How to Read a PDF on a Kindle

Yes, a PDF goes onto a Kindle. Amazon treats PDFs as fixed-layout documents, so it usually arrives as fixed pages. Whether that reads well depends mostly on the file.

Three ways to send it

Per Amazon’s help for Send to Kindle, PDF is among the file types it takes, and the service adds the document to your Kindle library at no extra cost. These are the routes for sending a single PDF:

• Web: Send to Kindle for Web takes uploads of 200 MB or smaller.
• App: the Kindle app for iOS and Android can send a file, and so can the desktop apps for Mac and Windows.
• Email: attach the PDF to a message addressed to your Send to Kindle email address.

Each compatible Kindle device and each Kindle app has its own unique email address.

Before you send

For email, the sender’s address must be on your approved list. The steps for adding an address are:

1. Open Manage Your Content and Devices.
2. Go to Preferences, then Personal Document Settings.
3. Under Approved Personal Document Email List, choose Add a new e-mail address.

A message from a sender who is not on the list is not delivered. One email must total 50 MB or less, and the Kindle must be connected to the internet.

If a document fails to convert, remove any password protection or security settings and send it again.

What it looks like on the screen

Compare two files. One is a scanned manual, every page a photo of a printed sheet. The other is a PDF of a plain text report.

A scanned manual with a diagram and small captions arrives as exactly that page, caption size included. The text report does not become a column of large, comfortable lines. It stays a page of the size it was made for.

If the type is small in print, it is small on the Kindle.

Writing by hand on the page works on a Kindle Scribe and on stylus-supported Android and iOS devices.

When an ePub would read better

If the PDF is mostly running text, such as a novel or a long report, the fixed page makes it harder to read.

An ePub of the same text can change its layout to suit the screen and the type size you choose.

Reflowing text and fixed pages suit different screens. A PDF is the right file when the page itself matters, as in a manual with diagrams.

If you can get the text as an ePub, send that file instead.