1 Use Pocket with your Kobo
If your ebook reader is a Kobo device, as sold through Whsmith, you can get a head start by using Pocket. This tool, which lets you save web pages to a ‘read later’ list by pasting their address or clicking a button on your browser toolbar, is compatible with Kobo Aura, Aura HD, Aura H2O, Glo, Glo HD, Touch, Mini and Libra H2O devices.
This means that logging into the same Pocket account using both your browser and your Kobo device syncs the pages you’ve saved for later. Because of the way Pocket reformats the pages, they’ll be optimised for the device and free of ads.
To start, visit www.getpocket.com on
your PC and click ‘Sign up now’. Provide a name, username and password, then click Sign Up. Once you’ve logged in, you can save pages to your account by clicking the ‘+’ at the top of the screen (see screenshot on previous page) and pasting the page address into the ‘Save a URL’ box that appears. Pocket will retrieve the page, strip out any unnecessary content and store it for later.
However, you can add pages to your list more quickly with a browser extension. If you’re using Chrome or Edge, visit www.snipca.com/35051 and click ‘Add to Chrome’ to install the ‘Save to Pocket’ extension. If you haven’t yet enabled Chrome extensions on Edge, you’ll see ‘Available on Chrome’ rather than ‘Add to Chrome’. In this case, click ‘Allow extensions from other stores’ in the blue banner at the top to enable Chrome extensions, then click ‘Add to Chrome’.
Now, when you come across something interesting that you don’t want to read right away, click the Pocket icon on your browser toolbar and it will be added to your list. If you’re using Firefox, Pocket is already built in. Simply click the Pocket icon, which appears to the left of the star at the end of the address bar.
To read your Pocket articles on your Kobo, tap the three horizontal lines at the top of your Kobo screen to open the menu, then tap Settings followed by Accounts. Tap ‘Sign in’ in the Pocket section, then enter the username and password you used when setting up your Pocket account. Tap ‘Log in’.
Tap the menu button again, followed by My Articles and your Kobo will download the list of pages saved to your Pocket account. Tap the one you want to read.
‘Push to Kindle’ adds a singleclick button to the Firefox toolbar that works with the same Kindle email service we used in the section above to send documents to our device from our inbox. Install it by visiting www.snipca.
com/35060 in Firefox on your PC and clicking ‘Add to Firefox’. Once installed, you’ll see a new button on the right-hand end of the toolbar, which looks like hands holding an open book. Next time you come across a page you want to read later, click it.
The first time you use the extension, you’ll need to tell it the email address associated with the device that should receive the file. Again, you can find this in your Amazon account by following the steps in the first half of the ‘Send documents to your Kindle’ section above.
Note that there’s a dropdown menu to the right of the address within the ‘Push to Kindle’ box. By default, this is set to @free.kindle.com, but our assigned address ends with the suffix @kindle. com ( 1 in screenshot). Make sure you’ve selected the correct suffix, then enter the first half of your device address in the box to its left.
Also notice that the line below this section states that emails will be sent from the address kindle@fivefilters. org 2 . You need to add this to your Kindle trusted email addresses list so the messages aren’t blocked. As outlined above, do this by logging in at www.snipca.com/35053 and clicking Preferences, then expanding the Personal Document Settings section, and adding the address by clicking ‘Add a new approved e-mail address’. Within the ‘Push to Kindle’ box, click the ‘Remember me’ box, followed by ‘Send!’ to dispatch the page.