Essential Kindle-Compatible File Types: What Every Reader Must Understand

Kindle Supported Formats You Should Know

Posted by Ada Wang on 10/21/2014 6:18:01 PM.

Maybe you have a general sense of the basic file formats kindle supports, but do you know all the kindle supported formats and the formats each device supports? Having a good knowledge of all the kindle supported formats, including both kindle paperwhite supported formats and kindle fire supported formats, will help you to display files on your devices properly and choose the right devices according to your requirements.

The following part I will introduce the kindle supported formats list and the formats supported by popular kindle devices, such as kindle paperwhite and kindle fire. Besides, I will also provide the method for you to read unsupported format on your kindle devices.

Kindle supported formats list

I have divided the kindle compatible formats into three parts: the ebook formats, document formats and audio formats. You can have a clear understanding about each part after scanning.

1Kindle supported ebook formats

1. AZW

AZW is the primary format which is used for ebooks you buy at Amazon’s kindle store and can only be obtained from the Amazon web site. It’s the preferred format to allow maximum readability on the kindle devices. Sometimes azw files are called KF7 (kindle format version 7) to distinguish them from KF8 (AZW3).

2. AZW3

AZW3 is another name for KF8 and first came out for the kindle fire. It adds over 150 new formatting capabilities containing support for HTML5 and CSS3. All the new capabilities include embedded fonts, drop caps and CSS selectors such as line spacing, alignment, justification, margin, color, style and border.

3. Mobi

Mobi is a file format created by Mobipocket and now is used by MobiPocket Reader and Amazon Kindle readers. It can be read only if it contains no Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection.

4. PRC

PRC files are used by the Mobipocket e-book-reader. Mobipocket ebooks can have either .prc or .mobi as their extension. Old MOBIs are always in .prc but the newer ones can be .prc or .mobi. DRM-free PRC format ebook can be read on kindle devices.

Tips:Difference Between Kindle Content AZW, AZW3, PRC, Mobi, Topaz

2Kindle supported document formats

They are: TXT, PDF, HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP.

Kinlde natively just supports two kinds of document formats. The first one is text file (TXT) and the other is Adobe’s PDF format.

But there are also some available on kindle through conversion, such as HTML, DOC (a Microsoft Word file) and the graphic file formats JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP. The conversion can be successfully and easily completed by sending a file to your kindle email address. If you need more information about how to convert files through kindle email address, please click here .

3Kindle supported audio formats

The kindle can play audio files. Music files in MP3 format are compatible with kindle. Apart from this, audio books from Audible with the AAX and AA extensions are also supported by kindle.

Kindle paperwhite and kindle fire supported formats

Your kindle paperwhite and kindle fire can’t play every file. Only the files whose formats are compatible with your devices can be displayed on them. So make sure you have got the right file formats before you display them on your device.

Kindle paperwhite supported file formats

1. Kindle paperwhite supported ebook formats: AZW, MOBI, PRC

2. Kindle paperwhite supported document formats: TXT, PDF

The above five file formats are natively readable on kindle paperwhite. If you want to read them, you just need to transfer the files to your kindle paperwhite. Note, the MOBI and PRC file should be DRM-free if you want to read them.

When it comes to the audiobooks, the disadvantage of Kindle Paperwhite shows up because it does’t support audio files.

Kindle fire supported formats

1. Kindle fire ebook formats supported: Kindle fire supports all the common kindle ebook formats which are KF8 (AZW3), AZW, MOBI and PRC.

2. Kindle fire supported Personal Documents files: TXT, PDF, DOC, DOCX

3. Kindle fire supported audio formats: Dolby Digital (AC-3), Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3), non-DRM AAC, MP3, MIDI, PCM/WAVE, OGG, WAV

4. As a kindle tablet, kindle fire also supports video formats: Flash, HTML5, MPEG4, 3GP, VP8 (.webm).

Unsupported format: epub

The EPUB formats are most commonly adopted by many popular devices, such as iPad, nook, sony, kobo and Google. However, it’s a pity that kindle devices don’t support this common file format. But don’t get disappointed. For you can get your problems solved by reading the following part. You can convert epub to azw or mobi if you intend to read epub files on your kindle successfully.

For drm-free epub files, you can choose calibre to convert epub to mobi and then transfer the converted files to your kindle devices.

For drm-protected files, I recommend Ultimate converter to you because according to actual operation it can help you one-click to decrypt and convert books purchased from popular retailers such as nook, sony, kobo, google play, Amazon in batch. You can download it to have a free try and consult this article to convert drm protected epub to mobi.

Download Ultimate Converter for free:

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![author](https://www.epubor.com/images/uppic/1-22-2013 12-03-06 AM.png)

Ada Wang works for Epubor and writes articles for a collection of blogs such as ebookconverter.blogspot.com.

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2 Comments

komal singh

Re:Kindle Supported Formats You Should Know

12/4/2018 14:57:42

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Epubor Iris

Re:komal singh

12/5/2018 08:46:42

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Essential Kindle-Compatible File Types: What Every Reader Must Understand