Reading on your Palm
These are a list of programs, accessories and Internet content that I have and use on my Visor Deluxe. This is not an exhaustive list, say, of all document readers and formats, but just the ones that I like and use.
Contents
Document Readers
CSpotRun
CSpotRun is a free reader for documents that are in the DOC format. This is great
application with lots of advanced features. Considering 80% of the the e-text available
on the Internet are in DOC format, this is the way to go.
Supported Formats: DOC
iSilo
My favorite. I own a registered version.
It also has a desktop companion, iSiloX, that
can convert a variety of formats to the iSilo3 version. It can also spider web-sites
and put them on your PDA for later viewing.
Supported Formats: DOC, iSilo, iSilo3
MakeDocW
MakeDocW is not a document reader. It converts HTML (stripping
tags) or ASCII to DOC, and converts DOC to ASCII. If you are using CSpotRun,
you'll need this to convert PC text documents to the Palm DOC format.
MobiPocket
The reader is free and the web-site offers a large collection of free e-books as well.
The MobiPocket Web Companion can convert text and HTML documents and snag web-sites
for offline viewing. The MobiPocket Publisher lets you create you own e-books. There
is also a MobiPocket Reader Emulator to view these e-books on your desktop.
Supported Formats: DOC, HTML, Open-eBook (OEB)
Plucker
This is an excellent reader that's open source and handles
HTML-formatted input. An included set of scripts will spider HTML
pages which you specify to a supplied depth, parse them on your desktop machine,
and transfer to the Palm for viewing by Plucker.
Supported Formats: Plucker
Free E-Books
Fiction Wise
A good collection of free e-books in various formats. Free registration required.
You can also get lots of books for under $1, and in various price ranges.
Memoware
A huge collection of free e-books for Palm, EPOC or Pockect PC. References
as well as fiction.
PDABooks
A large collection of Palm DOC formatted public domain books.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg e-texts are in plain vanilla ASCII. So you will need a DOC
converter to add these to your PDA.
Free-ePress
Free e-books in a variety of formats as well as regular columns by authors. My favorite
column is Writing on your Palm by Jeff Kirvin.
Palm Document Formats
DOC : The oldest document format for the PalmOS, the venerable DOC format was pioneered by Aportis, Inc., and must not be confused with files produced by a common desktop word processing program. There are now many programs ("readers") for this format available and many readers that handle custom formats also handle DOC files. A very popular free program to read DOC files is CSpotRun.
iSilo : One of the first readers to handle HTML documents, iSilo preserves formatting and hyperlinks in a document. In addition to the reasonably priced full-featured version, there is a free version with reduced functionality available. iSilo can read DOC files as well as its own.
Open eBook : The purpose of the Open eBook (OEB) is to provide a specification for representing the content of electronic books. The specification is based on HTML and XML and is designed to allow publishers and authors to deliver their material in a single format. MobiPocket can read DOC files as well as OEB format.
Plucker : Like iSilo and MobiPocket, Plucker supports clickable images, italics, multiple databases, configurable display parameters and stylus options, compression, Perl and Python conduits and parsers and a Windows fully-integrated installer,
Other Resources
Memoware has a great page on Document File Formats.
NearlyMobile is a good resource for newbies and beginner PalmOS device users.
FreewarePalm and PalmGear is where I get all my Palm software.
The Gadgeteer has reviewed several Palm DOC readers.
ReadDocJ is a Java based DOC reader that can be used on any platform that supports Java. EasyDOC lets you read DOC files on Windows.
Comments
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Posted by: Buoe | December 7, 2003 11:16 PM
greetings. i have a little problem i hope you can help me. i tried to download an ebook from memoware.com but unfortunately i cannot view it.
the ebook's format is plucker and do you have any suggestions if there are any converters from plucker to doc? thanks!
Posted by: Joanna | February 2, 2004 11:52 AM
Joanna,
I do not know of any programs to convert Plucker documents to a Palm DOC format. It's probably easier to install Plucker on your Palm to view the Plucker documents. Plucker also has a desktop version.
Here's a great resource on converting between Palm document formats: http://www.handebooks.com/converters/
Posted by: anupriyo | February 2, 2004 12:31 PM
If you do go to the trouble of converting a document from Project Gutenberg to DOC or some other Palm-ready format, please consider submitting the result to MemoWare.
Posted by: doug | March 3, 2004 03:19 PM
There is a Ruby script called doc2plucker that will convert Palm docs into plucker format.
Posted by: Dienkuan | July 15, 2004 08:31 AM
hey there,
cudnt open that link...
am new to palm n still trying to get a hang of it... got a palm tungsten W
do u hv ne ebooks available with u ?
some sites
http://palmgear.com/
http://www.freewarepalm.com/
http://palmtops.about.com/cs/alternativepdas/tp/Palm%20Freeware.htm
at the mmt i need a doc reader and POOL (game) are there ne good games u hv come accross or ne utility which is really useful apart fr what u hv mentioned ?
if u hv ne links do post.
thanks
Posted by: Kunal | April 18, 2005 04:07 AM
HELP! i have the handy book in my cellphone (nokia 6600). my friend send me via email this .rar ebook. can i read it in my handy book? she said i need a converter? how & where could i get it? how do i know which converter to use? tnx!
Posted by: lj | July 8, 2005 06:30 PM
Hi,
Can anyone tell me where I can find a conversion tool from .rar format to .doc format-thanks Simha
Posted by: simha | October 13, 2005 07:47 AM