Most folks who grab a Kindle from Amazon rarely go beyond the default settings. Without physical covers, all their Kindles appear the same to use. That’s why I made sure to turn my Kindle Paperwhite into something that actually feels personal.

All the Kindles I owned have one thing in common — they were customized the way I like reading books. Besides using a cover for the obvious physical identification, I found a bunch of Kindle settings that help me transform it into a more personalized e-reader.

Turn off popular highlights for a cleaner reading experience

Reclaiming immersiveness

On opening a popular book, seeing 20 highlighters below an underlined text always felt distracting. Instead of viewing them in the actual book text, I wanted to see them in my Highlights list. That subtext and underlines always distract me when I read. Also, the more popular the book, the higher the frequency of those highlighted texts.

Here’s how I change it: tap the top of the page, tap the Aa icon, select More from the menu that pops open, and turn off the toggle for Popular Highlights.

I prefer disabling this option for a cleaner reading experience. The best part is that I only have to disable this toggle once Kindle applies it to all the books on it.

Enabling page refresh to reduce content ghosting

A little tweak for the screen

Whenever turning the pages of a book, I often witness the text or images of the previous page ghosting on top of the current page’s content. It’s quite prominent in books and documents that include images such as pictures, maps, or graphs.

You can find the Page Refresh toggle under Home and Library -> Reading Options. After turning on the option, the screen briefly goes black and refreshes when the page turns.

I no longer worry about the maps or graphs from previous images marring the text on my Kindle. Though some may worry about its impact on battery life, I’ve yet to experience any serious battery degradation.

Tracking the currently-reading book easily

Excuse the screensavers​

I tend to read multiple books, ranging from fiction to non-fiction, on my Kindle at the same time. When I want to resume where I left off, I often forget which book I read last. It gets worse when someone picks up my Kindle and opens a few books. That disrupts my reading order.

To simulate a real book-like experience, I set Kindle to show the currently reading book’s cover as the lock screen. Enabling that was quite easy, and surprisingly, it isn’t on by default.

I enabled it from Settings -> Screen and Brightness -> Show covers on lock screen. Note that it only works on Kindles without Special Offers.

The vocabulary builder helps to learn new words

Turning them into flashcards helps

Whenever I stumble upon an interesting word, I highlight it and add it to the Vocabulary Builder of my Kindle. However, I had to download language dictionaries to learn the meanings and correct usage of the words.

To enable the option, head to Settings -> Home and Library -> Reading Options, and turn on the Vocabulary Builder toggle.

Open any downloaded book, tap on the three-dot menu in the top-right corner, choose Vocabulary Builder, and tap the Flashcards option at the bottom. A small pop-up window opens to show the usage of the words in a sentence from the book.

Custom themes for reading in different environments

Picking the right layout

When traveling, I prefer to read books on my Kindle in landscape mode, which is comfortable to hold with one hand. Also, I bumped the text size to make it easy on the eyes. Instead of fiddling with the settings individually, I use custom themes by picking the available options.

For example, I have a theme for travel that turns the layout to landscape mode, increases the font size and line spacing, and adjusts the alignment of text and paragraphs.

For night reading, I enabled the Warmth Schedule from Settings -> Screen and Brightness -> Brightness and Warmth. Along with a custom theme, the scheduled warm light adjustment elevates the personalized experience I always wanted.

Organizing the library into collections

Easy to find books

The Kindle device community is very creative, and that’s where I got inspired to start my own book collections. That’s my own way of organizing hundreds of my books into different collections so that it’s easy for me to choose my next read.

From science fiction to fantasy, I try to slot the books into collections based on their theme. All the sample books I read, I add them to specific To-Buy or Skip collections. That helps me deal with them whenever I stumble across a familiar title.

The Kindle app for PC or Mac is best suited for creating and organizing a massive collection of existing books. Later, you can continue adding books to specific collections on Kindle, and it syncs with the app on your PC or Mac.

Stop using your Kindle's default settings

Jazzing up your Kindle’s exterior is only a visual personalization. If you’ve set up and been using your Kindle as is, it's time to change. These small changes can add up to a reading experience on an e-reader that actually feels like yours.

  • Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition
    Screen
    7-inch
    Storage
    32GB
    Battery
    Up to 12 weeks

    The Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition is a premium e-reader that packs 32GB of storage and has wireless charging support alongside a bevy of luxury features like an ultra-thin design, an auto-adjusting front light, weeks of battery life, and a store with over 15 million titles.

  • Amazon Kindle Oasis

    The Kindle Oasis is the best in the business, packing a gorgeous 7-inch display and an elegant metal body.