What file format has "Kindle edition"? - (Dec/13/2012 )

I don´t have a Kindle reader but being interested in digital text books; what actually file format is behind the term "Kindle edition"? Is it pdf?

Kindle has its own file format azw- or whatever it is called, and a Kindle edition is made to be used by kindle then (and only Kindle, nothing else)....early Kindles did not even accept normal pdfs, but you had to send the pdf to amazon that they converted it (or not, I guess copyright issues were the reason and of course politics to force you to have an exclusive provider ).
More modern Kindle versions accept now pdfs, but no idea if there is still some copyright check and worries.
Anyway for me it was always a reason not to buy it as I'd like to read my papers with it and didn't want to send them to amazon and I'd perhaps also like to get ebooks from other sources except amazon...

thanks, very nice explanation but one thing: Do you know the specific Kindle formate is convertable to pdf?

there are conversion apps available to convert to or from kindle format. an example for the mac is mac ebook converter.

here is one for the pc: kindle pc converter.

on the other hand, you can get an app for any platform to read kindle books.

THNX!