Monday, February 13, 2012

Fun With MOBI Books -or- How To Get MOBI Books Onto Your Kindle Or iOS Device Using Only Dropbox

My brother sent me a book the other day in .mobi format. He included directions for getting this book onto your iPad for reading that required me to download software onto my actual computer, convert the .mobi book into ePub format, and then manually sync the ePub over to my iPad.

Well, my preferred reading device is my Kindle so I had to go about this in another manner - one that turned out to be much easier!

Step 1 - Add the .mobi file to my Dropbox Public folder
Step 2 - Open the link using the Kindle's experimental browser (I have an older Kindle).

Viola! The book is now available for reading on my Kindle.

Then the batteries died on my Kindle with two chapters left so I had to figure out how to get this onto my iPad so I could finish it. I still didn't like the steps my brother had sent that required a real computer. I did some Googling and nothing panned out. So I tried to open the same Dropbox link on my iPad...

Initially, you just get a screen that says 'Unable to view file (This file type can't be viewed)." BUT, if you have the Kindle app installed on your iOS device you can just click the Send To link and the Kindle app will be an option. BOOM! Book can now be read on my iPad without needing a computer.

Dropbox - the cause of, and solution to, all life's problems...

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