What formats does the Kindle support: complete guide

Are you a Kindle owner? So by now you may have asked yourself What formats does the Kindle support?. Well, in this article we are going to give you a complete guide on all of them so that you can get the most out of your favorite reading device. As you already know, Kindle is Amazon's registered trademark for its reading devices. Today it has become an essential reading tool for millions of people around the world.

In addition to becoming so popular, it is also today one of the best known brands on Amazon and probably one of the best known in the world. It must be said that it was also one of the first reading devices and that in terms of quality and price it was always the best option when reviewing the market and looking at the rest of the brands. Therefore, in this article we are going to help you handle it even better and you will begin to take advantage of all the available formats to make your reading easier and more accessible.

All formats compatible with Kindle

 

Before telling you which ones don't, which would actually be easier since there is only one, let's start with those that do, because there are many for the luck of Kindle owners. And the question of what formats the Kindle supports is easy to solve. Many of these formats are created exclusively by Amazon for Kindle, so if possible we recommend that you have this type of format on your Kindle. As a note, we are going to order the most native formats to the least from start to finish, that is, from best to worst:

• AZW and AZW3 (Kindle Format8): These are the main Kindle formats since they are totally native and created by Amazon exclusively for its brand. These formats are perfectly optimized for the Kindle and if you ask me what formats the Kindle supports I would tell you that these are its two main ones. The AZW3 format is an improved version of AZW and you may also find it as KF8 which means nothing else than Kindle Format8. These formats support more advanced features than the rest, such as: more fonts, better color graphics, and support for multimedia content.
• MOBI: This format is older but is still seen today. It is the format that existed prior to the native AZW and AZW3 Kindle Format8. MOBI is still a format compatible with Kindle but we already told you that it is obsolete and that electronic books that use it are simpler. It is important that you know that MOBI formats will not support many advanced features like those that AZW and AZW3 Kindle Format8 did offer (multimedia content and interactivity).
• PRC: This format is also supported natively by Kindle. It is very unusual compared to the previous ones but it is just as compatible.

Other formats supported by Kindle

In this case we are going to list a series of formats that are not that they are not supported, they are, but they are not e-book formats as such. They are a very good option for reading books but they do not have the characteristics of the previous ones. Of course, we recommend that you convert them to AZW and AZW3 Kindle Format8 if possible. This part of the article is still part of what formats the Kindle supports, since as we told you, they are supported even if they are not native.

They are less compatible and you may have a problem, but we repeat that this does not mean that they will not be able to be played by Kindle. They may have some errors in sizes, adjustments and so on. But since we are talking about what formats the Kindle supports, these also have to go in:

• PDF: Kindle can open this format without any problem. You may have adaptation problems due to sizes.
• DOC and DOCX: Kindle also supports Microsoft Word documents. We recommend that you convert them to AZW to get the most out of your Kindle.
• TXT: famous plain text TXT file. It is also played by Kindle. It's not the best but it can get you out of trouble. We do not at all recommend that you open files with graphic content or advanced formats in TXT.

What formats does Kindle not support?

We already told you that it is not only compatible with the ePUB format, and it is a shame since it is the most widespread in terms of files on the Internet when it comes to electronic books. But the Kindle is the iPad of eReaders, it is special and does not go through the files that the rest of the brands do. This does not mean you have to stop buying it, but it is a factor to take into account if you already have a large ePUB library.

How to convert ePUB to MOBI or AZW3

We are going to leave you a small guide on how to convert the most widespread format (ePUB) to the best Kindle formats. To do this you will have to download third-party applications, the best and most widespread is Caliber. This way you will hardly even have to know what formats the Kindle supports, it's magic.

1. Once you have Caliber installed, go to the option that appears at the top "Add Books." Choose the file.
2. Now you will have to select the "Convert book" option
3. In the options window that appears you will have to select the format you want to export or give to the book. Remember that you have to select one of the ones we have left in the previous list (AZW, AZW3, PRC…)
4. Accept and wait for him to convert.

If what you want is to convert DOC, DOCX, RTF and HTML formats to Kindle, you can use the function «Send to Kindle» that Amazon offers since when you send it by mail from Amazon to Kindle it automatically converts them to the appropriate format for the device. We hope it has been helpful to you and you now know what formats the Kindle supports. Just in case we leave you another article from Tecnobits in which we talk about put books on Kindle from your mobile.