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Reading a book on a Kindle Paperwhite is intuitive. To go to the next page, tap anywhere on the page, except near the top and along the left. Tap near the left edge of the display to move back one page. To see the toolbar, tap near the top edge of the display.

Go to a specific spot on your Kindle Paperwhite

You can also jump directly to various parts of a book. Tap near the top of the screen to display the toolbars, and then tap Go To. A pop-up window appears.

Use the Go To menu to move to different sections of a book (first-generation Kindle Paperwhite on t
Use the Go To menu to move to different sections of a book (first-generation Kindle Paperwhite on the left, second-generation on the right).

Note on the second-generation Kindle Paperwhite (on the right in the above figure) the two tabs at the top of the menu that display Contents and Notes. You use the Contents tab to navigate through the book, and the Notes tab to navigate through personal annotations you've made, as well as popular and public annotations.

On your second-generation Kindle Paperwhite, to see popular and public annotations on the Notes section of the Go To screen, you must have Popular Highlights and Public Notes enabled. To turn them on, tap Menu→Settings→Reading Options→Notes & Highlights. Use the toggle switch to turn on Popular Highlights and Public Notes.

The list of Go To options may differ depending on the book. Here are the options you may see:

  • Beginning: The first words of text in the book.

  • Page or Location: A particular page or location in the book.

  • Cover: The book's cover.

  • Book Info or Front Matter: Content that appears before the start of the book, such as a dedication.

  • Chapter listing: The list of chapters, similar to a traditional table of contents. Then tap a chapter title or number to go directly to that chapter.

    If the chapter listing is more than one page long, swipe up the list with your finger to advance to additional chapters. A scroll bar indicator on the right provides an approximation of the length of the list.

  • About the Author: Biographical information about the author of the book.

  • Recommended Reads: A list of additional books by the same publisher or author.

  • End: The end of the book, which displays a page where you can rate and share the book on Amazon and Goodreads (currently available only on the second-generation Kindle Paperwhite). If your Kindle Paperwhite is linked to Facebook through Goodreads, your rating will also be posted to this social networking site.

Setting a bookmark

You can use personal bookmarks to help you navigate through a book. To set a bookmark, tap in the upper-right corner of the screen. A flag appears, along with the location and chapter (or part) of the book, with a plus sign (+) in a circle. To set the bookmark, simply tap the plus sign. The flag darkens, indicating the marked location.

After you set a bookmark, tap the upper-right corner and a small menu appears, displaying all the bookmarks that have been set in the book. When you tap a bookmarked location, a window insert opens on the screen, as shown in the following figure. You can read the page from the insert or go directly to it by tapping the page on the screen. To return to your former location, navigate by bookmark or use the Back icon from the toolbar.

To delete a bookmark, tap the X in the drop-down menu. To add the bookmark again, tap +. Note that the display toggles between + and X, depending on whether or not a bookmark is set.

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Find your place on the Kindle Paperwhite

The Kindle Paperwhite gives you several options for knowing your location in a book.

As you read, the area at the bottom of the screen displays a location number for the text currently in view and a percentage indicating how much of the book you've read. Tap the location number to cycle through the minutes left in the chapter, the hours and minutes left in the book, and the location. Your final choice becomes the default.

All e-books have location information, but not all have page numbers. Time to dig into the difference in these terms and how you may use them to reference different parts of a book:

  • Location: The concept of a fixed, printed "page" doesn't apply to e-books because you can vary the font type, font size, line spacing, and words per line. Instead of page numbers, e-books use location as a marker indicating how far you are in the e-book. The location remains constant even if the screen or font size changes.

    One "unit" of location is equivalent to 128 bytes of information in the e-book file.

  • Page number: Many e-books can also display a page number that reflects the page number in the printed edition of the book. This information is helpful, for example, if you're in a reading group in which some members use Kindles and others use printed copies of the book.

Discover your reading speed

The Kindle Paperwhite can learn your reading speed, so it can tell you how many minutes or hours of reading time remain in the current chapter or book.

How does the Kindle Paperwhite determine how much reading time is left in a chapter or book? When you first open a book, Learning reading speed appears at the bottom of the screen. After the device calculates your reading speed, it uses this figure for the rest of your reading experience in that particular document.

The device can relearn your reading speed. This feature is helpful if you have paged very quickly through a book, making the reading speed inaccurate. Simply tap the top of the screen to display the toolbar, touch the Search icon, and type the following:

;ReadingTimeReset

Tap the search arrow and the device will display 0 search results. Press the Back icon and Learning reading speed will again be displayed at the bottom of the screen.

Menu options for Kindle Paperwhite books

When reading a book, you can access useful features by tapping the top of the screen to display the toolbar and then tapping the Menu icon.

The following options appear depending on the version of the Kindle Paperwhite:

  • Shop Kindle Store: Go to the Kindle Store to browse and find e-books.

  • Vocabulary Builder: Open the list of words you have looked up in the dictionary.

  • Book Description: Display the book's Kindle Store description. Wireless must be on to view this information.

  • About the Author: When available, see biographical information about the author as well as a list of other Kindle books that the author has written.

  • Landscape Mode: Change the orientation of the page from portrait to landscape mode.

  • Sync to Furthest Page Read: If you have viewed the current book on another device, you can adjust your location to the furthest page read.

    Select this option if you want to use Whispersync to synchronize your Kindle Paperwhite book with an audio book from Audible.

  • Add Bookmark: Save a particular location in a book. One book can have multiple bookmarks. You can tell whether your current location is bookmarked by a little dog-ear icon that appears in the top-right corner.

  • View Notes & Marks: Display the highlighted sections, notes, and bookmarks for the current book. Popular highlights from other readers are also displayed.

  • Reading Progress: Select the default for the reading progress displayed at the bottom of the screen: location in book, time left in chapter, or time left in book.

  • Settings: Toggle Airplane mode on and off and access options for Wi-Fi networks, registration, reading, parental controls, time, language, and more.

    If you don't see the Settings menu choice, make sure you have firmware version 5.3.0 or later on your Kindle Paperwhite. To determine the firmware version, from the Home screen, tap Menu→Settings→Menu→Device Info. The firmware version is displayed in the middle of the screen. If it is less than 5.3.0, upgrade your device.

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