How to open your presentation on Kindle

A vast source of knowledge in today’s e-Learning is e-books. Electronic reading devices with e-ink display, such as Kindle, Nook, and others open files in .mobi, .epub, and .fb2 formats. Also, all modern e-book readers support .pdf format as well. They normally don’t support .ppt or .pptx files, or Flash or HTML5 webpages created with iSpring.

This brings up the question, how to convert PowerPoint presentations to .pdf or another e-book friendly format?

New PowerPoint versions allow you to save your presentations in .pdf format, which can be uploaded directly to your e-reader. We suggest that you use the best freeware tool for e-book management, Calibre. It will also help you to convert .pdf into .mobi or .epub format, which will nicely match your Kindle or other e-book reader.

To open your PowerPoint presentation on Kindle

1. In PowerPoint 2013, click FILE on the top menu and then go Save As > Computer > Browse.
   
2. In the Save As window, open the folder on your disk where you want to save the presentation and select Save as type: PDF (*.pdf).
   
3. Preview the PDF version of your presentation on your computer using Adobe Acrobat or your web browser.
   
4. Connect your Kindle or other reading device to your computer and open Calibre.
5. Drag and drop the .pdf presentation file on the Calibre window.
   
6. Then click the Send to device button and select Send to main memory.
   
7. Then go to Device and select Eject this device…
   
   …or use the Windows Eject USB utility that is located near the system clock.
   

Now you can preview your PDF presentation on your device. Of course animation effects, slide transitions, sound and other elements won’t appear in the static PDF version of your presentation.

How to turn your Kindle paperwhite to landscape mode

1. After opening a .pdf document, tap at the top of the page to open the top panel.
2. Tap on the Menu icon in the upper-right corner.
3. Then tap on Landscape Mode.
   

Convert PDF to EPUB

Also, you can convert PDF files to .epub or .mobi format to perfectly match Kindle or another ebook.

1. Open Calibre and click on Convert Books > Convert individually
   
2. Select your settings and the format you want to publish to, and then click OK.
   

Converting a .pdf to native e-book format (e.g., .mobi for Amazon Kindle) will provide a better fit to the display screen than with a standard PDF document.

The future of e-ink devices

E-ink screens still look like magic! They are extremely energy efficient because the ink doesn’t illuminate. Energy is spent for changing the state of the picture only. Normally, the screen background color is sepia. Amazon invented a special backlight technology for Kindle Paperwhite which makes the background color white and gives soft illumination.

The main e-ink problem today is the refresh rate that makes these devices good for reading only. However, some e-ink displays support up to 30 frames per second (fps), which makes it possible to play some black and white videos.

Another problem is that there are just two colors, black and white. Colored e-ink displays are only prototypes, and they have an even lower frame rate.

Nevertheless, e-ink devices are mandatory for education, so most students use them actively, like iPads. If the subject implies a lot of reading (e.g., history or literature), e-book content becomes the first to consider. Now that you know how to adapt your PowerPoint courses for e-book format, feel free to share your knowledge to the electronic books audience.

Support Freeware

iSpring has always been a big contributor to the freeware and open-source community with many projects, e.g., iSpring Free.

We would appreciate if you supported Calibre on http://calibre-ebook.com/ as the best-in-class freeware e-book management application.