EduKindle

This navigation tip for the Kindle comes under the heading of “things you can do for yourself” to make navigation easier. That means setting bookmarks for things that you know you will want to find as you read.

You can set a bookmark anywhere in a book by turning down the little page corner at the top by clicking on it with the scroll wheel. Some people consider this the “cutest” feature of the Kindle, bar none. And, in truth, it is pretty cute. But it is also functional, and for this reason.

Reading with a Kindle is like riding in a car with airbags: you know you have an extra measure of safety beyond the average. This means that with the Kindle, you don’t have to worry about marking every little thing you might want to find later because you always have the “search” function. That is a safety net that no dead-tree print book will ever afford you. Remember concordances?

But it is very easy to scroll up and turn down that page corner, and then, using the techniques outlined in Navigation Tip #1, to use the flippers to move between bookmarks. (Remember, the bookmarks are the little “filled-in triangle pointers” and your current location is the “empty triangle pointer.”

By setting bookmarks agressively (remember, this is a “do for yourself” technique) you can make navigation through a big text a LOT easier for yourself.

One of the little known ways to get around the Kindle, especially if you are reading a large document, is to use the Enhanced Progress Bar. (Neat, huh?) So, how to do this?

1. Roll the scroll wheel over the Progress Bar (that line of dots across the bottom of the screen) and click. The rest of the screen grays out (after a Kindle-like pause–hang on, be patient, it will happen) and a box appears at the top with instructions on how to navigate bookmarks).

2. You will see something like this (without the labels, of course), known as the “Enhanced Progress Bar”:

You current location in the book is indicated by the “hollow” pointer, and any bookmarks that you have set are indicated by the “filled” or black markers.

3. What we are interested in right now are the number buttons that appear as images below the dots. These correspond to the number keys on the Kindle keyboard, and allow you to navigate through the book by pressing those number keys. Each key represents ten percent of the text, so if you push the “5″ key, you should jump halfway through the book.

Since the Kindle does not offer a “Go to End” on the menu bar (as it does a “Go to Beginning” option), using the Enhanced Progress Bar to jump to the end by hitting the “0″ key is quite handy, especially if you are looking for the index or endnotes.

4. Once you have pushed the number key of your choice to jump to a different spot in the book, you will see the text change but stayed “grayed out.” To start reading again, just roll the scroll wheel off the Progress Bar and, voila!, the text returns to reading mode.

5. To return to your earlier “current” position, just hit the “Back” button on the lower east side of the Kindle.

Stay tuned for more tips in this series on Kindle Navigation.