COPY AND PASTE HIGHLIGHTS INSIDE YOUR KINDLE NOTES AND FOR KEYWORD SEARCHESThis is updated information from earlier Kindleworld blog postings that describe undocumented ways that make notes and searches easier, especially Searching a book for a name or character in the book without having to type the name. The methods are only slightly different for older Kindles and the current Kindle 3 (UK: K3)
You can Copy and Paste words or phrases for Searches within a book or for searching the Net to find out more about what you're reading.
As I've said before, the Kindle keyboard is no speed demon unless we're counting the speed of mistakes that can be made on those little keys. I've gotten used to it and I use the keyboard often now because I'm forever searching in a book when I see a name but can't, as usual, remember who the character is, first introduced maybe 70 pages back (or even only a few pages back).
Searching on a name or character (or event in a book) brings up a listing of each Kindle page or "location number" that has a mention of the name, word, or phrase being searched -- along with surrounding paragraph for context (and an active link to each location).
Because the often multiple results are listed in divided rows down the screen, I can also get more context for the character just by perusing the several paragraph summaries.
When I first posted this, I was riveted by a then new account of Columbine by Dave Cullen (the book later wound up on the Best Books of 2009 of several newspapers, including The NY Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Times, etc.) The link in this paragraph quotes the Washington Post review of the wholly different take Cullen has on the incident. There are a lot of people involved in this story, and I did want to remember who they were and the circumstances, which led me to post about the shortcut to finding all mentions of someone in a book.
It's a great feature that many don't use. We have choices of searching the book or the entire Kindle or Wiki or the full Net (free 3G Net searches from almost anywhere), using the 5-way button to select from all the options available as we move to the right. The Kindle 1 offered searches of the entire Kindle (a much longer process) but none for just the book we're reading.
Copy and paste highlighted passages TO a note used in your Kindle
In connection with Amazon's new feature at the time which lets us see, on a private webpage for our Kindle, all our highlights and notes for each Kindle book we own, I noticed I'd done a lot of highlighting which is helpful for discussions, or as memory-joggers, but I'd typed very few notes. Why? It's because it takes a while to type on the small keyboard, accurately.
Notes we make are ALSO copied into our "My Clippings" file, which we can copy or move to our computers to print or edit. Highlighted sections are also copied into that courtesy file.
However, sometimes I'd like to add a thought about something from a passage I'm reading. I really don't want to type the passage, so I've wished for a way to copy and paste an excerpt to my book's "Notes" box and add, to that Note, shorthand thoughts, on the Kindle. This can be expanded on a computer later. Wish granted.
The following steps are for For Kindle 2's, modified for Kindle 3's, and for DX's
1. Begin to highlight the sentence(s) you want to reference in your note by pressing down the 5-way button where you want to begin the copy.
2. 5-way down, and at the last line to be excerpted, 5-way right, to the end of the referenced passage. Do NOT press the 5-way button down to end the highlight.
3. Instead, press the space bar. That'll bring up a search field.
4. Your now-highlighted passage is pasted into the Searchbar on Kindle 2's and DX's and into a Note-box on Kindle 3's.
5.
For Kindle 2's and DX's
Now 5-way to the right, through several options, until you reach
the "note" option.
For Kindle 3's
Upon a press of the spacebar, you don't get a Searchbox.
Instead you get a Note-box as a main focus and
with seemingly fewer options, but if you go to the bottom
and keep 5-waying to the right, you'll see other options.
In this case, we want to stay with the Note.
6.
For Kindle 2's, DX's
Press down the 5-way button on "note" and you'll see
the highlighted portion entered automatically into
a Note-box. You can now add some thoughts
about the highlighted portion just pasted in.
For Kindle 3's
You are already in the Note-box and can save the note
on the Kindle
or save & share it on Facebook or Twitter. That process
lets you write a cover note as well.
Tip: Anything you highlight, copy and paste this way, you have options to, instead, Google or search in Wikipedia or your Kindle's dictionary or on the Kindle itself. But we've chosen "note" here because this makes notes about designated passages quite a bit easier.
I should also point out that Amazon customers worldwide can use their 3G Kindles' wireless 3G cellphone-network connectivity for accessing Wikipedia, free, from your Kindle book, even if free web-browsing is not available in a particular country. See What is 3G and what is WiFi? (Link is: "bit.ly/kw3gwifi" .) ( Remember that the "http://" portion doesn't have to be typed into current web browsers or even on the Kindle's web browser.)
For daily free ebooks, check the following links:
| Temporarily-free books - Non-classics USA: by: Publication Date Late-listed Bestselling High-ratings UK: PubDate Popular What is 3G? and "WiFi"? Battery Care Highly-rated under $1, | Most Popular Free K-Books U.S. & Int'l (NOT UK): Top 100 free UK-Only: Top 100 free USEFUL for your Kindle (U.S. only, currently): 99c Notepad 1.1, 99c Calculator, 99c Calendar, |
Kindle 3's (UK: Kindle 3's) K3 Special ($114) K3-3G Special ($139) DX Graphite
The review of features with emphasis on touchscreen aspects doesn't go into the other features 
UPDATE2 - 9/18/10 - Original posting was April 2, 2009 