Can't Use Apple Pencil (or Finger) to Highlight Books in iOS Kindle App. Help!

I’ve heard about how @MacSparky reads books in Kindle and exports the highlights to Readwise, but I can’t seem to get it to work. I am using the Kindle app on my iPad mini. The Apple Pencil doesn’t work for highlighting, and I can’t use my finger either. The app lets me look at annotations in “My Notebook,” but I can’t get anything into it. I can’t highlight anything as I read. What am I doing wrong?

I’m not sure how quickly you’re trying to highlight.

If you tap and hold briefly, you should see the text begin to look like it’s highlighted in blue; you may also see a magnifying circle. At that point, you can start dragging your finger or pencil to highlight.

Alternatively, you can tap and hold until drag handles appear around the word, as in the screenshot below:

Then just drag the handles until they’re where you want them, and tap your preferred highlight color.

You can add a note to highlighted text by tapping on it, then tapping the note icon.

Scribble works very well in that notes field, by the way.

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Also, verify that your apple pencil is paired with your ipad and that you have bluetooth on and that it is connected in the iPad settings.

Check the Apple Pencil settings in the iPad as well.

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You have to tap and hold for a count of about two. A sort of “lense” appears, magnifying the text, then you can drag to select and highlight.

@LawyerSteve … yup. All good advice. There is as much art as science to these reading apps. Also, you’ll need to occasionally give Readwise a kick to remember to check in with Kindle. :wink:

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That was exactly the problem. Thanks!