Reading Any eBook on a Palm

I think it will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who knows me – I love to read. I read incessantly. The first book I remember reading is Wind In The Willows; I was four years old. In school I would get in trouble constantly for reading a book under my desk while the teacher was lecturing. I read as I walked through the hallways. I find it nearly impossible to eat a meal without something to read in my hands. Book, magazine, cereal box, doesn’t really matter. I just love to read.

So you’d think with this severe love of the written word, I’d be all over the Amazon Kindle, right? Yeah, no, I’ll pass. It’s not that I think it’s not an amazing piece of technology; it absolutely is. It’s just that I have a quite reasonable substitute right here in my hands already, and it cost a fraction the price of a Kindle.

 

My Palm OS Centro is not only a cell phone, web browser, game player, calendar, alarm clock, email client, or any of the dozens of uses I don’t actually use that much – it’s also an ebook reader (also? it’s pretty and red like the one in the picture). Most commonly, I use it as a PDF reader, using Adobe’s free program for Palm OS. This program reformats the text so that it automatically wraps lines, and the text is large enough to read easily.

But here’s the catch: ebooks don’t usually come as PDF. In fact, sometimes the only way to find a book you’re looking for is in LIT format – Microsoft’s proprietary format for ebooks, requiring MS eReader to be used – and I couldn’t find a Palm version, which kind of makes sense, since Microsoft focuses on the PPC market. Note: if I wanted to read an ebook sitting at my computer, MS eReader would do the job nicely.

So how do I get the files onto my Palm Centro, to be read in Adobe PDF Reader? It’s really quite simple, although it does require a few steps. The first method deals with a text file, such as you’d find on Project Gutenberg; the second deals with a LIT file that you want to read on your Palm.

Text to PDF conversion:

1. Find the text you want to put on your Palm. My favorite site is Project Gutenberg, but of course there are no current books listed. For the classics, this is your best bet. Open the text file – I use Open Office Writer, but if you have MS Office on your computer you can use that.
2. Copy the text. Easiest way is to Select All (ctrl A), then Copy (ctrl C).
3. Paste the text into Writer – I’ve also used Google Docs with great success, with the caveat that Docs has a size limit on files. Don’t worry about the formatting of the text, or the size of the font, or any of that.
4. Save the file. Partly because this will become the new PDF’s file name (especially in the case of Google Docs), but also because it’s just a good habit to get into!
5. In Writer: click File, then Export as PDF. In Docs: click File, then Download File As, then PDF. No, really, it’s just that simple. Writer will ask you where to save the file, Docs will simply download via your web browser.

Okay, now we have a PDF of our text. Usually to get a file onto the Palm, one would simply move the file into the HotSync program, then sync with the Palm. This will work to get the file actually onto the device, but Adobe won’t be able to read it, or even know that the file is there. What you need to do now is convert the PDF again, using the Adobe Reader for Palm OS on the desktop computer.

1. Open Adobe Reader for Palm OS on your computer.
2. Select the username for the device you’ll be syncing to, if there is more than one available.
3. Click Add, to add the files you just converted.
4. Wait for the program to convert the file; the length of time this takes will depend on the number of pages in the file.
5. Wait a bit longer. Why I chose a 236-page file to use as my test file is beyond me.
6. Once Adobe Reader has done its conversion, click Exit.
7. Connect the Palm device to the computer and HotSync.
8. On the Palm device, click on Adobe Reader.
9. Happy reading!

But what if the book you’re dying to read (or, in my case, re-read for the umpteenth time) is only available as a LIT file? You guessed it, more conversion! But first, more downloading! There are several options I’ve found, but the easiest is ConvertLit GUI. Install this, then open it.

1. Select Extract from the button options at the top.
2. Click Select Lit File, then find the files to be converted.
3. Click Extract. No, really, it’s just that simple. The files will be extracted as both OPF files and HTML files. Don’t worry about the OPF files, just open the HTML files, then copy and paste into Writer or Docs as above.

And now you’ll never be without something to read. You’re welcome

Note: if you use a Windows Mobile device, these instructions should still work, just download Adobe Reader for PPC instead. 

Postscript: This has become the most-viewed post on my blog in the month since I wrote it. If you found it helpful, please leave a comment and let me know!