Google has taken on the task of digitizing (scanning) all of the world's books and making them available at their http://books.google.com website.
The AA1 is great for reading these books via a web browser (my preference is Firefox), and even better for reading them offline when you don't have an available internet connection, or want to disable wireless to save your battery. The screen format lends itself to viewing a page, and the weight of the AA1 is comparable to a hard cover book. A subset of the books Google makes available are known as "Full view", meaning you can read the entire book through the website, or even download a PDF of the book for offline reading. The latter is what we're going to work on.
The XP version of the AA1 comes with Adobe Acrobat reader, version 9. This can be used to read any of the books you download as a PDF file, in a natural way. Start by bringing up your favorite web browser and open up the Google Books page: http://books.google.com. Type the name of a book you're looking for (or an author's name) in the search box, and click "Search Books". I'm searching for the classic Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars.
Once the search is complete, make sure it's a book you're able to download (A Princess of Mars is, because the copyright has expired). To do this, drop down the "Showing" box, and select "Full view only". That will refresh the page with a list of books that are available for download.
This takes us to all of the matches for A Princess of Mars -- click on the title to go to the book view page:
Click "Download PDF", "Save File", and "OK" to get the browser to ask you where you want to save it:
I save my eBooks in "My Documents->My eBooks" -- save yours wherever you'd like.
Now, either open Windows Explorer and navigate to "My Documents->My eBooks" and double click the PDF file you just saved, or open Acrobat Reader and find your book through the File->Open menu entry. You're almost ready to read offline!
Once the book is up and displayed in Acrobat, click on the icon to "Show One Page At A Time".
Now, go to View->Rotate View->Counterclockwise.
If you noticed the entry two lines down from Rotate View on the menu, you probably know what to do next -- type a <ctrl>L -- that will switch Acrobat to full screen mode. Your e-book should now be taking up the entire screen in landscape mode, and be ready for reading.
Use the Up Arrow key to go to the previous page, and the Down Arrow key for the next page. I find this just about as comfortable as holding a hard cover book.
To return Acrobat to "normal" mode, type another <ctrl>L. Thanks to PhyrePhox, you can make Acrobat Reader remember where you were when you "closed" your book. Just go to Edit->Preferences->Documents, and check the box that says "Restore last view settings when reopening documents". Next time you open your book, it'll be on the page you left it.
RLW
