We are living in the digital world where everything is in electronic methods – eCommerce, e-Banking, eTickets, eGift Cards, e-Business, eMarketing, and the list goes on. So why book can’t be an e-book?
Here how it’s done:
- What is E-Book?
- E-Book Format
- How can I read an E-Book?
- Advantages of E-Book
- Disadvantages of E-Book
- Conclusion
What is E-Book? 🕮
An electronic book (e-book or eBook or E-Book) is a book available in digital form to read online which consists of text, images, or both that readable on computers and other electronic devices. However, it is explained as “an electronic version of a printed book”.
E-Books are readable on dedicated e-reader devices and also on any computer that features a controllable viewing screen, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
With print books, readers browse through the book cover image on bookstore websites and select to order the titles online. Then the paper books are delivered to the address of the reader by mail or another delivery service. With E-Books, readers can browse through titles online, when they select and order titles, the E-Book can be sent to them online or the reader can download the E-Book.
The main reasons behind people buying E-Books are possibly lower prices, increased comfort as people can buy them, from anywhere, and a larger selection of titles. With E-Books, electronic bookmarks make referencing easier, and readers may allow the user to add notes to the pages. However fiction and non-fiction come in E-Book formats, technical material is perfectly suited for E-Book delivery because it can be electronically searched for keywords.
In addition, programming books allow readers to copy the code examples for their reference. The amount of E-Book reading is increased than printed books.
E-Book Format 📚
The formats of E-Book got increased since they emerged. Some gathered support from major software companies such as Adobe with its PDF format introduced in 1993. Unlike other formats, PDF document formats are generally constructed in a particular dimension and layout, rather than adjusting dynamically to the current page size.
Every e-reader device followed different formats, most of them accepting books in few formats. Due to the exclusiveness and limited readerships of E-Books, the broken market of independent publishers and specialty authors lacks in agreement for standard packaging and selling E-Books.
Meantime, scholars formed the Text Encoding Initiative that developed agreement guidelines for encoding books and other materials of scholarly interest for a variety of analytic uses as well as reading, and countries literary and other works have been developed using the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative)approach.
Then a consortium formed to develop the Open E-Book format as a way for authors and publishers to provide a single source document to handle by many book-reading software and hardware platforms. Many scholars from the TEI involved in the early development of Open E-Book.
Open E-Book was focused on portability and as required subsets of XHTML and CSS. Then a set of multimedia formats and an XML schema for a “manifest” to list the components of a given E-Book. This format led to the open format EPUB (a file extension).
How can I read an E-Book? 💡
Unlike printed books, you need proper devices to read an E-Book. There are only three ways to read E-Book:
- Portable E-Book Reading Devices
These are small hand-held computers which are known as book mimic. It is the size of a paperback, runs on battery power, and has a back-lit screen. The texts in its display have been downloaded from a computer, and allow the reader to search for keywords, add notes or comments, and add hyperlinks. - On Your PC or Mac using E-Book Reading Software
There is a huge quantity of software on the internet to read an E-Book on the device but there are only two free software packages that can be downloaded straight from the internet.
- Adobe Acrobat Reader
There will be a registration form to fill out, which requires an email address and password. After choosing between Windows or Mac versions, follow the clear on-screen instructions to complete the installation. Application download takes one or two minutes. After download, it provides viewing options and you can highlight text and make your own notes against it.
Your E-Books will be displayed very clearly on your desktop, you just need to click the title to read the book you want.
Download Now - Microsoft Reader
You will be needing a Hotmail password to sign in and the activation process is necessary to use the application. The on-screen instructions for installation are easy to follow and downloading should take two or three minutes but it is not easy as Adobe software to install. However, you can store your titles online which means you can save space.
Download Now
- Handheld Computers and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs)
Handheld computers are miniature computers built around a clamshell form factor and are smaller than standard computers but have the same principles. It is very comfortable to read E-Book and you can take it anywhere you want.
PDA is a variety of mobile devices which is used as a personal information manager. The two free software packages that I described above are also available for PDA.
Advantages of E-Book 💪
- It is environmentally friendly by saving trees for paper
- It provides the title you want to read and the book can be downloaded immediately
- You can carry a number of books on a single device
- There is no need to hear the “out of print” sentence when you need the book
- You can take notes, underline the particular sentence, bookmark the pages, and get more information through hyperlinks
- It can be customized according to your visual needs like you can increase the font size and the back-lighting
- It is a huge advantage for writers because they can bypass the publishing process
Disadvantages of E-Book 👎
- Many E-Books are not available for Mac
- The number of books available in E-Book format is still limited
- E-Books cannot be printed after the download on computer
Conclusion
Convenience is people’s favourite and anything that makes life easier for people is attractive. E-Books are portable and convenient. With the support of E-Book device, you can have a library at your fingertips. You can carry around your favourite books on your iPad, e-Reader, smartphone, or tablet sounds a lot easier than lugging around a thousand paperback books.
So what you think of E-Book? Is it useful for you or not? Share your thoughts with us at LeadMine.
