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The Microsoft Reader

ClearType and the OEB

The innovation that Microsoft has been touting with its new Reader is a process called "ClearType," which performs some kind of smoke-and-mirror trick with pixels to create letters with sharp edges and smooth curves. ClearType does in fact produce a typeface that's far more readable than anything that's been possible on computer screen before. After seeing it, you'll still prefer to spend your evenings with real books; but even in its early version, this is a major step forward in making e-books a feasible alternative to the printed text.

There's another less publicized, but equally important, feature about the Reader -- it utilizes the emerging Open E-Book (OEB) standard. Why is this important? Because the OEB standard makes e-books widely available to the consumer.

Most of the early e-book developers have depended on their own proprietary formats. Thus, for example, electronic text written for Rocket eBooks can only be displayed on a Rocket eBook reading device. To be available for display on another brand of reader, the text must be reformatted to that other hardware's unique specifications.

This is a clearly inefficient situation. By way of analogy, imagine that every web site on the internet needed to be posted in at least two different formats -- one for Netscape browsers, and another for Internet Explorers. Fortunately, years ago the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) created a uniform specification for browsers to handle hypertext, a development that enabled the phenomenal growth of the world wide web.

What the 3WC did for the internet, OEB will do for e-book technology. With the OEB, a publisher will need to format a book for electronic display only once to make it available to every e-book reading device. The Microsoft Reader gives writers a chance to experiment with the OEB specification today.

Microsoft has been a bully on the electronic playground. Understandably, as a writer you may not want to encourage its further expansion into the publishing industry. But if you can get past your qualms, the Microsoft Reader is program you should examine. Why?

First, contemporary writers need to learn all they can about developments in electronic publishing. The significant news here isn't that Microsoft has developed yet one more software program, but that the Reader is already using the OEB, which is going to become a powerful tool for writers and publishers.

Second, you don't need to buy a book from anybody to start using the Reader. Thousands of titles in the public domain are already available online for immediate, free download. A league of bibliophiles has been busy for months formatting classic works for the Reader. You can find over 1200 titles at the University of Virginia Electronic Text Center. If you don't mind the inconvenience of reading a book on your computer, this is a great way to add to your library of classic literature.

Third, and most important to you as a writer, once you have the Reader on your computer, you can experiment with creating your own electronic books. You do this by going to another site to download the standard version of a new program called ReaderWorks from OverDrive.

Next : Creating Ebooks with ReaderWorks
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