Pros and Cons of Reading on the Palm


I've been getting a lot of questions about reading on the Palm lately. Even though I've written articles about Doc readers and Doc file archives before, I decided it was time to answer some of the general questions I get, mainly what are the advantages and disadvantages of reading on the Palm.

I almost never read hard copy books anymore. I use my Palm Pilot as an e-book reader, and have almost since day one. A lot of people are concerned that the small screen will make reading difficult, but it doesn't. I don't even notice when I switch screens; it is just as automatic as turning the page of a paper book but much quicker and less obtrusive. Reading on a Palm has several advantages over paper books:

  1. Thousands of books and reference files are available for free from MemoWare and other archives
  2. You can carry ten or more books with you at any given time without carrying a huge backpack that weighs forty pounds
  3. You can adjust the fonts, line spacing, and screen orientation
  4. You can search the texts for specific words or phrases
  5. In some readers you can annotate texts
  6. In some readers you can set the text to scroll at a set pace
  7. You can convert any text or html file into a Doc file

There are several different readers for the Palm, and the exact features available depend on the reader you chose. I like CSpotRun, a free reader which offers all of the features listed above except annotation. It also lets you navigate through the pages by tapping the bottom of the page (to go forward) or the top of the screen (to go back).

There are so many free books available for the Palm that I almost never buy books. However, there are a growing number of retailers that sell e-books in Palm format if I chose to buy them including Peanut Press and FictionWise.

What are the disadvantages of reading on a Palm? I enjoy reading on the Palm so much that I am hard pressed to think of disadvantages, but after some thought here's what I came up with:

  1. Some of the books are formatted badly, with extra hard returns and widow and orphan lines.
  2. Many of the vendors have policies that prohibit lending or, in some cases, actually implement protection schemes that will foil any attempts to share books.

I don't find the bad formatting to be a real problem - I almost don't notice the widow and orphan lines, but I do hear a lot of people complain about them. There are tools that are supposed to remove them, but I don't know how well they work.

The copyright of the article Pros and Cons of Reading on the Palm in Palm Computing Devices is owned by Janice Karin. Permission to republish Pros and Cons of Reading on the Palm in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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