Amazon pushed out a new firmware update in February and said within the next couple of weeks a new Aa menu would be live. This system was delayed due to a number of bugs, but today Amazon has just unveiled the new system to all of the modern Kindles.
The new Kindle Aa system gives users more flexibility and control over their reading experience. Basically Amazon just just rearranged things a bit and consolidated some of the extra settings into one section, instead of always having to visit various menus or sub-menus.
When you visit the Aa menu now on the Kindle there are a number of sections. Themes, font, layout and more. The first section is called themes. This is where you can create custom themes or select from a number of presets, such as standard, compact and large. The font menu has a dropdown menu for font selection and underneath that are slider bars to make the font bold or to change its size. Since there are less font options on the screen, there is more text available in the book you are reading, this helps gauge what font settings look like, as they are adjusted.
The layout menu controls things such as orientation – landscape or portrait mode. Margins, allignment and line spacing. The More navigation tab allows you to configure the reading process, enable/disable the clock when reading, book mentions and about this book. If you want to enable system-wide dark mode, which makes the background black and text white, you still have to visit the settings menu. Hopefully Amazon moves this options to one of the new Aa menus.
The exact firmware number is 5.12.4, so if you have this version, you should see the new Aa menu system on your Kindle Basic, Paperwhite or Oasis. Many older versions can have received this update back in February, but the new system just went live today.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
