An Easy Ebook Reader and Compiler

You probably haven't heard too much about the Microsoft Reader 2.0 for Windows-based PCs, laptops, and Pocket PC 2002, but it is still in development and being used by many professional publishers. Click Here to see a video (Windows Media Player required) of Bill Hill, a Researcher in the Microsoft eBook group talk about the vision behind Microsoft Reader and demonstrate the product.

About a year I published one of my eBooks in Reader format. I wasn't real happy with the tools available at that time to publish but I was impressed at how easy the type was to read. They claim they use a technology called "ClearType that enhances display resolution by as much as 300 percent by improving letter shapes and character spacing, making them appear more detailed, more finely crafted, and more like printed fonts."

Recently there has been a free "add in " released for Microsoft Word 2000 and 2002 users which installs a Macro into Word so you can create an eBook in Microsoft Reader format with the click of a button. It doesn't get any easier then this....

If you are a Microsoft Word user, you have probably noticed how closely integrated all the Microsoft Products are. If you are using MSIE 6.0 it is an easy matter to copy the text from a web page by highlighting it and choosing "Ctrl+C" to copy it to your clipboard. Then you can open a new Word document and use Ctrl+V to PASTE the contents into the new Word document. In most cases you will need to do very little re-formatting (although a little will be required). So once you have copied your web pages into your new word document, you push the button and create an eBook in Reader format.

For MSIE users, when a "*.lit" file is clicked on from the web, it will automatically download and open the document in the Reader. This is very similar to those who use the "web link" feature in Adobe Acrobat. (When they click on a PDF file on the web, the file downloads and opens in the Acrobat Reader.) But not all browsers treat "*.lit" files the same. If you use a different type of browser there is a good chance it will download and display a mess of weird character in your browser.

When someone requests a file from a server, the server identifies the MIME type and passes this information along with the file to the browser. Browser MIME types can be created and configured as well for individual users. The problem is that most servers don't recognize lit files and tell browsers, that don't understand the MIME type either, that it is ASCII text. This is why you get a million or so binary characters displaying in your browser.

The work-around for this would be to include the "lit" extension described as "application/octet-stream" so it would prompt the browser to download rather then open an unknown binary file.

I've used this trick a time or two with PDF files. I have some customers who do not want their PDF file opened in the users web browser. Instead, they want the user to be prompted to SAVE the file. You can temporarily alter the servers MIME settings by placing the information I gave you in an .htaccess file (assuming you are hosted on a server that supports htaccess.)

If you don't know how to do this, then you could probably find a script that would make used of the Perl Module Base64 and EMAIL the file to them when they request it.

OK, Steve, you've taken what seemed easy at first and turned it into a fiasco. (he-he)

The EASIEST way to do it is to ZIP the lit file, and let your users download and unzip it. Then you don't have to worry about .htaccess and configuring MIME extensions.

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