The Kindle 2 has a number of cool features that you need to get the hang of to maximize the value of your purchase.  Since I’ve played with my Kindle for nearly a whole week now – I’ve been asked to pass on information about basic document management.

Documents to your Kindle

Go to Your Account in the top right hand corner of Amazon.

Once there, scroll down till you find the Manage Your Kindle Link

Click on that link, and sign into your account.

This Account Page is an important one for managing lots of things, but for now we’ll just focus on how to set up the email accounts that will let you to put documents and pictures onto your Kindle.

Your Kindle will have a name and a Kindle email address once it is registered (yourname@kindle.com)

If you’re buying it now this will have already happened, but it you received it as a gift, or it was purchased for you, you will want to register it to yourself (and to your credit card!).

Don’t worry about the iPhone or iTouch option – international users can’t register these yet!

Your Kindle Approved E-mail List – this is the important one!

Register one or more email addresses.  Why?  Because it is with your registered email address that you will manage the free document conversion services that kindle offers.

Once you have one (or more) registered, you’re ready for a test.

Send any file (Word, JPG, BMP, PNG) to yourname@free.kindle.com from your approved account.  Not long afterwards you will receive a return email with the file converted into a Kindle-friendly format.

Download this file to your computer.  Connect your Kindle to your computer. Drop the file into your Documents Folder.

Next time you open your Kindle to read, your document will be there ready for you.

Of course, the option is there to send the document via your approved email directly to your Kindle. Then you email it to yourname@kindle.com.  You will pay a small fee for that conversion. It’s fine for a Word document but my tests made it a non-starter for other documents. Doing it this way costs $US.99 per Megabyte and your WhisperNet account!

For more information about managing your Kindle  read Transferring, Downloading, and Sending Files to Kindle.