Hi again Mark,
It looks like Microsoft wants to get into the eBook business.
For those who want to join in this discussion, Microsoft Reader is a product
that lets you read electronic books. You can visit Microsoft's web site on
this product here:
http://www.microsoft.com/reader/default.asp
Poking around that site indicates there is a Windows-only add-in that lets
Word create documents eBook format.
There's also a document that explains what kind of file eBooks are made of,
which is XHTML with some reader supported tags from the Open eBook
specification. The document is huge and I only skimmed a few pages, so
there's a lot more I am not explaining here. The fact that it is an open
specification is intriguing since that implies that the OpenSource community
might have or be able to create a program to handle these files.
I tried without luck to download one of the sample eBooks. The URLs seem to
be dead. I would first try using Adobe Reader to see if they open there. If
not, then I'd look in Version Tracker to see what's there. \
Meanwhile, sending feedback to Microsoft to request Reader capabilities is
able to be done here:
http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp
My first impression of the standards is that although the standards are
open, it may require proprietary software to open eBooks created by various
companies. So send your feature suggestions to Microsoft via the link.
-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
All responses should be made to this newsgroup within the same thread.
Thanks.
About Microsoft MVPs:
http://www.mvps.org/
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