Ever since it launched in November of last year, we’ve been seeing plenty of new, solid updates coming to the Kindle Scribe. Starting today, four more great features are being added to the device.
While we noted that the Scribe was missing a handful of features at launch that we thought might be useful, Amazon has made up for it (and more) with the updates that the company has been pushing on a regular basis.
Perhaps the most useful and exciting new feature going live today is the Lasso Select Tool. The tool is able to be used on all written work and allows users to easily circle specific bits of handwritten text to resize, move, copy, cut, or paste them to any other writing area — such as notebooks, sticky notes, or PDFs. This will help users make the most out of their space and move things as they see fit.
The next feature is Convert to Text in Export, which allows the Scribe to convert handwritten text into .txt files, which can then be sent in emails using the Scribe’s other sharing options. This will make it easier than ever for users to share notes with one another without the hassle of having to retype anything written by hand.
Some general PDF reading improvements will be coming with the update as well. These include the ability for the Kindle Scribe to switch between portrait and landscape viewing modes, crop margins to increase the font size, select text to make highlights, add text notes, or use the internet to look up words or phrases. All-in-all, the new PDF improvements will make the Scribe a device that’s better equipped for reading documents as it’s able to be more customizable than other e-readers and doesn’t require the juggling of multiple devices to look up definitions.
In addition to the other features going live today is a brand new content type that will be available exclusively on Kindle Scribes. Write-On Content includes books and other types of content that are made specifically to be written on — such as things like crossword and sudoku puzzles or guided journals. Write-On Content feels like a no-brainer addition to the Scribe’s library, so it’s nice to see that it’s being added to further increase the value of the e-reader.
This update is the third major feature drop that the Kindle Scribe has seen this year, following one in February and the April update. Expect more to come from the Scribe as the year goes on
