X-Ray is your Kindle’s best-kept secret

As soon as a bookworm, at all times a bookworm. In the event you’re the identical, then you understand the ache of selecting between rereading an outdated favourite novel, beginning a brand new sequence, or going to the bookstore to stack one other title atop the TBR pile. At one level or one other, you have absolutely picked up a couple of story at a time and tried to do a tandem read, which will get complicated quick in case you’re mixing up one fantasy world with one other. Iron would possibly kill fairies in Terrasen, however it does not do squat in Prythian.

Generally, you go weeks (or months… and even years) with out ending a e-book, and whenever you lastly decide it again up, you are fully misplaced. You flip open to a chapter crammed with characters you barely keep in mind. Are they brothers, or simply greatest pals? Who’s that aspect character, and the place did she come from?

Or possibly you are absolutely immersed within the sequence, however there are simply so many characters that conserving monitor feels not possible. Sticky notes between pages can assist, however in case you’re studying on a Kindle or different e-reader, you possibly can’t precisely wedge Publish-its between digital pages. Fortuitously, there is a good characteristic that handles all of that for you — conserving characters organized and straightforward to reference: X-Ray.

What’s X-Ray on Kindle e-readers?

Seeing between the traces

X-Ray is a reference device constructed proper into your Kindle. It permits you to faucet on the identify of a personality or place and immediately get contextual info on them. It even works with obscurer phrases particular to that e-book.

Generally, relying on the e-book, there’ll even be hyperlinks to Goodreads, Wikipedia, or one other exterior supply that may present extra of an index on whichever time period you select. Nonetheless, some customers point out that some books’ X-Ray characteristic have subsequent to no info whereas others function a complete index in and of itself.

As for the non-hyperlinked sources, you possibly can even entry them with out an web connection, resembling on airplane mode or out and about with out Wi-Fi. The data is saved inside the e-book itself, and authors may even go in and add, edit, or just allow X-Ray entries for his or her Kindle e-books by Amazon Direct Publishing.

A number of the issues a e-book’s X-Ray will present embody:

• Biographies
• Associated passages
• Further context
• Notes that the writer added themselves

entry an e-book’s X-Ray

It is slightly hidden

Similar to most of Kindle’s settings and options, X-Ray is straightforward to make use of and comparatively intuitive to search out. Nonetheless, in contrast to altering the font measurement and margin sizes, X-Ray is in a special menu. This is methods to discover it:

1. Begin inside the e-book you are presently studying. Faucet the high of the web page to tug up the highest menu.
2. Faucet the stop-light menu within the higher right-hand nook.
3. Faucet X-Ray.

Relying in your e-book, sure tabs will seem on the high. For instance: Notable clips, Individuals, Phrases, and Pictures populated for the prequel to Throne of Glass, referred to as Murderer’s Blade, by Sarah J Maas. This specific e-book is mainly a set of tales in varied locations, so it appears like there are dozens of characters to maintain monitor of always, so I believed it good to make use of it to showcase the X-Ray characteristic.

The Notable clips part contains precisely that — X-Ray pulls varied sentences and paragraphs from throughout the e-book which might be essential to the story or essential characters themselves. You should use the tiny arrows on the left and proper sides of the display screen to toggle by them, and above the quote itself, there’s a progress bar that tells you the placement of every of the quotes, in addition to the chapter or part identify.

Below Individuals, you will first see the point out of characters in your present web page. Then, you possibly can scroll all the way down to see different characters within the e-book, in addition to every of their mentions. The primary character of Murderer’s Blade, Celaena Sardothien, was talked about 1,081 occasions. After I clicked her identify, I obtained entry to tabs that confirmed me her particular person notable clips, in addition to all mentions of her identify generally. For a essential character, this will not be as useful. Nonetheless, for a personality talked about solely a couple of times at first who makes a shock look on the finish, this characteristic is extremely helpful.

Phrases is extra hit-or-miss, however for sequence that characteristic totally different sorts of individuals and/or magic methods, just like the Grishaverse books by Leigh Bardugo, it is further useful. Lastly, Pictures is one other part that may both be useful or not — some books solely have a picture for the quilt of the e-book itself. Nonetheless, in case your e-book incorporates a map at first or finish, X-Ray is a good way to rapidly reference it in case you’re attempting to get a lay of the land — it positively helped me after I tried to know the logistics of Sam and Frodo’s journey to Mordor.