But, in the meantime, I thought I’d point out how I go about actually reading ebooks rather than just aquiring them. I’ll start with the reading software, and work back to ebook formats.

μBook

If you want to read ebooks comfortably then (in my opinion) μBook the best choice, and the only software you should need. It has support for the most formats, runs on Windows, Pocket PC and now has a ‘lite’ Palm version (Sorry no *nix/OSX – any alternative suggestions in the comments?). It’s not free, but at $15 US I think it is worth it.

In my experience, the main differentiating factor with ebook software is support for formats. Microsoft Reader and eReader only appear to support their own, proprietary formats, which are normally DRMed. Does this seem silly to you? An ebook reader prorgam that cannot even open a text file for reading? Crazy.

Mobipocket has support for a few more formats, such as RTF, HTML and TXT, but μBook has support for many more:

• Renders .TXT, .RTF, .HTML, .PML, .PDB and .PRC (Non-Secure), files book-like.
• Extracts text out of .PDF (Non-Secure) files.
• Displays PRC, RTF and HTML images, .JPG, .GIF, .PNG, .WMF (in RTF) or .BMP.
• Opens text inside .ZIP, .CHM and .RB files, uncompressing paragraphs on the fly, limiting the amount of memory required (except CHM).

It’s that last point that seems most important to me. I think ebooks should be in the most open format that can support all the features required. To me, that would probably be HTML, but with multiple pages, images and style sheets you can end up with a few files per ebook. Μbook (Μ is a capital μ) allows you to zip them up so they can be in a single file.

So, anyway, on to ebook formats.

Ebook Formats

First off the bat, Adobe PDF (as an ebook format) is evil. Very evil. No good unless you want to read them on a screen that is at least as big a sheet of paper. I normally read ebooks on my Pocket PC or my Tablet PC so I need my ebooks to be in a format that can be read on any size screen, and PDF does not cut it in this regard. I normally use Adobe Acrobat to convert the PDFs to something more useful, normally RTF or text. If the PDF is locked so I cannot save it as something else then I don’t read it – too much trouble.

If I’m buying an ebook from somewhere online, like Fictionwise, I normally get (unsecure, DRM-free) Palm Doc (pdb) or Mobipocket (prc) versions, as they work well in uBook.

If I’m getting some short fiction from the web somewhere, I normally try and find a ‘printer-friendly’ format and save the HTML file. If the story has important images, then I use Firefox’s ’save as -> web page, complete’ option to save the page to a folder, and zip that up.

One final suggestion if a website has too much junk around the fiction: Use the Scrapbook extension for firefox. It allows you to save a selection to a file, including all the images.

To the future: OpenReader maybe? Sounds good, but so far its been mostly vaporware its been a long time coming – David’s comment below has details. I really think there needs to be a free and open standard in this space, and I hope it’s not too far away.

Anyway I have a paperback copy of Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card that I no longer need. In the spirit of testing out edgio, I am happy to give it out for what it will cost for me to post it to you (around $AU 5 if you are within Australia).

In the spirit of greed, if anyone wants to pay more, let me know and I will take your money. Payment will be by bank deposit within Australia, paypal if not.

Please leave all offers in the comments. Make sure you enter valid email address (they will not be published or given away under any circumstances). I will send the item off 48 hours after the last (or first-and-only, if any) offer.

I wonder if this will work?

Edgio Tags: For Sale 4509 Brisbane Queensland Australia