eBooks have been available in various forms for a number of years now, with PDFs being the most obvious example of electronic publishing. But more recently, dedicated ebook readers have meant that there has been a surge of interest in this type of book.

The Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle make it possible to take a large collection of books with you when you travel without getting weighed down. Using Kindle for Mac and Kindle for PC, you can buy and read ebooks on your computer – and it does not matter if you own a kindle device or not.

The Kindle software synchronises with your online account, so any books you have purchased can be accessed on your computer, and the application provides easy access to the online store and makes it easy to try out sample chapters of books you are interested in.

After running through the installation of the software, either sign into an existing account, or click the button to create a new one. Any books you have already purchased or downloaded are displayed in the home screen library, and a simple double click is all that is needed to open the book.

To browse through the massive selection of ebooks available for purchase, click the Shop in Kindle store link at the top of the program window. You can then browse or search the Amazon site until your find something that grabs your interest. To read a sample chapter of a book to help decide if you would like to buy it, click the Send sample now button that appears to the right of a book’s page in Kindle for PC or Kindle for Mac.

Click the Go to Kindle for Mac or Go to Kindle for PC button and then select the option to open the book in the program. The sample chapter will be automatically downloaded and synchronised, and will be displayed on the home screen.  Double click a book’s icon to open it.

You can navigate through books using the cursor keys on your keyboard to turn pages, and by clicking the Go To button, you can quickly jump to the cover, table of contents, the beginning of the text or a particular page number.  Depending on the size of your computer monitor, you may wish to adjust the size of on screen text, and this can be achieved by clicking the Aa button before choosing a font size.

To make it easier to pick up from where you left off, bookmarks can be created – just click the + Bookmark button. The bookmarks you have created can be accessed by first clicking the Show Notes & Marks button to the upper right of the program window and then clicking the appropriate bookmark.  The Notes & Marks side pane also displays any notes that you have created on your Kindle Bookmarks you no longer need can be removed by clicking the – Bookmark button.

If a sample chapter entices you into buying a book, you can do so from within Kindle for PC or Kindle for Mac. Click the Home button to return to your book library and hover the mouse over a book’s icon. Click either the Buy Now button or View Details link to be transported to the Amazon site where you ca purchase the book.

Any purchases you make with through Kindle for PC or Kindle for Mac, or via your Kindle itself, will be automatically synchronised, but this can also be done manually by clicking the Sync and check for new items button that appear to the left of the Shop in Kindle Store button.