Books

Introduction

An E-book is simply a book that is stored in a computer and read on a computer screen. It is entirely data and does not include any application. This last point is stretched somewhat by recent versions of Adobe Acrobat's PDF reader which can handle embedded Javascript applications in a PDF document. But for the purposes of the OLPC we should restrict ourselves to the simpler, pure data E-book.

Ebook Formats

DejaVU

The DJVU format was developed in order to provide a much higher level of compression for scanned paper books, than existing formats like JPEG and TIFF can provide.

PDF

The PDF format is a simplified form of the Postscript programming language that only includes the commands necessary to paint ink on the page. It is easy to create since one only needs to use the Print function of a word processing or drawing application.

XML and HTML

These are not really E-book formats but they have been used to store E-books, both for special purpose E-book readers and for simply reading through a web browser. The OLPC does include a web browser.

LOUT and LaTeX

powerfull and easy to read!

Ebook Readers

Evince

The Evince E-book reader is part of the OLPC project. Currently it supports DJVU, PDF, Postscript and DVI. The OLPC project will likely include only DJVU and PDF as well as an XML/HTML based format. It will also likely have a modified UI targetted to kids.

Plucker

A popular E-book reader for Palm. It could be ported to OLPC.

FBReader

And open source E-book reader.

OLPC Features

There are some pages already discussing how Ebook formats and Ebook readers could be specially adapted to the OLPC.

• Discussion of eBook feature set
• Wiki as an ebook reader