Microsoft Reader was a Microsoft program for the reading of e-books, originally released in August 2000.
Microsoft Reader is available for download from Microsoft as a free program for computers running Windows. It can also be used on a Pocket PC, where it has been built into the ROM since Windows CE 3.0. Microsoft Reader is not supported on newer Windows Phone 7 devices, but it is compatible with Windows Mobile.
Microsoft Reader displays books in the .LIT (shortened from "literature") format, an extension of the Microsoft Compressed HTML Help format to include DRM. These books can be purchased and downloaded from many smaller online stores.
The notable features of Microsoft Reader are ClearType for increased readability on small screens, highlighting and doodling designed for quick note-taking, text notes, and searching. The PC version also has an optional plugin for text-to-speech, enabling books to be read out loud.
In August 2011, Microsoft announced they were discontinuing both Microsoft Reader and the use of the .lit format for ebooks at the end of August 2012, and ending sales of the format on November 8, 2011.
Read more about Microsoft Reader: Compatibility, Copy Protection, Creating .LIT Files, Third Party
Famous quotes containing the word reader:
“There was a time when the average reader read a novel simply for the moral he could get out of it, and however naïve that may have been, it was a good deal less naïve than some of the limited objectives he has now. Today novels are considered to be entirely concerned with the social or economic or psychological forces that they will by necessity exhibit, or with those details of daily life that are for the good novelist only means to some deeper end.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)