Monday 20 September 2010

Get free subscriptions to newspapers on your Kindle via Calibre

Newspapers on the Kindle are a fantastic addition but wouldn't it be great to get that £11.99 a month subscription down to, let's say, FREE? Yes, it's possible and legal with a little free program called "Calibre." Follow the steps below and within a few minutes you'll be getting newspapers delivered every day at no cost to you.

1. Download Calibre here, it is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux; install Calibre and start the program.

2. Click on the N button with an arrow pointing downwards (take a look at the image to the left here if you need help identifying it).



3. A window should have popped-up (it should look like the image to the left). Click on the arrow next to "English (UK)" and it will expand to show you all the free newspapers you can get.
As you can see there's quite a variety and even a few magazines and websites - including Wired, Mac World UK, The Guardian and BBC News.

Once you have seen one that you like click on it once and go to step 4 below.

Obviously you can choose to suscribe to magazines and newspapers from anywhere around the world, not just where you live.


4. Click the "schedule for download" tick box and choose a frequency of download and the download time. Make sure to click the first button next to "every day." For newspapers I have chosen 6:50am before setting out and this has worked well for me so far.

Click "save."







5. OK, so now it will get the newspaper every day downloaded to your computer but how about getting it sent to your Kindle? You can too, for free. Back on the main Calibre screen, click the settings button - shown on the image here on the left.



6. Click "sharing books by email" and enter your email details, if you don't have a GMail account I strongly recommend you get one for this. Click "use GMail" if you have a gMail account and enter your username and password. CLick "add email" and make sure that the "auto send" checkbox is checked.
Every time a newspaper is downloaded it will get send to your Kindle. Make sure the email you use in Calibre is on your Amzon account under "Manage my Kindle" and added as an approved email address.

All done! Just make sure the Kindle is connected via Wifi and on the "Home" screen where the books are listed when you'd like it to download.

P.S. Your computer must be on for Calibre to download the newspaper and send it. So if you are planning on getting the newspaper downloaded at 7.10am - switch on your PC a few minute before and make sure Calibre is running.

If you are on a Mac you can get your computer to auto-switch on and off to save power. Just go to "System Preferences" >>> "Energy Saver" >>> click "Schedule" and enter a switch on time and off time. Allow at least 10 minutes for a newspaper to download so make the "switch off" time around 10 minutes after you have set Calibre to start downloading.

Enjoy!

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