There are literally dozens of ways to publish electronic text these days, from plain ASCII text files to fully formatted proprietary formats. I have chosen three of these ways to publish the vast majority of my books; added together, they cover just about every electronic device on the market. This page explains how each format works, what device they can be used on, and which software is needed to open the files.
.pdf (Postscript Document Format) is a file type invented by the Adobe Corporation; in simplified terms, it takes a "photograph" of a page of text and presents it to you in a version that looks nice on a computer screen and prints to paper with no pixelation. The main software of choice for .pdf files is Acrobat Reader, available for free from Adobe at their website. The chances are most likely, in fact, that Acrobat is already running on your computer, whether or not you realize it. Adobe also makes a version of Acrobat for mobile devices such as Palm and PocketPC; I've been told that it doesn't work very well, however, so please use only at your own risk. (There are also other pieces of software out there that will open .pdf files, including such other Adobe products as Photoshop and Illustrator; these programs are mostly used, however, for turning .pdf files into static graphic images.)
To read or print a .pdf file on your computer, right-click on the appropriate download link on the individual book pages (Control-click if you're on a Mac) and choose either "Download to Disk..." or "Save Target As..." depending on what kind of browser you're on. Once the file is safely saved on your hard drive, you should be able to just double-click on its icon to open in Acrobat. (Please note that simply clicking on a .pdf link will make your browser attempt to open the document; the browser version of Acrobat, however, is notoriously buggy and will more likely than not crash your software in the attempt to directly open a .pdf file from the web. It's a much better idea to download the file first to your hard drive, then open it in your desktop version of Acrobat.)
.pdb (Palm DataBase) format is a file type invented by the Palm Corporation specifically to run on mobile devices running the Palm operating system, such as Palm Pilots, Handsprings, Clies and others. To download, follow the same instructions as above for .pdf files, except pick the appropriate link for .pdb. These documents should work in any reader that accepts .pdb files, although I personally recommend using Palm's own Palm Reader, for a variety of reasons: 1) it's free; 2) my files were converted using software made by the same company; 3) they make a version for the PocketPC as well, not to mention desktop versions for Windows and Macintosh, all for free; and 4) because my interactive books (including Creamed Corn) only work in that particular program.
.lit format is a file type invented by Microsoft specifically to run on mobile devices running the WindowsCE operating system, such as most PocketPCs. To download, follow the same instructions as the .pdf download, detailed above, except pick the appropriate link for .lit. These documents can only be opened in Microsoft Reader. You can find a free download of it at their website.
(Click your 'back' button to return to an individual title, or use the menu at the side of the page to go to another section of the website.)
