YOUR NOOK TABLET’S 16 gigabytes of memory goes a long way. You’ve got twice as much room for books, periodicals, files, and apps than with any competing eReader. But sometimes that 16 GB doesn’t go far enough and you want more.
Unlike other eReaders, your NOOK Tablet has a built-in slot for a microSD card, which means you can expand its storage, and add lots of it. There’s plenty you can do with that storage, adding space for music, Office documents, video, and more. This chapter tells you how to do that, from installing an SD card, to transferring files and then learning how to manage them.
Most of the storage built into the NOOK is for Barnes & Noble content and for the NOOK’s Android-based operating system. 1 GB is available for non–Barnes & Noble content. That’s where the NOOK’s SD card comes in. You can put an SD card with up to a whopping 32 GB of memory in it, with room for literally thousands of books, magazines, newspapers, and files.
How many you can actually fit depends on what you put there. Figure that an SD card can store about 1,000 books for every gigabyte of storage space, so a 32 GB SD card can hold an astounding 32,000 books! Even if you’re a nonstop reader, that should last you several lifetimes.
Of course, you’ll likely store more than books on the SD card. You may store magazines and newspapers as well. And that’s where your mileage will vary. Highly interactive magazines with plenty of high-resolution photos can weigh in at an astounding 1 GB each. And if you store music files, they can add up as well.
When buying an SD card, make sure you buy one of the two formats that the NOOK supports—microSD or microSDHC. What’s the difference? It’s right there in the name. The HC in microSDHC stands for high capacity. Cards 4 GB or over are called microSDHC, while cards under that capacity are microSD.
Since microSDHC cards can hold more than microSD cards, and the cost difference isn’t enormous, there’s little reason not to spring for the HC variety. You can generally find a 32 GB microSDHC card for $40 or under, so that size gives you the most bang for your buck.
Make sure when buying a card that it is formatted with the FAT32 file system. As a general rule, most or all are, but it doesn’t hurt to check.
Note
MicroSDHC cards are rated by their class—Class 2, Class 4, and Class 6. Class 2 is the cheapest, and Class 6 is the most expensive. If you don’t see a class rating on the packaging, it’s a Class 2 card. The higher the class, the more quickly you can transfer files to it, but the class rating has absolutely nothing to do with how quickly you can display books from the card. Class 6 cards tend to be significantly more expensive than Class 4 cards, and some people have had problems with them. To be on the safe side, stick with Class 4.
If you haven’t installed a microSD card before, don’t fret—it’s a piece of cake. Here’s how:
Put your NOOK face down on a clean surface. Look down at the bottom right of your NOOK near the curved notch for a gray diagonal lid labeled Nook.
Pull the lid open gently with your fingertip and fold it against the back of the NOOK. You’ve exposed a small slot.
Holding the card between your thumb and forefinger, with the logo side up, insert it gently into the slot.
Snap the gray lid back into place.
If you haven’t used the card before, you may need to format it before you can use it. If that’s the case, you’ll see a dialog box telling you that the card needs to be formatted. Tap Format Now. You’ll get a warning, telling you that formatting the card will delete all its contents. Tap the Format Now button again, and the NOOK formats the card. (If you don’t get the alert telling you that the card needs to be formatted, don’t worry—that just means it’s already formatted and you’re ready to go.)
Once the card is installed, you’ll see two new links in the Media bar of your Library, one labeled My NOOK, and one labeled Memory Card. Tap the Memory Card link to see and use its contents.
Removing an SD card is as easy as installing one. Place your NOOK face down and open the card slot as described in the steps in VividView Color Touchscreen. Push gently against the memory card with your fingertip and then release it; part of the card pops out. You can then slide the card out of the slot and snap the gray lid back into place.
Table 11-1. You don’t want to waste your time transferring files that will merely sit on your NOOK, unloved and unused. This table details what kinds of files work with it.
BOOK FILES, MICROSOFT OFFICE FILES, AND MULTIMEDIA FILES |
EPUB (the main book format for the NOOK) |
Word (.doc, .docx, .docm, .dotx, .dotm) |
Excel (.xls, .xlsx, .xlsm, .xltx, .xltm) |
PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx, .pptm, .pps, .ppsx, .ppsm, .pot. potx, .potm) |
Plain text (.txt) |
HTML (.htm, .html, .xhtml) |
Comic book archive (.cbz) |
MUSIC FILES |
.aac |
.amr |
.mid |
.midi |
.mp3 |
.mp4a |
.ogg |
.wav |
PICTURE AND PHOTO FILES |
.jpg |
.gif |
.png |
.bmp |
VIDEO FILES |
Adobe Flash |
.3gp |
3g2 |
.mkv |
.mp4 |
.m4v |
Note
Want to hear some real techie talk about your NOOK Tablet’s multimedia prowess? It supports MPEG-4 Simple/Advanced Profile up to 1920x1080 pixels, and H.263 up to 352x288. It also supports H.264 Baseline/Main/High Profile up to 1920x1080 pixels, and WEBM VP8 up to 640x480 pixels. What does all that mean? If you have to ask, you don’t need to know.
Before you can enjoy your music, videos, eBooks, and work documents (okay, maybe not enjoy...), you have to get them onto your NOOK Tablet, and that’s what this section is all about. It’s a breeze to transfer files between your PC or Mac and your NOOK.
Once you transfer files to your NOOK, you don’t need even to know what apps on your NOOK handle each of these file types—the NOOK is smart enough to know. So when you tap one of the files, the right app automatically jumps into action and launches itself, opening the file. But if you’re curious about whether a specific file will work on the NOOK Tablet, see Table 11-1. You don’t want to waste your time transferring files that will merely sit on your NOOK, unloved and unused. This table details what kinds of files work with it.11-1.
As a general rule, EPUB files open in the main NOOK reader; Microsoft Office files open in Quickoffice (Tip); and picture, music, and video files open in the NOOK’s built-in media player.
First connect your NOOK to your PC with the micro USB cable that came with the NOOK (USB Port, Connector, and Charger). Don’t use any other cable; Barnes & Noble warns that if you use a different cable, you might damage your NOOK. Connect the micro USB plug into your NOOK, and plug the normal-sized USB plug into your computer’s USB port.
When you connect your NOOK to your PC, the NOOK puts itself into USB mode. Your screen displays a notice telling you that it’s in that mode, and that you can go ahead and transfer files. But when your NOOK is connected to your PC or Mac, you can’t do anything with it—the screen doesn’t respond to taps. At that point, it’s essentially a USB drive connected to your computer. Once you unplug it from your computer, it returns to its true NOOK identity.
Note
When you unplug your NOOK from your PC or Mac, it takes a few seconds for the SD card to be ready to use. You’ll get a notification that it’s being prepared. Also, when you unplug it, you may hear a momentary musical chime—that’s just your NOOK telling you that all is right in the world, and it’s preparing itself to do your bidding.
After you’ve connected it to your PC, launch Windows Explorer. Your NOOK now shows up as a removable disk, just like any USB drive. You can now use your NOOK as if it were any USB flash device—copying files to and from it, creating folders, and so on.
If you haven’t installed an SD card, you’ll see only one new drive, labeled MyNOOK if you have a NOOK Tablet, and MyNOOKColor, if you have a NOOK Color. If you’ve installed an SD card, you’ll also see another drive, just labeled Removable Disk.
The folder structure of MyNOOK (or MyNOOKColor) and the Removable Disk (which is the SD card) is similar in some ways. MyNOOK and MyNOOKColor has a variety of folders you don’t need to worry about, such as B&N Downloads, DCIM, and LOST.DIR, so don’t pay any attention to them. Instead, use Windows Explorer to go to the My Files folder. That’s where you’ll be placing your files.
Here are the folders you’ll find:
Books
Documents
Magazines
Music
Newspapers
Music
Photos
Videos
Wallpapers
Unless you’re a true nonconformist, you’ll put your books in the Books folder, Microsoft Office files in the Documents folder, Music files in the Music folder, and so on. (See Appendix B for details about file types.) Keep in mind that you’re not required to use this folder structure; and you can put files wherever you want, and you can even create new folders. But for simplicity’s sake and for overall good housekeeping, you’re best off staying with the folder structure that’s already there.
The NOOK uses the EPUB file format for books, so when you’re borrowing books from a library, or downloading them from the Internet, make sure to look for files in that format. After you’ve got them on your computer, just drag them over to the Books folder.
Your SD card (labeled Removable Disk when you look at it on your PC) has the same folder structure, and you’ll store files in the My Files area, just as on the NOOK itself.
Once you’ve dragged files from your PC to your NOOK, disconnect the USB cable, and you’re ready to start using the files. When the card is inserted properly, a small icon of a card appears in the Notification area, telling you that you’ve got a card in your NOOK. Tap it and a screen pops up reading “SD card inserted. Click to browse SD card content...” Tap this notification, and you arrive at the area of your Library that lets you browse the contents of the card. You can also get to this area by heading to the Library and then tapping “My stuff”→My Files→Memory Card. For details about what you can do with the files once they’re on your card, turn to Browsing and Managing Files on your NOOK Tablet.
Just as with a PC, to transfer files to your NOOK from a Mac, connect your NOOK to your Mac using the micro USB cable that came with the NOOK. You may find that when you connect it, iPhoto immediately launches. Close it down; you won’t need it.
Instead, launch Finder. Browse it using the Finder as you would any other USB storage device to transfer files to your NOOK by dragging them.
Above all, your NOOK is an eReader, so you’ll likely want to find books to transfer to it. One of the simplest ways is to check with your local library. Many libraries have programs that lend out books in the EPUB format that the NOOK uses. (For details, see SD Cards and Your Library.)
Note
Some websites of local bookstores sell eBooks in the EPUB format. Check with your local stores to see if it does.
When you find eBooks online in the EPUB format, you want to make sure that they can legally be distributed for free. The best way to do that is to go to a reputable website known for distributing free books without copyright violations. The best one is Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org).
Keep in mind that if you’re looking for free eBooks, the NOOK Store (Browsing and Searching for Books in the NOOK Store) is an excellent place to look, because you’ll find many high-quality free books there. When you get free eBooks from the NOOK Store, you won’t have to download them to your PC and then transfer them to your NOOK. They’re downloaded straight to your Library.
To browse the files on your NOOK Tablet, go to the Library, and tap “My stuff”→My Files. You come to a screen that’s divided in two—on the left you find My NOOK, and on the right, Memory Card. Tap My NOOK to browse the folders built into the NOOK’s main memory, and tap Memory Card to browse the memory card. If you haven’t installed a memory card, only My NOOK appears.
Tap the folders as described in Note. So to look at your Music files, head to Music, for example. If you’d like to see all the files you downloaded from the Web to your NOOK, tap My NOOK, and then go to My Files→My Downloads. Tap any file to open it in the Gallery.
To delete a file, hold your finger on it, and then select Delete from the menu that appears.