Kindle devices weren’t originally designed for Arabic. But with recent updates from Amazon, reading Arabic books on them has become workable — if you follow the right steps. In this guide, we’ll walk through how to get an Arabic book onto a Kindle, and what to watch out for before and after the transfer.

First: Why do most Arabic books fail on Kindle?

The most common reason is that the file isn’t in a proper EPUB or AZW3 format. Many people try to upload PDF files directly, and the text comes out garbled or doesn’t display at all. The issue is that PDF isn’t a “reflowable” format — each page is a fixed image, and right-to-left layout doesn’t work correctly.

The second reason is that the EPUB itself may not contain the right RTL tags. Even if the text is in Arabic, if the tool that created the file forgot to set dir="rtl" in the internal HTML, Kindle will read the text left-to-right.

Second: Preparing the book

If your book is scanned (a PDF from a scanner): You need an OCR tool before anything else. OCR means “extracting text from images” — and without this step, you won’t be able to read the book properly on Kindle no matter what else you do.

Nassiq is a free tool designed specifically for this purpose. Upload a scanned PDF, and it extracts the Arabic text and builds a proper RTL EPUB file, ready to transfer to Kindle.

If your book is already in EPUB format: Make sure it has proper RTL tags. You can open it in Calibre and check its properties. If the language is “Arabic” and the direction is “RTL”, you’re in good shape.

Third: Transferring to Kindle

The easiest way is Amazon’s “Send to Kindle” service. Go to:

https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle

Sign in with the Amazon account linked to your Kindle, then upload the EPUB file. Within minutes, the book will appear on your device (make sure it’s connected to the internet).

The alternative is to use a USB cable and copy the file manually into the documents folder on the device.

Fourth: Font settings

If you open the book and find the Arabic font ugly or broken, try changing the font in Kindle’s settings. Fonts that support Arabic well:

If you can’t find a suitable font, you can embed a custom font via Calibre before the transfer, but that requires extra steps.

Fifth: Common problems and fixes

Text displays left-to-right: The book doesn’t have proper RTL tags. Rebuild it with a tool that handles Arabic correctly.

Diacritics disappear: Some converters strip tashkeel (fatha, damma, kasra) during conversion. Make sure you’re using a tool that preserves them.

Book is empty after transfer: Usually means the EPUB is corrupt or Amazon rejected it due to unsupported elements. Try re-converting from the source.

Conclusion

Reading Arabic on Kindle is possible and practical, but it requires your source file to be in the right format. If you have scanned Arabic books and want to read them on Kindle, the first step is converting them into proper EPUBs.

Try Nassiq for free — upload a scanned Arabic PDF and get an EPUB ready to transfer to Kindle in minutes.