In a lot of ways, the Amazon Kindle can be used like a personal organizer. It could even be like a Blackberry without the capability to make phone calls. Having the Whispernet service connected to your Kindle wherever you go makes the Kindle into a really great tool.

So the question is, “What Files Does the Amazon Kindle Recognize?, meaning, what files will the Kindle display if I upload them to it. Let’s go through them.

E-Books

Of course the Kindle can read some e-books, it does that best. It will read all past and present books published in Kindle format.  Also it will read the Mobipocket filetypes, such as .MOBI and .PRC, however if you purchased these books / files from a publisher, they will most likely be DRM protected and therefore will not display on your Kindle.

• Kindle (.AZW, .AZW1). Text (.TXT)
• Unprotected Mobipocket (.MOBI, .PRC)

Audio Books

The Kindle 2 and Kindle DX have text to speech converters, but the output is not nearly as pleasant to listen to as a true audio book, a book read by an actual person.  Audio books from Audible are the only  audio book file type that will play on the Kindle.

• Audible (.AA, .AAX)

Images

Being able to view images on the Kindle is a nice little perk. This capability also lets you comic books, very cool. Either use Kindle’s Personal Document Service (via Whispernet), or transfer the files via USB onto your Kindle.

• JPEG (.JPEG, .JPG)
• GIF (.GIF)
• PNG (.PNG)
• BMP (.BMP)

Documents

You can also view documents on your Kindle beyond reading books, newspapers, and blogs. You can upload or send important or informational documents to your Kindle and always have them with you on the go.

• Microsoft Word (.DOC)
• PDF (.PDF) is supported natively by Kindle DX and by Kindle (2nd Generation) in the experimental category
• Microsoft Word (.DOCX) is supported in the experimental category.
• Structured HTML (.HTML, .HTM)
• RTF (.RTF)

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