Overcoming the Kindle Clipping Limit

The Kindle is a wonderful reading device, unfortunately it has some arbitrarily imposed limitations that severely impact its usability for serious study or research work.

One of the most limiting aspects, is the limit on “clippings”. These are the exported text highlights that you make when reading a book. If you find yourself reading a book for an assignment or article and have been fastidiously making highlights of important sections, you may very disappointedĀ  when you go to retrieve those highlights from the “My Clippings.txt” file stored on your Kindle. Specifically, you may find this:

==========
Really Good Book: But You Can’t Clip! (Example Author)
– Highlight Loc. 7895-99 | Added on Friday, April 03, 1970, 08:13 AM

<You have reached the clipping limit for this item>
==========
Really Good Book: But You Can’t Clip! (Example Author)
– Highlight Loc. 7900-7905 | Added on Friday, April 03, 1970, 08:14 AM

<You have reached the clipping limit for this item>
==========

This is a far cry from what you were probably expecting to find, which was the actual passage that you highlighted!

So, here are some helpful links for enabling full clipping functionality for books that you have purchased:

Kindle Clipping Limits | MyTech

Kindle Clipping Limits | MyTech http://realtech.burningbird.net/web/ebooks/kindle-clipping-limits.htmlI tried to find information about the clipping limit in the Kindle TOS or User Guide, but nothing was covered. I also tried to find out if one can “delete” items from the… [find out more…]

MobileRead Wiki - Kindle Mobi2Mobi GUI Vista/XP

MobileRead Wiki – Kindle Mobi2Mobi GUI Vista/XP http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Mobi2Mobi_GUI_Vista/XPMobi2mobi is particularly useful in fixing the missing or incorrect Metadata. It may be used on DRM’d ebooks converted using Kindlefix which sometimes causes the metadata to get…
Frequently Asked Questions about the DRM removal tools Ā« Apprentice Alf’s Blog http://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/frequently-asked-questions-about-the-drm-removal-tools/Q: Where are my ebooks? Your ebooks are stored on your computer or on your ebook reader. You need to find them to be able to remove the DRM. If they are on your reader, you…

Changing Book Information: The Final Story Ā« Decoding the Kindle

Changing Book Information: The Final Story Ā« Decoding the Kindle http://decodingthekindle.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/changing-book-information-the-final-story/There are often cases when the title and/or author information displayed on the Kindle’s Home screen are either incorrect or are not what you want to see. For example, if…

How to Remove Restrictive DRM from Kindle E-Books and Others That You Own | Wired.com

How to Remove Restrictive DRM from Kindle E-Books and Others That You Own | Wired.com http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/01/how-to-strip-drm-from-kindle-e-books-and-others/First, get a copy of the free e-book manager, Calibre. This catalogs and converts your e-books from format to format. With a couple of plugins, it will also…
Continuing the Dark Reverser’s work… Ā« Apprentice Alf’s Blog http://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/hello-world/I hope that everyone uses these dedrm tools only for personal access to the ebooks they have bought. Large scale distribution of dedrmed ebooks is not a good idea. No help will…

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ActivePython Downloads – Download Python Packages for Windows, Linux and Mac | ActiveState http://www.activestate.com/activepython/downloadsProduction servers for external users? Looking for HP-UX, Solaris, or AIX builds? Learn more aboutActivePython Business Edition

The Voidspace Python Modules

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4 comments

  • florin

    April 1, 2012 – it does not make any sense for clippings to be limited on a Kindle. People buy Kindles so they don’t have to lug heavy books around. College students need to do a lot of underlining while studying so why would highlighting be limited? If there is no limit, obviously, in the hardcover or paperback reference book, why should the publisher limit highlighting on the Kindle version of the same book?

    • Hi Florin,
      Thank you for your comment about the Kindle clipping/highlighting limit. I agree with you 100%! As you and I have both experienced, it can be very frustrating šŸ™ Hopefully Amazon will eventually encourage/force publishers to allow unlimited highlighting on the Kindle.

      Best regards,
      -JD

  • Fred

    Any reason why there is a limit for the number of clippings? I am quite disappointed of such limitation!

  • Pretty MissM

    They limit clips and copies, because they know some people will just buy the more expensive physical books when they’re up against a deadline. It should be illegal for them to do that, because we bought the Kindle version of the books. We should own them completely. They don’t exactly make it obvious that these limits exist, until after you start working on a project, then you’re screwed if you need the book for research. Most of the companies that pretend to care about students (Amazon, Apple, ScribD etc), really just exploit them.

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