IPhone is reigning almost all the areas of mobile technology today. Although I am not a fan of IPhone but this statement is almost undeniable that Apple with IPhone (today) is the leader in Mobile technology world (with the fuzz of Android phones (which is yet to establish a trust in the crowd), I would keep my above statement reserved).
Amazon’s Kindle is a eBook reader gadget that revolutionized the eBook reading off the PC boxes. Many companies like Sony and now Microsoft (with Cruise it recently jumped into this eBook gadget business) have introduced reader gadgets with one or other distinguishing feature but same purpose to provide the best a real life book reading experience to the users on the go.
IPhone also has got a cool free app called Stanza, which is in no way behind the rest of the exclusive ebook reader gadgets in the market. If you are fine with reading on IPhone size screen, then perhaps this is the best app available for free.
I am not here to provide my review or feedback (that you can find easily if you google), but to provide a way to access your favorite ebook (.pdf, etc) on your IPhone.
It is a two step process to import and use your ebook on your IPhone (although I will take an example of a .pdf ebook but it should work with many different file formats):
- Convert the pdf ebook into epub format ( this is a format supported by Stanza app).
- Port the book on your IPhone.
What all you will require:
1. An IPhone (Ofcourse)
2. Stanza Application (Download it from Apple Store for free)
3. Calibre (free, cross-platform, open source file format converter and ebook Manager)
Convert pdf to epub: There are two ways to convert the file from pdf to epub format and porting it to your IPhone:
- Use the free Online website service epub2go to convert the book. Note: This website supports only .pdf ebooks. Just upload your pdf and provide the email ID where they can mail you the converted epub book. Once the conversion is complete, this service will mail the ebook generated to your mail ID.
- The other and better option is to install Calibre ebook Manager application. This is free, open source and cross-platform application that can convert many ebooks (supports multiple formats, almost all) into the epub format. This application also lets you edit the metadata information (author, pub date, etc) about the ebook (if it could not figure that out by itself during the book import). Import and convert the ebook into epub format. Once the application converts the book to epub format, send it to your mailID as an attachment.
- If you have the Mail service configured on IPhone, you will receive the book as an attachment. Simply open the mail and click on the attached eBook. IPhone will automatically launch Stanza application and open the ebook. Also it will save the ebook into its “Downloaded” category for your offline view.
That’s it. You are all set to go with your decent, ebook reader alternative. I consider the reading experience very good and have read a couple of books on my mobile 🙂
Please feel free to post your feedback and if you find some more alternate ways to port ebooks on your IPhone/IPOD.
Shwetabh's Blog 