's not a deal killer but it's a blemish on the form factor that is otherwise really nice.

I've played with trying to mark up PDFs and it does work with the caveats that others have shared. I had hoped I could go back and forth from iPad, Mac and Scribe but in order to get a previously marked up PDF to be "inked" on the Scribe I have to print to PDF on my Mac each time.

[Dan23]

Got my Scribe today. The typical Kindle -45 margin settings on calibre conversions left way too large margins. I tried using -100 instead and it looks about right.

[poczynek]

Originally Posted by Dan23

Got my Scribe today. The typical Kindle -45 margin settings on calibre conversions left way too large margins. I tried using -100 instead and it looks about right.

What is the best way of changing the calibre conversion to change it to -100?

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by untilyouarrived

You can’t write on a PDF unless it’s sent through the kindle app…

I do not intend to purchase a Scribe. It’s annotation and note taking features are of no use to me. However I am still interested in knowing what technical changes Amazon has introduced with this new platform.

Has anyone used USB to look at what Amazon delivers to the device when you send a PDF to allow drawing on it? Also what format is used to store annotations and sticky notes on the device?

It might be possible to bypass Amazon’s servers if we figure out what they are doing to the formats.

[Dan23]

Originally Posted by poczynek

What is the best way of changing the calibre conversion to change it to -100?

To clarify, people have often recommended -45 for Kindle to strip the margins. It is not a default setting in Calibre or anything.

Preferences->Common Options->Look and Feel->Styling, place the following in Extra CSS:
html {
margin-right: -100px;
margin-left: -100px;
break-inside: avoid !important;
}

I then also like to verify at least once when clicking Convert Books for a conversion that the Extra CSS is still there.

[poczynek]

Originally Posted by Dan23

To clarify, people have often recommended -45 for Kindle to strip the margins. It is not a default setting in Calibre or anything.

Preferences->Common Options->Look and Feel->Styling, place the following in Extra CSS:
html {
margin-right: -100px;
margin-left: -100px;
break-inside: avoid !important;
}

I then also like to verify at least once when clicking Convert Books for a conversion that the Extra CSS is still there.

Yes I have just spent the last hour fiddling with these options and reading forums here about it.

I just tried the above and it did not work though. Out of interest, when converting the book what format are you choosing? AZW or mobi or Epub? Not sure if that is why it is not working for me.

EDIT:

Ok so when i sent the 'specific format' of azw to my Scribe it works however the cover page of the book does not come through. If it sends it as a mobi then it does not work.

[Dan23]

Originally Posted by poczynek

Out of interest, when converting the book what format are you choosing? AZW or mobi or Epub?

I do azw3. My covers seem to be there though I don't particularly care about them.

[tomsem]

For those of you who have one:

- have you tried viewing Notebooks with the Kindle app for iOS/Android/Fire? can you delete anything there?

- If you create Sticky Notes for a Kindle book, what do you see when you view with one of the Kindle apps, or on another Kindle?

[LDB]

I bought mine for reading. I have mediocre eyes and on my Oasis I usually use font size 7 for comfortable reading. I want to read, not turn pages. I'm anticipating about 1/3 less page turning than with my Oasis, hopefully closer to 1/2 as much with any luck. Any other benefits are just bonuses.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I do not intend to purchase a Scribe. It’s annotation and note taking features are of no use to me. However I am still interested in knowing what technical changes Amazon has introduced with this new platform.

Has anyone used USB to look at what Amazon delivers to the device when you send a PDF to allow drawing on it? Also what format is used to store annotations and sticky notes on the device?

It might be possible to bypass Amazon’s servers if we figure out what they are doing to the formats.

I echo jhowell's request and to that end, I am attaching a simple PDF of O Henry's The Gift of the Magi.

It is 3 pages. I'm also attaching the .txt file and its conversion to postscript (by groff). The PDF was made by ps2pdf.

If a Scribe owner would send the pdf to amazon and attach what amazon send to the Scribe that should help find out what makes it possible to add notes.

[poczynek]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I echo jhowell's request and to that end, I am attaching a simple PDF of O Henry's The Gift of the Magi.

It is 3 pages. I'm also attaching the .txt file and its conversion to postscript (by groff). The PDF was made by ps2pdf.

If a Scribe owner would send the pdf to amazon and attach what amazon send to the Scribe that should help find out what makes it possible to add notes.

Yes i can do this. Sorry just to clarify - what do you mean by 'send the pdf to amazon'?

[talaivan]

Originally Posted by untilyouarrived

First Impressions:
Syncing needs major work. You can’t write on a PDF unless it’s sent through the kindle app, and there is a hard limit of 50MB for transfers. A lot of my magazines are larger than this, so I have to side load and not have annotation features. Also, if I markup a pdf on the Scribe the changes aren’t visible on other devices. This is daft, and not at all how I would expect it to work.

It seems to me this makes the device quite limited compared to the Elipsa and Sage, on which you can just save and load files from Dropbox (the same is true of pdf expert on an iPad). I have always felt that Kindle software was inadequate and something of a walled field (certainly not a walled garden). I've tried ReMarkable, Elipsa and Boox, but for marking up pdf's I always go back to the iPad with its colors, speed and reliability. For reading, I like the Elipsa and Sage, though it looks like the Scribe is also good for reading -- though I wouldn't want to do without the ability to upload books and documents I have in Dropbox, something I can easily do on the Elipsa/Sage.

It's worth noting that writing on pdf's on the Elipsa and pdf expert are visible on any pdf app and also that bookmarks made on pdf expert are also preserved over most apps as chapter headings.