[Todd Gibson]

I don’t know the reason why, but this week we’ve received emails from a couple people trying to use a digital pattern on a Kindle. We never planned for people to use them this way, and we haven’t tested our digital patterns on these devices. But the fact that we’ve heard from two people trying it in such a short time makes me wonder if we need to start.

Have any of you used a digital pattern on a Kindle? If so, what’s the experience like? Does it work for you? How do you get the pattern pieces to print? And do they print at the appropriate scale?

[lifeinoz]

This is probably something you already know BUT I love my digital patterns on my iPad. I print them with me desktop/printer then I open the file in iBooks. It works beautifully. I love being able to just “flip” through the directions, so much handier then trying to thumb through the actual paper pattern. A perfect world would be a printed pattern with digital instructions at a reasonable price!!! Hope that helps a little.

[Tamara]

The thought hasn’t occurred to even try to view my instructions on the ipad. I tend to just print them off into hard copy. If it is able to be viewed in ibooks then I might give this a crack. As for kindle, Todd, it is an idea but I would probably refer to the instructions or yardages required while out shopping but at the moment I am kind of content with just printing them off. Its not to say I wouldn’t use the feature if it were to become available though.

[Gillian]

I like to have instructions on my Kindle, but I don’t download the pattern directly there. I download it to my desktop, print the pattern pieces, then email the pattern to my Kindle email account. That way the pattern shows up on my carousel. This seems by far the easiest way to do it. I have never tried to print from my Kindle so I don’t know how difficult that is, but in my experience, importing any content to the Kindle without going through Amazon in some way is so tortuous that is has to be intentional on Amazon’s part.

[catherinel]

I second Gillian’s comments. I love my kindle for reading books and occasional web browsing. I’ve never tried to print anything from it, much preferring to use a full-blown computer. While I’m sure Amazon will continue to improve it, the OS is just not as robust or graphic-friendly as those on the apple products. It is also rather short on storage space, so probably not a good tool for permanently retaining those wonderful patterns. In it’s current version the Kindle is primarily a tool for consuming amazon content such as books, music, movies.

Do you think there are people whose only internet access is through a kindle?

[catherinel]

One more thought: it’s pretty terrible at viewing PDF’s. I could email the pdf to myself to read it on the kindle, but it’s so much easier to view the instructions on a full size computer screen or print them out. (I have old eyes, so a younger person may not mind it so much.)

[Tamara]

The kindle app for ipad is pretty good! I will have to see how the instructions look through the app. I use kindle for ipad mostly as it is my preferred method but I do agree with actual kindles being more to access amazon than anything else.

[Jess]

I don’t know about Kindle, but I do the same as lifeinoz. I save the file on my desktop, print the pattern sheets and then save the instructions in iBooks. Much easier than printing out.