Only plain text files (.txt) work with the Book Reader. Stop trying to use it to read Word documents, and other formats that are not plain text. Also, make sure that the file size of the text file around 800 KB or less. If it is larger than that, split the file up.
The source code for this application is licensed with the GNU General Public License version 3, which means that you can redistribute it (without charging anyone) and use it for your own programs, with a few restrictions. Details can be found in the included License.txt file.
LedZepp started the Book Reader, and I am continuing the work on it to make it as good as possible. If you have a book that doesn't work, give me a link where I can find the exact text file that you are trying to read, and I will try my best to make it read the text file.
From LedZepp's old thread (with updates):
Quote:
Want to read books on your Zune, but think it's just too much of a hassle to convert all the text to images? Then this is for you.
How To Use:
Normal version:
First you need a plain text version of the book you want to read, if you have a pdf file you can use Adobe Acrobat Reader to load it up, then go to File> Save As Text, or you can search google for an online pdf to text converter(I just find if you use Adobe acrobat reader its cleaner)
Then open up the BookReader project, open up the content folder on the side, find the Books folder under it, and just drag and drop the text file in there.
Now click on the text file you just dropped into the folder, you should see a properties window, on the right bottom side of Visual Studio.
Set the Build Action to none, and set the Copy to Output to Copy if Newer otherwise you will get errors when trying to deploy.
You can have as many books as you want in there, this application will read all of them and let you choose them from the main menu.
Helpful Images:
  
RIG version:
First you need a plain text version of the book you want to read, if you have a PDF file you can use Adobe Acrobat Reader to load it up, then go to File > Save As Text, or you can search Google for an online PDF to text converter (I just find if you use Adobe Acrobat reader its cleaner).
Do that for all of your books that you want to read with the Book Reader and put them all into an empty folder.
Run the RIG application, then follow the instructions. If you do not follow the instructions, do not post any problems that you may have.
Sub-folders:
You can put the books into folders within the empty folder, and put the books inside those folders.
If you have at least one folder in the main folder with a file in it, any files directly inside the main folder will be ignored.
Any sub-sub-folders (and files within them) will be ignored.
So, to use sub-folders properly: Create folders within the main folder, name the folders according to what book you will put in there, then put the appropriate parts of the books within those folders.
For example:
Books (folder)
- First book (folder)
- First book Part one.txt
- First book Part two.txt
- First book Part three.txt
- Second book (folder)
- Second book Part one.txt
- Second book Part two.txt
Do that for however many books you want.
How to Navigate in the Application:
First screen will ask you to choose a book, move using the up/down (although it's left/right since I rotated the display), then select using the middle button. If it looks like it froze, it didn't, it's just reading the file.
The next screen is the whole book loaded up, in the top left corner theres a percent of where your at in the book. Use the up/down (actually left/right because it is tilted it) to move down a line and use left/right (actually up/down because it is tilted it) to move over a page. You can press back, to go back to the book selection to choose another book.
While reading, you can press the middle button to go to the options screen.
In the options screen you can select your font size, if you want the program to auto scroll the text, if you want to set a bookmark, if you want to choose music, or if you want to quickly change your position in the book.
Use the up/down (left/right) to move between the choices.
While you are on the Font choice use left/right (up/down) to choose a size(it takes a sec to load up the different sizes so just be patient until the size changes)
While on the Auto-Scroll choice use left/right (up/down) to enable and disable it(I have it scrolling down a line every 2.5 seconds, you can still use the original controls to move the lines.
3rd choice is the bookmark.
NOTE: It will not bookmark where you are if you just exit out the program you have to go into the options, select the bookmark choice, and click the middle button. It automatically looks for a bookmark file when it loads up your book.
4th choice is music.
Press the center button to make the volume and music choices appear.
Last choice is percent.
Use left/right (up/down) to change your progress through the book.
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Download Normal version (Works with the Zune 3.x firmware):
BookReaderv2.7.zip
Download RIG version (Does
not work with the Zune 3.x firmware):
BookReader.exe
RIG allows you to deploy without using Visual C# and XNA. You must already have deployed a game to your Zune in order to use RIG.
Also, according to GPL, since I modified RIG, I have to distribute my version of it. So you can get it (not the Book Reader) here:
rig-development-kit-0.5.3.7z
Jones111 Version (Works with the Zune 3.x firmware):
BookReaderv2.8
Jones111 has built upon the Book Reader and added some new features. If you have any problems with it, you can post on this thread but direct the questions to Jones111, not me.
Features:
- Library-style: Every folder is a book, and every file inside is a chapter (books are submenus now for faster scolling trough large collections).
- Saves last read chapter for every book & autoselects next chapter if progress is 100%.
- Saves last read book.
- Faster startup on large collections.
- Skinning (normal skin + night skin).
- Changed the list-style UI.
- Support for multiple languages (should be able to run any language) - Tested with German.
- Minor overall speedup & smaller filesize (larger archive caused by skinning).
These are experimental updates and could behave unexpected sometimes or in worst case may crash. Feedback about the changes and bug reports are welcome.