ePubs?

[MikeV99]

What is the most flexible way to buy and read electronic books? I am interested in having electronic versions of technical books, e.g. Photoshop guides.

I want to be able to buy a book and read it on an iPad, iPhone, PC desktop & laptop, and on Macs. I would like to be able to use cloud technology such as DropBox to save space on the mobile device. I want a reasonably easy way to move a book to a new device when it is upgraded. I do not want to pirate or share books with anyone, I just want to have flexibility on where I read something. It seems as though the secure and DRM'd formats are not very user friendly.

The reader should have a robust user interface.

Further, I want to be able to bookmark, highlight and annotate text in the book. I want to be able to do searches for words & phrases. I would like to be able to print a single page at a time.

Is it possible to be able to do all of the above things?

Thanks,

Mike



How can this be done?

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[twerppoet]

For DRM books, only Amazon's Kindle app will load and sync books on all the devices you mentioned; however it does not support ePub.

Stanza is available on all devices and OSes mentioned. It offers the ability to copy books from the computer to iOS devices, though it's not what you could call syncing. The Windows version was beta last time I checked. But it does support ePub (non DRM only). Not the best reader, but probably the most versatile when it comes to formats.

 

[MikeV99]

Kindle seems to be a fairly robust reader. Books purchased on Amazon are kept sync'd with regard to annotations, bookmarks, and last page read.

I converted an ePub to mobi and stored it on DropBox. I could then read it in Kindle on the laptop & iPad. Unfortunately annotations, bookmarks, and last page read are not sync'd from the iPad back to the DropBox (desktops and laptops use the same file on the DropBox and can share the information).

Does one want to be limited to one vendor - most likely more than one reader will be needed?

I will next look at Stanza/iBooks with ePubs (PC Stanza? or Calibre).

Regards,

Mike

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[twerppoet]

Calibre is probably a bit better for doing file conversions on Windows PCs, but it does not have an iPad app. Stanza does, though the integration isn't good enough to make it a must-have on the PC. I use it because it works fairly well on the iMac, and I haven't run into anything it would not do that Calibre will.

I also use iBooks. But iBooks Store books can only be read on an iOS device. There is no Windows or even Mac OSX reader. That is why I did not mention it. It does make a very good stand alone reader for DRM free ePub books. I transfer my ePubs to iBooks instead of Stanza by preference, because it's just a nicer experience.

I don't limit myself to one app. I have just about all of the better known ones, just in case. But, the three I use the most are Kindle, iBooks, and Stanza.

 

[MikeV99]

Makes sense. Thank you for your insight.

Mike

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[MikeV99]

FYI - I just read this over at Stanza (sic):

"All the signs are at Stanza has been abandoned. There has been no sign of Stanza support for over a year now.

Ever since Amazon bought LexCycle development seems to have basically stopped. One assumes that Amazon are going to let Stanza die by neglect.

Since I find that Stanza does not run on IOS 5 (at least on the beta 2 release) without an update it will shortly be dead in the water."

Mike

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[twerppoet]

grrrrr!

Oh well. Thanks for the heads up. I'll have to start looking for some other reader/method that will let me read my old ereader.com books on the iPad.

 

[Nevis99]

I just tried a setup that works ! I was also looking for an eReader that can handle books purchased online as well as my existing PDF files. I came across an iPad App -"Bluefire Reader" that can handle most, if not all , formats. You should also install another iPad App - "Dropbox", you need the Desktop application also on your PC. The books (files) are uploaded (or dropped) into "Dropbox" . On your iPad2, select the file that you've placed in the dropbox and direct the file to be Opened with "Bluefire Reader".

If the eBook is copyright controlled, you will need to "authorize" Bluefire Reader with Adobe. You'll be directed through this during the setup of Bluefire.

Good luck.

 

[MikeV99]

I just tried a setup that works ! I was also looking for an eReader that can handle books purchased online as well as my existing PDF files. I came across an iPad App -"Bluefire Reader" that can handle most, if not all , formats. You should also install another iPad App - "Dropbox", you need the Desktop application also on your PC. The books (files) are uploaded (or dropped) into "Dropbox" . On your iPad2, select the file that you've placed in the dropbox and direct the file to be Opened with "Bluefire Reader".

If the eBook is copyright controlled, you will need to "authorize" Bluefire Reader with Adobe. You'll be directed through this during the setup of Bluefire.

Good luck.

What do you use on the PC? If I understand what I have read, the pub is added to its catalog and kept on the device. Any annotations are only available to that device (I.e. no sharing between iPad and iPhone)?

Mike

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[Nevis99]

What do you use on the PC? If I understand what I have read, the pub is added to its catalog and kept on the device. Any annotations are only available to that device (I.e. no sharing between iPad and iPhone)?

Mike

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I have"Dropbox" on the PC, and dropped the files. I don't have an iPhone.