Turn your computer into an ebook reader
I have just bought a new ebook reader – it can read my
Kindle books of course. But it is just as happy with titles for the Nook, Epub
formats for the Sony and it open Adobes ebook format without any problem. It can
even cope with Microsoft contribution to the eformat. It will also handle Google
Editions when they fill the cloud with ebooks.
As well as coping with every eformat, it has a colour
display and a battery that lasts all day. Plus it gets my email, allows me to
browse the web and plays my music.
You’ve probably guessed that I am not talking about
one of the dedicated ereaders, such as Kindle, but about my netbook PC. It is
just an ordinary computer, with a few bits of downloaded software to turn it
into a universal ebook reader.
It is twice the size of a Kindle, twice the weight of
an Ipad. But in exchange, but I have a bigger screen than most ereaders. I will
of course, not be lying back in the bath with my computer but I wouldn’t risk my
Kindle if I was having a soak. In bed, on the train or slumped in my reading
seat, my netbook has a built-in bookstand (ie it folds) allowing me to read, hands-free.
The downside is that I can’t slip it into a jacket
pocket but two encounters with pick-pockets mean that I keep my electronics in a
holdall. And the epaper or eink for Kindle, Nook and Sony readers is wonderfully
clear and easy on the eye. So my netbook will not stop me using my Kindle – It
just offers me more options.
So, if you want to turn your computer into an ebook
reader, there are free-to-download applications to allow you to have your own
ereaders right now. To turn a computer into a flexible ebook, all I had to do
was to download the various pc versions of the readers. Details of how to do
this are below.
There are four main flavours available.
- Adobe Digital Editions - (.epub and .pdf)
- The Microsoft Reader - (.lit)
- eReader (.pdb) – to reach iPod Touch and iPhone users
- Kindle reader (.awz and .opf) – Amazon’s offering
(There is also VitalBook (.vbk) – an interactive
format used for educational material.)
All of these can be downloaded free of charge. Most
sites have some free content that you can download.
To recap a few bits of jargon, ebook-files come in
different flavours and so you need the right readers to open them. It is not too
complicated as there is Epub format and the rest. Among ‘the rest’, the Kindle
format is the major player. There are more formats and but most readers can
manage to read quite an assortment of file-formats.
The other techie idea you need to know about is that
most files have a Digital Rights Management system (DRM) sets to limit how the
file can be read and moved between devices. Some let you print bits of text but
at the moment, publishers are being fairly restrictive in what they let you do
with your ebook.
Just a single word of warning: There is no guarantee
that a book you have bought for your PC can be transferred to another device.
The ebook is where itunes was 3 years ago: you risked loosing all your music if
your computer crashed or you even wanted to update your Ipod because you were
not allowed to make any copies. This will sort itself out when customers start
to make a fuss and Amazon's Kindle is already setting the standard. (It is truly
wonderful the way your library is synchronised on all your devices). But just be
careful if you are parting with any serious money for ebooks that you will be
able to move your library between devices.
So this is what you have to do:
The reader-software is all free and is easy to find
and download.
Unlike Acrobat, Adobe’s PDF Reader, Adobe Digital
Editions is a ‘light’ application, just a 4MB download on Windows. But it allows
you to organize and read e-books in PDF and Epub format.
Epub is the format used by the Kobo eReader, Apple
iPad, Barnes and Noble Nook, Sony Readers, Lexcycle Stanza, WordPlayer on
Android and the Mozilla Firefox add-on EPUBReader. I have successfully moved DRM-protected
e-books to many of these other mobile devices from my PC.
Adobe Digital Editions (version 1.7.2
at
the time of writing )
http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/
(There are some PDF ebooks around
which you can read using Acrobat, and the chances are you will already
have it on your computer. Acrobat has a read outloud feature - a
computer-generated voice can read the text to you. Sadly, this feature is not
available inside Digital Editions.
