I've been a proud Kindle Scribe user for over a month now, and it's hard to believe that a digital notebook was able to completely replace the stack of spiral-bound paper on my desk. But what I've also discovered is that the Scribe offers a spectacular reading experience, too.
But there's one little toggle on the screen that drives me up a wall, and it's only on the Scribe. Why? Because any other time you're using the Scribe, you need it to move between writing utensils. But I found a way to hide the toolbar, and it only takes a few taps to turn your Scribe back into a distraction-free reading device. Here's how.
How to remove the toolbar from your Kindle Scribe's screen
It doesn't work in notebooks
When you open a book on your Kindle Scribe, there are two things you'll see on the screen that aren't present on regular Kindles: the toolbar and a pop-out annotation canvas. While they're very useful if you're a consistent annotator or like to mark up your e-book with fountain pens, I find them plain annoying.
If I'm reading on my e-reader for entertainment, I don't annotate or even highlight any passages. I'm there to enjoy my book, and I want my distraction-free reading device to actually be free of distractions. So, I decided to hide both of those irritable little icons whenever I'm reading on my scribe with the following taps:
- Tap the top of your screen.
- Tap the stop-light menu icon on the far right.
- Select Hide Writing Toolbar.
Voila -- when your screen refreshes, there shouldn't be any icons left on the screen. The process is just as easy to reverse, say, if you open up a professional document that needs note-taking. Follow the same steps as above, and select Show Writing Toolbar where you clicked 'hide' before.
You cannot hide the Writing Toolbar inside your Notebooks. There really isn't a reason to, especially because the only thing you can do in your notebooks is use the writing tool. However, it does make a huge difference when it comes reading regular e-books on the Kindle Scribe.