Ultimate Guide to the reMarkable 2 (Part 2)
Careful reading for an ADHD brain, and how to get your Kindle books onto the reMarkable 2 tablet
I have the “inattentive” flavor of ADHD, which makes it pretty hard to read print books or articles with any speed. I hear the words rather than see them, so I can only read as fast as I can speak. I’m either attentive or fast, never both, and often neither.
For the last six or seven years, my reading solution has been audiobooks at 2–3x speed. I can quickly get through books and become conversant when it might have otherwise taken me, well, forever. But audiobooks are nearly impossible to quote or annotate. When it comes to careful reading and annotation, the reMarkable 2 tablet gives me a better method.
In Part 1, I extoll the virtues of the reMarkable 2 tablet and how to perfect it. In this article, I will describe the art of annotation and how to get your Kindle books onto your reMarkable 2.
Reading and the Distractable Brain
Reading with ADHD is challenging. It can take forever when your focus might wain before you finish a page, let alone a paragraph. You may find reading impossible when you get distracted by every little typo, odd turns of phrase, or just bad typography. Over the years, I cobbled together a hodge-podge of brain hacks for reading documents at work, getting through articles, or aborbing whole books. I say hodge-podge because none of them fit neatly together until I started using the reMarkable 2.
How To Make Reading a Joy
When I was a kid, I saw my dad reading all the time, writing in the margins, and sending letters to the authors. Loath as I was to write in my books, I realized I could do this on the reMarkable 2. And once I figured out how to import Kindle books, my e-book library took on new significance. Whether it’s an e-book or a PDF, you can highlight text, write in the margins, even doodle on the page.
Write to the writers
To stay focused on the text, I write notes to the author. I might tell them what I’m thinking or feeling at specific points in the text. Give them feedback, fix typos, suggest alternate wording … you name it. I’m probably not going to send anyone these notes, but sometimes I do.* Either way, read and annotate as if you are having that conversation. The extra layer of activity might be just enough to keep you fully engaged.
*When I was a kid, my father regularly wrote to book authors and would sometimes have lengthy correspondences. This is how I realized that writers are just people, and most of them love to hear from thoughtful readers.
Set Up Your Pens
In the reMarkable 2 with DDVK hacks installed, the “previous pen” gesture makes this annotation a breeze. Start by choosing your favorite pen for annotating (I like the calligraphy pen or fine liner, depending on whether I’m going for aesthetics or precision). Then, change to the highlighter tool. Using the previous pen gesture, you can swap your two most essential tools.
Everything’s a PDF
If you find an article on the web that you can’t quite get through (which is many of them, in my case), hit “print” then “save as PDF.” Once you have the file, import it to your tablet with the reMarkable 2 desktop app. From there, read and annotate as above!
Adjust the view on PDFs
I am currently reading a galley copy of a book: the printer’s marks and extra margin make the text look small. In the menu settings, you can adjust the PDF view: this feature lets you zoom in and maintain that zoomed view with each page turn. Try it out!
E-books are great until they’re not
The reMarkable 2 handles both PDFs and e-books. However, for E-books, it will only allow the EPUB format. That’s fine for many of you, but most of my library consists of Kindle books, which are not compatible. However, with a few extra steps, I was able to import my Kindle books. You can, too.
How To Import Kindle Books to the reMarkable 2 (Updated Hack)
Amazon’s format for Kindle books is not compatible with reMarkable, plus there’s DRM. This (convoluted but proven) approach allows you to convert your Kindle books to EPUB files that can be added to the reMarkable tablet. This method is only for using your purchased books on your devices.
EDIT: My previous hack below hasn’t worked reliably for me lately, so a little research dug up this Reddit post, which led to this simpler hack using an app.
DEPRECATED Hack (No Longer Seems To Work)
Get you an old Kindle
Amazon updated how files are handled in contemporary versions of Kindle firmware, so you need an outdated one to make the below technique work. I got a 4th gen on eBay for $25, less than I pay for some books. Maybe you have an old Kindle device lying around.
Update the Kindle firmware
Depending on which one you buy, you will need to get it onto a current enough firmware version. At this point, the only way to get over the threshold of “enough” is via USB. Instructions are here. Once you find your model, you will click through the find the version for step-upgrading to current enough. You want an older one so that it forces conversion into a format that the below method can handle while stripping DRM.
Install reMarkable Desktop
If you haven’t already, get the reMarkable desktop client, and make sure you've signed it. If you pay for Connect, it should sync over the cloud with your tablet. Otherwise, you’ll use a USB connection.
Install Calibre and DeDRM
You will need the Calibre e-book manager app on your computer. Then you will need this DeDRM plugin. Be sure to add the Kindle serial number to the DeDRM plugin settings to enable it fully.
Head back into Calibre’s Preferences menu, then go to Advanced, then Plugins, then double click the line called “File type plugins”.
You’ll see the DeDRM plugin; double click it. Select the first entry “eInk Kindle ebooks”, then click the green plus button in the new window.A small empty window will pop up, and this needs your Kindle’s serial number.
Finding the serial number varies depending on the version of Kindle you’re using — on our older 4th Gen Kindle, the serial number was found on page two of the Kindle’s “Settings” screen.To find where your serial, simply type “serial location”, along with the model name of your Kindle, into Google.Once you’ve got the serial number, type it into the Calibre window, removing any spaces as you go. Click Close, then OK — you should now be back at the Calibre Preferences Plugins window — click Apply in the top right.
Send books to your Kindle
Once you have a registered Kindle device, you can go to Amazon, click on Content & Devices under the Account & Lists menu, and find all your books. Send them to your Kindle device, and it will pick them up over wifi.
Import books to Calibre for conversion
Fire up Calibre and plug your Kindle into the computer via USB; the Kindle screen will indicate when it's connected. In Calibre, use the Add Books button and navigate through the Kindle drive to find the books and add them.
Move books to reMarkable
With the reMarkable desktop client, you can drag+drop EPUB files into the app. The file will sync through the cloud and start to appear on the tablet.
The quickest way I know to locate books (on a Mac, anyway) is to search one of the titles in Finder and either drag the EPUB from there or open the container folder to find the rest of the library.
One More Time, With Feeling
Once you have everything set up as above, the steps are straightforward, like this:
- Purchase Kindle books on Amazon and send them to your old Kindle device.
- Plug in your Kindle via USB
- Use Calibre to Add Books, then find it on the Kindle drive
- Convert the book in Calibre
- Find the EPUB file and drag it to your Remarkable (via desktop app or over USB)
- Margarita time!
