Apps for Reading PG eBooks Offline

by George Davis on June 6, 2007
Reading Apps

Project Gutenberg is a web-based electronic re-publisher of (primarily) public domain works. Being web-based, most of the eBooks in the collection are readable in a web browser, either on-line or off-line, regardless of computer operating systems. While on-line reading is possible, most users download the eBooks for reading off-line.

It is safe to say that the largest number of readers of PG eBooks do so with computers based on the Windows operating system. For reading eBooks, either a web browser (most often Internet Explorer) or Windows Notepad are the two most recommended programs.

But those are not necessarily the best applications for the purpose. Notepad is primarily a text editor, not a file viewer; and using a web browser for reading eBooks is — at least some of the time — something like using an 18-wheeler to do your grocery shopping. Fortunately, there are a few other options out there which cost nothing but the time to download — they are freeware — and offer a more user-friendly interface with eBooks.

You can find alternatives by searching the internet for “etext readers”, “ebook readers”, “file viewers”, and so on. But to get you started, here are a couple of suggestions:

WnBrowse

WnBrowse is a file viewer, for viewing text files, as well as HEX and EBCDIC (don’t bother with these last two, PG doesn’t offer eBooks in these formats). It works really well with plain text as well as 8-bit text files (those with accented characters); and depending on your system configuration, it will probably work with Unicode files. It’s easy to adjust it’s interface, including font, font size, text color and background color.

The next two are eBook readers, that is, they were designed for reading eBooks, and are particularly useful for those from Project Gutenberg; they both enhance the eBook reading experience, especially in comparison to a text editor or a file viewer.

Of particular note is that both of the following programs automatically reformat the paragraphs in PG’s plain text files, removing the hard carriage returns at the end of each line. That results in making these files much more readable.

yBook Reader

yBook Reader is a free ebook reader that visually “simulates” the look and feel of an actual paperback (see screenshots) and supports TXT, HTML, RTF, PDB and PRC ebook formats. (Note that at this time, HTML with images cannot be viewed within the downloaded HTML zip files; they must be extracted in the same folder structure as contained in the zip file, i.e. images in the images directory, etc.). yBook includes a number of useful features such as bookmarking, search, and custom formatting capabilities.

Basically, yBook provides a “paper book” simulation on the computer screen: you have two pages side-by-side instead of just one in the middle of your screen (it can be configured for viewing in single-page mode, suitable for tablet-type PCs in portrait mode); the pages turn when you click them. Also: runs on any Windows PC (Win95 or later); resize the pages, adjust the margins, set text and paper colour; text search for words or phrases; bookmarks; text sizes from tiny to HUGE; no zooming, panning or scrolling; automated direct download of selected PG eBooks, with index; internationalized menus (Spanish, German, etc.).

One additional option: yBook can be installed to a memory stick, AKA a USB drive; see the web site for more information.

eTextReader

The second eBook reader which you might want to look at is Tom’s eTextReader (aka, eTR). Note that some of the more advanced features are part of the current (as of May 2007) beta version of the software. If you know what that means, and are comfortable with using beta software, then don’t hesitate to look at this program. For what it’s worth, this writer has been using the latest beta version (1.9.1) for some time now without any problems. Your mileage may vary!

Like yBook, eTextReader enables you to read the plain text files in a book-like manner. Again, you can change the font type and size, choose colors for text background, set bookmarks, adjust margins, find words or phrases and more. The program can open the text files directly from the Project Gutenberg zip file, and also import RTF and HTML files. Other features include text editing, table of contents creation and more.

Like yBook, eTR also includes a “PG Browser”: an interface for selecting and downloading eBooks directly from Project Gutenberg.

eTR works with MS Word DOC files (those with the file extension .doc); yBook reader doesn’t. (Probably not an issue, as there are very few DOC files in the collection.)

eTextViewer

One other program worth considering is eTextViewer. Many of the same basic features as the above, but it doesn’t support HTML, and doesn’t have an interface for connecting to PG for direct downloading of eBooks. It’s been around quite a while, is very stable, and handles Unicode files more than adequately.

All of these programs are worth a look. This writer has all of them installed, and uses them interchangeably, with no problems.

(Note: Project Gutenberg cannot provide any technical assistance or support for the above, we just don’t have the manpower or resources. But the program authors have always seemed responsive to queries, and suggestions for improvements as well as bug reports).

The above are for the Windows platform only. If anyone out there has experience with eBook readers for other platforms, consider writing an article for inclusion in a future issue of the newsletter.

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Rob Prince July 29, 2008 at 7:38 pm

I tried Tom’s ebook reader. Imported a Gutenberg html file, but it seemed only to recognize the first two pages, whereas ybook reader had the whole thing up, turning pages, no problem. Tom’s seems to be still very much a beta model. Looks amateurish. Poor help files. Needs some work, methinks.