How To Get Manga on Your Kindle 1 or 2 – Step by Step Guide

February 17, 2010, BGZ-DurelAnime Check it Out Manga Today's Poll

I got a Kindle 2 last month as a birthday gift and I have been enjoying it quite a lot.  I have put my PDF books on them and have been doing a lot more reading than I have before I had one.  It is really a convenient device for trips and just reading everywhere you go.

My biggest question when I got it was this :  ”How do I get Manga on the Kindle?” Before the November 2009 update for the Kindles, it was really difficult.  Now, not so much.   Really, it is super easy and I will show you guys how.  I wanted to be able to carry tons and tons of Manga wherever I went and now I can.

First thing is first.  Is it even worth it?

Well, that is all about your preference.  Most manga is in black and white ALREADY and the Kindle displays it gorgeously.  I do have some manga in color and I will show you how it looks also.  More into this in a few.

Where do I get my Manga to download?

For those who already read manga online, you may know your courses for getting manga downloaded for you to read later on your computer.   I do NOT support pirating Manga.  Support the companies who write them, and they will write more.  What I do support is downloading copies of Manga you have bought before and want them in digital format.  Do as you wish, but I am not telling you to download illegally :)

Here are a few sources I have been using.

Manga Plus – Requires an account to download – This costs $8.00 per month.  Yeah, subscriptions suck. But this database is huge and has almost every series and every chapter you could possibly think of.  If you are a hardcore fan of Manga, I would suggest looking into it.

StopTazmo.com – This is a gem.  This site is 100% free and has forums and discussions about upcomings and downloads.  This database is also pretty big.  Maybe not as large as Manga Plus, but it holds its own.  The guy accepts donations and has a premium membership that has faster download speeds.  I’d suggest at least donating to the guy. He is hosting thousands of books on his server.

The best part about StopTazmo is the forums.  The community gets together and shares various links for even more downloads.  From Hentai to independent artists and writters.  You could possibly get a lot more out of this one that Manga Plus because of the community sharing their finds.

Because StopTazmo is free, I will show you how to download and transfer/convert from them to your Kindle so that you guys can hop right into it.

Step 1: Select and Download a Manga

Alright lets begin.

Start by going to StopTazmo.com and browse the directory by clicking on a letter above.  You do not NEED an account to use the site.  But, please sign up to support the guy hosting the stuff.

Next, pick a Manga to download.

I personally love Romantic Comedy manga.  I choose to pick the series, “Pastel”.  I suggest reading it if you like Love Hina, School Rumble, Girls Bravo! and the like.

Pick a chapter – Pastel has a total of 113 books.  This site is showing 111.  Only missing 2 – not bad for free, eh?

Unzip the file using Winrar or whatever.

Lets take a look inside the folder to show you the images.

You will notice that the cover and some of the first images are all color.  This is OKAY.  The Kindle displays color images in black and white perfectly.  I will show you this.

You will also notice that this folder has numerous file types.  PNG and JPEG and GIF.

The kindle is not very good at display full-on JPEGs and the like.  The kindle also does not display PNG files.  The typical images here will also not fit correctly on the kindle screen which calls for individual resizing galore.

This is where a neat little program comes in…

Step 2: Converting your files for the kindle – Mangle!

A programmer and Anime fan with this converting issue decided to make a program.  It is called Mangle and it does the converting and sizing for you and your kindle.

Lets go to the site and download this awesomest awesome code of awesome. – http://foosoft.net/mangle/

Download that executable and unzip it into a folder of your choice.  There is no program to install – It is just a stand-alone exe that runs without the need of other files.  Simple.

For now, extract it to the folder you made for the manga you downloaded earlier and run it.

Alright.  Now that we got it open, lets add our Manga chapter to the program and see what it can do.

First, click on Book -> Add -> Directory

Browse to the directory and highlight it then click OK

Once added, you will see all the images displayed here.

All of our manga pictures, at least for this one, are already in the correct order.  If they are not, drag and drop them around until they are.

Next, you are going to click on Books -> Options

We have to name the book to be exported.  There are also options you need to be sure are checked.

Click OK and lets now export it!

Browse to the folder you wish to put this book.  The book will make a directory with the converted images.

So begins the convert – This should take maybe 1 minutes to 2 minutes tops


Now, this folder “Pastel 1″ will be created.  This folder should not be altered in any way or your Kindle will NOT recognize it.

Lets move onto getting your kindle setup now that we have the book ready.

Step 3:  Setting up the Kindle for the Manga Transfer

Your Kindle should not really need much work.  All you really have to do is create  afolder in your Kindle Root of the flash memory called “Pictures”


Good.  Now that “Pastel 1″ folder that Mangle created?  We are going to throw that in the Pictures folder on your Kindle

Remember, do not change the name of the folder mess with any of the files in your book.

Once this is done, unplug your Kindle and lets go to your home screen and see how it worked!

As you can see, the Manga shows up as you named it from the Mangle program.  Clicking on it opens up page 1.  It even saves your page from when you exit to hoke screen so you can come back alter where you left off.

Here are a few more pictures I took of the Manga running on my Kindle 2.

If you look back at the start of the how-to, you will notice that this picture is in color.  Kindle and the Mangle program gray-scale all color Anime/Manga and make them look very good on the screen.

Manga Anime on Kindle 2 color

Lets look at some of the scrolling.  You read it just like a normal book.  Press next page and previous page to .. uhh.. turn pages.

Look how gorgeous that is.  This is 2 pages side by side.  The kindle automatically will put it in landscape if it is 2 pages long for 1 picture.  The only downside I have noticed is you cannot read the Manga with landscape.. It just will not work correctly and will screw up the layout.  You can actually see the slight glitch on the right of this picture.

That about sums it up.  I have tested this on a Kindle 1 and the results are the same.  Feel free to ask any questions you want and I wil try my best to answer them quickly.  If you have any issues, let me know!

If you don’t already have a Kindle and you read a lot of Manga, I would suggest getting one via the link below.  I am enjoying it very much especially after I figured this little hack out.

Enjoy!

{democracy:3}

Kindle Wireless Reading Device (6″ Display, Global Wireless, Latest Generation)

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  • javier
    Hi! very nice post!! Can i know if it works in kindle 3 6 inch properly? I ordered the small one and I was wondering if it fits the screen and if its tooo small for manga!! Thank u very much!

  • BVG
    Superb! :)
    thanks..
    Regards from Portugal.
  • I_love_reading
    I noticed that if you go back (previous page), the pictures will superimpose, that is you will see "leftovers" from the prior picture if the current picture is smaller. Annoying... is there a work around for this problem? If not, is there a way to refresh the current page only?
  • JustAlissa
    You could try to put the images into word and then convert it to a pdf, but this is A LOT of work..
  • You can use the combination Alt + G to refresh the page.
  • Khw009
    Cool thanks! I use the Menu and Back combo, but that's two commands :)

    Between now, there's a new Kindle, sexy!
  • Yeah, I get that problem too =/

    I have been trying to figure out how to fix it - I THINK it has something to do with settings in mangle - where if it doesnt fit the page entirely, it will only refresh what it takes up? Im not sure.

    The only way I seemed of of temporarily solving it is going back 1 or 2 more pages than what you want and jsut going forward - going forward seems to refresh it correctly.

    Sorry man.
  • Nina
    Great tutorial. it was very helpful. ANd I noticed at the top when your kindle was turned landscape, and the picture covered the whole screen. Well it doesn't cover my whole screen when it's vertical, so could you please tell me how to do that, if you know.
    Thank you so much.
  • Irina
    I officially LOVE you for posting this up.
    But my parents won't let me play, and on the StopTazmo website, is there a way you can start downloading the chapters together. Because I'm sick of just pressing it over, and over again.
    Thank you.
  • Irina
    I menat to say My parents won't let me PAY, not pay. LOL
  • Irina
    Thank you. I did all of this.
    But the writing is small, I can't really read it properly, because it's so small. The pictures fit the screen though. Is there any way I can make the text larger?
  • Sorry you're having trouble =/

    I noticed once putting a lot of manga on it that some text bubbles are too small when there is a lot of it.. Only solution I can think of is if the developer of kindle creates a way to landscape it as if it was a PDF - Or you can get a kindle DX =p.

    OR - try finding a way to convert all these pictures into a PDF format.. 1 page per pdf page - turn it to landscape.. I'll look into this..
  • Irina
    Thank you, i mad bit a bit bigger by reading landscape. It's still pretty small, but readable.
  • Hey there,

    I am very curious how you got it to landscape - Anytime I landscape it fits it smaller to fit on a landscape screen. What are your settings? :)
  • Irina
    Ooh, I just pressed the "Aa" button on the keyboard, adn you get the options, I pressd landscape, and it was smaller, but then I pressed "Aa" again an dit said something like "in width" "in length" I just pressed in width, and where it said real size, it had options, "no", or "true" Just try both.
    Sorry it's confusing, I'm not good at explaining things.
  • made_in_china
    Is there anyway to do this with a mac?!!
    Please let me know!
  • thats a good question...

    I did not really think about doing it for mac.. I'll do some research for you and talk to the programmer for Mangle.
  • made_in_china
    thnks! please let me know!
  • I honestly cant find a way.. the only thing I can tell you is to find a picture converter and convert them to GiF's.. then, make a folder and put them in order manually and add it to the kindle.

    Otherwise.. use bootcamp :)
  • ChadFriend
    I just did it on my mac using Wine Bottler to run the EXE - it's pretty awesone: http://winebottler.kronenberg.org/
  • that is pretty friggin cool. I didn't know you could do that
  • Actually both manga plus and stoptazmo are illegal or at the least in a very grey area.
    They both host manga which have been fan translated, with out permission of the publisher.

    Stoptazmo protects itself by not charging ie. not profiting from piracy.
    Manga plus is _more_ illegal as the site is charging for the pirated mangas.

    Nither is legal.
  • Hey.. umm Tazmos lawyer..

    First, thanks for commenting.

    If you read the post thoroughly, you'll notice that I stated that I do not support pirating Manga. I collect Manga as a hobby and have an entire room of shelves with Manga on them. What I did not realize is that Manga Plus was an illegal form of getting that manga. I thought it was just a way for publishers to make their Manga downloadable.

    Scanlations are an iffy subject anyway. The community is translating the 'not released to US' versions of Manga for the community. But, for example, I downloaded Pastel in this guide because well, I own Pastel 1 through 13. The English released books. I feel like, if you own it.. download it wherever you want.

    Of course, this doesn't happen most of the time and I understand that. This was simply a guide to show you how to get manga on your kindle.. no matter how you get it. Pirate it or don't. Most fans out there are like me.. the physical editions of ANYTHING is the point of being a collector.
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