Authors Electric How To Day – DropBox – How to load books and documents on your Kindle fire using DropBox – Chris Longmuir

DropBox for Android Devices

Normally to sideload a book or document to your Kindle Fire it would be done by connecting the Fire to your computer and copying the appropriate file into your Kindle Fire. I am going to show you an easier way to do it using DropBox.
It's easy to install DropBox


Installing DropBox
First you have to install DropBox onto your Kindle Fire, and this is quite easy to do.

1. From the Kindle Fire’s main screen place your finger at the top of the screen and swipe downwards. This will reveal your settings.
2. Tap “More” and from the list of settings tap “Device”.
3. Where it says “Allow Installation of Applications” toggle it to “On” – the default is “Off”. When it is “On” it allows you to download Apps other than Amazon ones.
4. After you have done this go back to the “Home” page and click on “Web”. This will open your browser.
5. In the search box type http://www.dropbox.com/android. This will open the download page for “Dropbox for Android”.
6. Once it’s downloaded you will see a box with “Dropbox for Android” at the top left of the page. Beside it is the menu box, the one with 4 lines in it.
7. Click on the menu box and in the list of actions on the left, choose “Downloads”.
8. A window will open with your Dropbox App (Dropbox.apk). Click on that and in the next window click on “Install”.
9. When the installation is complete it will give you the option to “Open”, and you can then log in.
10. After you come out of DropBox you will find it among your Apps.

Hopefully you will have succeeded in this. If DropBox is not among your Apps, this may mean you downloaded it but did not install. At my first effort this was what I did, so each time I went to DropBox it was on the web. However, if you follow my instructions you should have successfully installed DropBox onto the Kindle Fire’s hard drive.

Add files to your mobile devices using DropBox


Using DropBox to sideload books and documents.
1. On your computer copy the file to DropBox. You can close your computer after this if you want.
2. Open DropBox on your Kindle Fire.
3. Navigate to the file you want eg book or document.
4. The names of your files will be listed on the left, and on the right you will see a downward pointing arrow.
5. Click on the arrow and you will get a drop down menu with various options on it. Click on “Export”.
6. In the window that opens choose “Save to SD card” this will take you to the internal storage space.
7. Choose “Books” for .mobi files, or “Documents” for .doc. .pdf, or .txt, and other files.
8. Tap “Export”.

Once you’ve done all this your book or document should appear in the appropriate place. However, I often find that books land up in the “Documents” folder. So, if you can’t find your book under “Books” try “Documents”. If you still can’t find your document, switch your Kindle Fire off and then on again.

I hope that this information is helpful for you, and here are some websites you might want to look at.



Chris Longmuir




Comments

Mari Biella said…
Thanks for this, Chris - very helpful information.
Very helpful, but also helps to remind me why I don't have a Kindle Fire! Can't you just email the document like you do with the Paperwhite? Or is that a daft question? (I've never used a Kindle Fire so I'm genuinely curious!)
Lydia Bennet said…
I don't have a Fire either, so I too don't get why you can't just drag and drop or email documents to Kindle Fire as I do with my old keyboard one. However as usual you've explained things very clearly and this will be a godsend to Fire-people hither and yon!A worthy addition to our 'how to' body of work.
Chris Longmuir said…
I've never used the email option to send documents to any of my Kindles, so I can't answer that question as to whether you can email books that way. I've tried using ordinary email but my Fire doesn't seem to want to open attachments, and I thought this info might be useful. My normal method of adding books to any of my Kindles (the non-Amazon ones) is by sideloading from my computer. But Dropbox is another option.
Chris Longmuir said…
Lydia, I see what you mean, and yes, you can drag and drop mobi files to the Kindle Fire if you hook it up to your computer. I investigated the Dropbox method for someone who did not have regular access to a computer.
Lydia Bennet said…
it's all good stuff, the more we know and share the better, and you are always ahead of the game in the techie side of things Chris, we are lucky to have you on board.
When I send documents to my Paperwhite, they don't arrive as attachments. They just arrive as documents, there on my 'cloud' or on my Kindle as soon as I've clicked on them. I have no idea how this happens - it seems like magic - but it works. Maybe it doesn't work with the Kindle Fire though which is more like a tablet, isn't it?
ps - you have to use the Kindle's own email address on your Ammy account, not your regular email address. You can also send the document to several Kindles, if you have them.
Lydia Bennet said…
yes Catherine, their personal documents service is brilliant, it formats your document to 'fit' on your kindle screen comfortably and just pops it into your kindle. I don't have a Fire because I like having a screen that's not backlit, more restful to the eyes when I've spend time looking at the pc screen.
Chris Longmuir said…
The problem I had which instigated my research was getting a review book onto the Kindle Fire of one of our members who had no computer, therefore no access to emailing it to Amazon because normal mobi email attachments didn't seem to work on the Fire, and no way to sideload it from computer, ergo DropBox was the answer.

Popular posts

A Few Discreet Words About Caesar's Penis--Reb MacRath

Never Mind the Author Workshops, What Shall I Wear on World Book Day 2024? wonders Griselda Heppel

How to Live with the End in Mind: Wendy Mitchell’s Choice -- by Julia Jones

Brain on a Train -- Umberto Tosi

Poetic Licence - Sarah Nicholson