8 Useful Tips For Kindle Fire

Kindle Fire may not be able to compete with some of the bigger tablets but it still has a lot to offer. It’s a great eReader that can be read at night without bothering anyone near you, maintains access to your email, documents, and allows you to download video, music, and games for on the go enjoyment. Whether you use it for business or pleasure, it’s very useful for all kinds of things. Here are just a few of the features I find most useful about the Fire that hopefully you find helpful as well!

1. Lock Screen Security

As you start to use the Kindle Fire to its full potential, you’ll start to fill it up with personal and work information like contacts, emails, and documents. If your Kindle was lost or stolen, not only would your personal and work information be compromised, but the new user could easily add more content from Amazon with your credentials. It’s a good idea to create a security login to lock your screen. Go to the top menu bar and press on the “Gear”. Click “More” and then “Security” to turn the Lock Screen Password on or off. To turn it on, press “On” and then enter your password.

Keep your password in a safe place! If you forget your password or enter it wrong 4 times in a row, you’ll lose anything you loaded onto your Kindle and will be required to register it all over again.

2. Enable/Disable Screen Rotation

Sometimes I read while lying down and the screen on my Kindle will turn causing me to be distracted. While that feature is good for some things, I like to keep things steady while reading. If you’d like to disable the screen rotation, click on the Gear in the menu bar and tap on the “Unlocked” tab to “Lock” it. If you want to disable the lock screen, repeat the steps until it says “Unlocked”.

3. Read More Than Books

If you use your Kindle Fire for business, you’ll find the feature to copy documents to it a necessity. There are several ways to do this such as connecting your Kindle to your computer with a USB cable or by emailing them to the Kindle email address assigned to your device. There’s an easier way to do this using Send To Kindle if you have a Windows PC. Simply download the app to your computer and right click on any documents to be copied and choose “Send To Kindle.”

5. Change Font Size

I wasn’t using my Web feature very much on the Kindle because I found it hard to see the screen. Sure, I could enlarge sections or zoom in to see things better but then I would tap on something that would take me somewhere else and I would just give up altogether. I recently discovered that there’s a setting in the Kindle Fire that allows you to choose the size of the font displayed while browsing the Web. To make your text Large or Huge, open a web page and at the bottom of the screen, tap on the little icon that looks like a piece of paper. Tap the “Text Size” option to open the menu and select the font size you want.

To change the font size of text in books, tap the “Aa” button at the bottom of the screen and select the size that’s best for you. In the same settings box, you can adjust the line spacing, margins and background color to make it easiest for you to read your material.

6. Do You Have The Latest Version?

There was an update released to update your Kindle so you’ll want to make sure you have all the available features. To see if you have the latest version, tap on the “Gear” icon and then select “More”. From there scroll down to the “Device” tab which will display your memory, battery life and other important device information. Under the battery life, you’ll see the “System Version” listed and as of this article, the version should be 6.3. If your version isn’t up to date, tap on the “Gear” again and then tap “Sync”. This will download the latest version to your device.

6. Add Or Remove From Carousel

In the latest version you can remove any book or Add To Favorites directly from the carousel by long pressing on it.

7. Parental Controls

If you have children that use your Kindle Fire, you may want to set some parental controls to disable certain functions. Press the “Gear” tab and then “More” to open the menu and scroll down to the “Parental Controls” option. Tap the “On” button to enable the controls and assign a password to access the controls. This will allow you to set controls for many things which include turning the web browser on or off, password protect purchases (so you don’t get a surprise credit card bill for games or apps they downloaded!) and setting content types to block them from accessing Books, Apps, Docs, and more. Once you block any features, they will be unable to select them from the menu on the main page.

8. Dig Deeper

If you like to know the details of the books you read, the Book Extras feature will be something you’ll want to check out. In “Book Extras” you’ll see a “Plot Summary”, the “Characters” of the book, along with “Glossary” terms, and more. To view the Extras open a book and then tap the piece of paper icon. Tap “Book Extras” to see all the supplemental material about your favorite books and authors.

I’d love to hear what tips and tricks you have found using your Kindle Fire. Share them by leaving a comment!

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Posted in: Kindle,Useful