X-Ray is your Kindle’s best-kept s...

As soon as a bookworm, at all times a bookworm. Should you’re the identical, then you understand the ache of selecting between rereading an previous favourite novel, beginning a brand new collection, or going to the bookstore to stack one other title atop the TBR pile. At one level or one other, you’ve got absolutely picked up multiple story at a time and tried to do a tandem read, which will get complicated quick for those who’re mixing up one fantasy world with one other. Iron may kill fairies in Terrasen, but it surely does not do squat in Prythian.

Generally, you go weeks (or months… and even years) with out ending a ebook, and once you lastly choose 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 finest buddies? Who’s that aspect character, and the place did she come from?

Or possibly you are totally immersed within the collection, however there are simply so many characters that preserving monitor feels unimaginable. Sticky notes between pages may help, however for those who’re studying on a Kindle or different e-reader, you possibly can’t precisely wedge Publish-its between digital pages. Happily, there is a sensible function that handles all of that for you — preserving characters organized and simple 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 helps you to faucet on the identify of a personality or place and immediately get contextual data on them. It even works with obscurer phrases particular to that ebook.

Generally, relying on the ebook, 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 function have subsequent to no data whereas others function a whole index in and of itself.

As for the non-hyperlinked sources, you possibly can even entry them with out an web connection, equivalent to on airplane mode or out and about with out Wi-Fi. The knowledge 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 via Amazon Direct Publishing.

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

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

Find out how to entry an e-book’s X-Ray

It is a bit 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, not like altering the font measurement and margin sizes, X-Ray is in a unique menu. Here is the way to discover it:

1. Begin inside the ebook you are at the moment studying. Faucet the prime 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 ebook, sure tabs will seem on the prime. For instance: Notable clips, Individuals, Phrases, and Photos populated for the prequel to Throne of Glass, known as Murderer’s Blade, by Sarah J Maas. This specific ebook is principally a group of tales in numerous locations, so it seems like there are dozens of characters to maintain monitor of always, so I believed it excellent to make use of it to showcase the X-Ray function.

The Notable clips part consists of precisely that — X-Ray pulls numerous sentences and paragraphs from throughout the ebook which are essential to the story or most important characters themselves. You should utilize the tiny arrows on the left and proper sides of the display to toggle via 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 ebook, in addition to every of their mentions. The primary character of Murderer’s Blade, Celaena Sardothien, was talked about 1,081 occasions. Once I clicked her identify, I acquired entry to tabs that confirmed me her particular person notable clips, in addition to all mentions of her identify basically. For a most important character, this will not be as useful. Nonetheless, for a personality talked about solely a couple of times originally who makes a shock look on the finish, this function is extremely helpful.

Phrases is extra hit-or-miss, however for collection that function totally different sorts of individuals and/or magic programs, just like the Grishaverse books by Leigh Bardugo, it is further useful. Lastly, Photos is one other part that can both be useful or not — some books solely have a picture for the duvet of the ebook itself. Nonetheless, in case your ebook includes a map originally or finish, X-Ray is a good way to rapidly reference it for those who’re attempting to get a lay of the land — it positively helped me once I tried to grasp the logistics of Sam and Frodo’s journey to Mordor.