It’s been about a year since I bought my Kindle Scribe and several updates have made it a much better device today than it was at the end of 2022. Amazon just released the update Updated 5.16.5 for Kindle Scribe with four important new features.
I’m impressed by Amazon’s ability to keep its promise of regular feature updates, as we’ve heard empty promises from companies in the past. These updates came much quicker than I expected. They were also big, with major features and functionality, not just minor tweaks.
How to update manually
You may have already received the update, but if you are not patient and want to enjoy it today, you can install it manually.
Visit this Amazon page for step-by-step instructions for updating your Kindle manually. It’s pretty easy and only requires a cable connection to your computer and a simple drag and drop. You can find all current updates for the e-reader on this Amazon website, so bookmark it for future updates.
Let’s take a closer look at the new features available on the Scribe.
Searching your handwritten notes
The Kindle Scribe sets itself apart from all other Kindle readers with its support for the stylus and handwritten notes. A previous update added the ability to share your handwritten notebooks and have Amazon’s server convert your handwriting to text as part of the sharing process.
Matthew Miller/ZDNET
You may not want to convert your handwriting to text and would prefer to share your handwritten content. With this latest update, you can share your notebooks, then open the shareable PDF to search your handwritten notes.
I did the test on some of my previous notes and the search function was effective in finding my writing. I’m surprised because I don’t have the best handwriting and it’s good to know that you can quickly find content saved in handwritten form.
Multi-selection in notebook preview
Most of the updates released by Amazon have focused on improving the ways of organizing your notebooks and optimizing the file management system.
Open a notebook and click the preview button at the top right of the notebook. You can then click “Select” at the top left of the toolbar or long press on any page to select multiple notebook pages and perform bulk actions such as adding, deleting, moving or sharing using the dedicated buttons at the top right of the toolbar.
Matthew Miller/ZDNET
Share current notebook page
Instead of being limited to sharing an entire notebook from Kindle Scribe, you can now choose to share only the active page. On any page of the notebook, press the button Share to “Share current page” or “Share entire notebook”.
View collections with list view
Amazon continues to add features that inspire me to use my Kindle Scribe a little more every day. I have very few collections because I haven’t spent time organizing my content, but I’m always looking for ways to make more use of my Kindle.
In view of the Libraryyou can now press the menu button at the top right and choose to display its contents as All or like Collections. You can also view this content in a grid or list format.
What else would you like to see?
This is fantastic, Amazon continues to make improvements and new features to the user interface. I look forward to the updates which happen to be quarterly.
I would like to see the following in future updates:
- Export notes in other formats. The PDF format is great, but syncing with OneNote could also be very useful.
- Support for basic shapes so that the paths of my squares and circles are corrected.
- Colored pens/highlighters that appear in color when you export and share your notes on a tablet or smartphone.
What would you like to see in Amazon’s next updates?
Source: “ZDNet.com”