web-based or online book reader?

[lady_morana]

I have friends who would like to try out e-books without investing in either the software or hardware.

I am also not talking about the library experience. I am looking for a site that will allow you to either upload a book of your own or link to a book already stored someone online.

Then the person could have an interface to read it as a book.

The problem I have is if it is an e-book and it opens in Acrobat reader, Acrobat is just not what most e-books should be read in. If it is how-to manual or a school book, then it is fine. But an actual book with mostly text just doesn't flow in Acrobat.

PDFs will open in Acrobat and RTF and TXT will open in MSWord. But again, those are not what e-books should be read in. Too much work to really enjoy a long book.

So does anyone know of a site like this? Where you can open up simple books and have an ebok interface available? Making it convienient and enjoyable to read for the relative newcomer.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

lady_morana,

Be aware that most e-reading software is FREE to download and install, including the most popular ones like Mobipocket, eReader and MS Reader. You'll pay for e-books only, and if you look in places (like this site), you can find e-books available for free. (My books site also has a free anthology of short stories to download.)

Otherwise, it sounds like you're talking about simply reading a book from your web browser. Take a look around for the e-book sites that offer the entire book's text online (usually for free), and you can do that. There won't be too many pay sites that will allow you to read from your browser, beyond a chapter or so.

I seem to remember some sites that packaged the e-book with its own built-in proprietary reader software, but I don't know if any of them are still active. This would be, in effect, allowing them to automatically install their reader on your PC, so it might not be what you want... unless the only reason you don't want to install reader software, is that you don't want to have to physically do the install yourself.

[JSWolf]

And Connect is free too for reading the LRF books posted here. You don't need a Sony Reader to use it to read LRF.

[lady_morana]

When this topic first opened, I had found an online book reader that you could upload books to a site and watch them on a portable device like a PDA. At that time, I did not have anything that would get the web.

Now I have a nice phone that gets the web but I have lost the name of the site.

Anyone have any sites that are readable by a phone online, that does not take a download or anything on a phone besides a browser?

[susan_cassidy]

Baen Books (www.webscription.net) has some free books readable in HTML online. They have science fiction and fantasy.

[DaleDe]

You might want to look at the wiki for free eBooks. There is a section for reading books online.

[lady_morana]

This was a site where I could post my books or ones already on my computer onto the site for reading later.

[Grandma Aubbie]

Before deciding I "needed" an external reader, I downloaded both the Barnes and Noble and the Sony Readers onto my computer. Both were free to download and use.

By signing up with Sony (no purchase required - but a credit card is), I was able to access not only the "Google" free books, but also a lot of free books available from their Web site. Barnes and Noble let you download the first chapter for free, so it's a great way to check out whether you like the software.

Good LUCK!

[kovidgoyal]

bookworm does this i believe

[Sagacity]

These services gives you a server-side user repository of all your files, which can be read in a browser reader. You can authorize who have access to view the file (private or public)...and you can even make conversion from a huge choise of file types.

scribd.com
issuu.com

Both can be accessable from within a Facebook API.

best of luck ;-)

[gazza]

I use eReader on iPod Touch but there is a limit to the number of books.
Thus I decided to switch to Stanza.
I thought -- which shows how little I know but I am learning -- that Stanza was in some way connected to Calibre.
This may not be so.
But I still want a truly simple way to load ebooks -- I can fix the format -- on to Stanza. Anyone any ideas. Is Calibre involved in this?
An example of the sort of help I am looking for. For eReader I have this very short help file:

Here are the steps:
1. create pdb files remembering to make single pars without extra spaces.
2. go to ereader.com
3. Go to Sign In.
3. access Your Bookshop and click on PERSONAL CONTENT
4. locate a small window with words like "upload file".
5. Browse for a pdb file, then click GO
6. the pdb file should appear in the listing below.
7. use iPod wifi to grab.
And it works.
Can someone do something similar for Calibre and/or Stanza. Me, I am totally bewildered at the moment.
Gazza in Sydney where the summer is coming on

[owlrigh]

The programs I use:

FBReader -- I like the layout of this one, how you can tinker with book details in your library. It has limited filetype support, although it works well with EPUB.

uBook -- It doesn't have much in the way of library support, but you can change layout of the books to a certain degree, the sharpness and feathering of fonts. It supports EPUB, HTML, TXT, RTF, CHM, RB, PDB and PRC (unsecure). You can set it to "roll" down pages.

Microsoft Reader -- Very slick looking LIT reader. Can handle secure LIT files (of course...)

Mobipocket Reader -- If you join one of the libraries (i.e. Fictionwise library) you can use this one to read a fair number of books! Handles secure PRC files.

Those are the ones I've on my computer, and make use of.

On my Ipod Touch I have Amazon Kindle App and Stanza; they work very well for what I want to do, although I wish I could read the Fictionwise library books I'm sure someday a mobipocket app for iphone will be release ... although rumours go that Amazon quashed it. Sigh.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by gazza

Can someone do something similar for Calibre and/or Stanza.

They're not exactly connected but Calibre does have support for Stanza.

1. Install Calibre on your desktop, select an empty folder as your Calibre library folder. Using your existing library folder will result in a huge mess and quite a bit of frustration on your part.
2. Enable/Start the Calibre content server (Preferences >> Content Server). You might want to set it to run automatically.
3. Add/import ebooks to Calibre. Stanza supports eReader and ePUB format. If your ebooks are not in this format, Calibre can convert a number of different formats (LIT, MOBI, RTF, HTML, etc) to ePUB/eReader.
4. Open Stanza iPhone and go to Shared Books. You should now see an entry for Books in calibre.

[Rootman]

Of course Project Gutenberg has scores of HTML Public Domain books that will display on any browser:
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

If you're willing to use Firefox as a browser there is a nifty add-on that works superbly for .epub files.

Firefox:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html

The add-on:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/45281

[zelda_pinwheel]

bookworm is a browser-based epub reading app which sounds like just what you want : http://bookworm.oreilly.com/ you can get plenty of free epubs here, from feedbooks, on project gutenberg, from the adobe site, manybooks, etc.