Amazon has updated its top-of-the-line Kindle Voyage ereader which now features the new typesetting engine and the Bookerly font specially designed for electronic reading.
The company added the new font and typesetting engine to its Kindle apps in June and has since launched the new version of the Kindle Paperwhite with the improvements.
A full page of Bookerly text displayed on the Kindle Voyage showing the improved hyphenation and justification offered by the new typesetting engine.
How to tell if a Kindle ebook is enabled for Amazon’s new typesetting engine
Not all ebooks can use the new typesetting engine yet as Amazon has to put titles though a conversion process. You can check on whether an ebook has been converted by going to the book’s product page at the Kindle store and seeing whether ‘Enhanced Typesetting’ is Enabled, as shown below highlighted for the free Moby Dick edition shown in the earlier screenshots.
If Amazon hasn’t got around to converting a book, then it’ll say ‘Enhanced Typesetting: Not Enabled’. Amazon says it’s already converted hundreds of thousands of books, with more being added all the time.
It doesn’t seem to have been steaming through all the best sellers first as, for example, The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins is Enhanced Enabled but Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman is not.
The changes featured in the Voyage update include:
- A redesigned Smart Lookup making it easier to get to the actions you want to take while reading — highlight, create a note, share a quote, and more, while keeping your favourite Smart Lookup features like Dictionary, Wikipedia, and X-Ray easily accessible. Just tap and hold on a word, phrase, or sentence to bring up Smart Lookup and swipe right to left to see the next card.
- Typography and layout improvements with hyphenation, justification, ligatures, and kerning, as well as pop-up footnotes, endnotes and chapter notes. These improvements are supported in hundreds of thousands of Kindle books today, with more being added, and are currently available for titles in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch.
Your Kindle Voyage should update automatically when connected to wi-fi or you can download and install the update manually at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
The price of the Kindle Voyage seems to have stuck at around $219/£169 for the wi-fi-only model since launch without any real discounting although I have occasionally seen offers for refurbs at prices only $20 or so lower.
Amazon launched a new version of its popular Paperwhite ereader in June at around $100 less than the price of a Voyage. The new Paperwhite features 300dpi screen resolution and the new layout engine and Bookerly font.
The Voyage update brings the model up to speed with the new Paperwhite in terms of typesetting and font choice, so it’s a moot point whether Amazon will have much incentive to bring out a new version of the Voyage this year.
Amazon adds Bookerly font to Kindle tablet choice
Kindle Paperwhite gets higher resolution, Bookerly font and new layout engine