Newton FAQ

Part VI: Newton Books

Using & Finding Newton Books
Creating Newton Books

A) Using & Finding Newton Books

1) How do you view a Newton Book?

The Newton Book Reader is a system-wide service built into the Newton OS. Refer to the user guide that came with your Newton device for details on using the Book Reader, including turning pages, viewing the table of contents, annotating, setting bookmarks, and so on.

2) How can I have a Newton Book read out loud using MacinTalk?

Mark “Bernie” Bernstone’s application called Bernie’s BookReader allows you to have Newton books read aloud using text-to-speech.

Steve Weyer’s HTMList extension is an HTML authoring tool saves formatted Notes, Newton Works documents, and Newton Books as HTML. It can also convert Newton Books to Newton Works and adds “text routing” to Newton Books and Help Books, allowing you to Beam, Mail, or Speak a specific range of Newton Book pages.

3) Where can I find Newton Books?

Rob West’s Project Newtonberg created hundreds of Newton Books based on public domain text and books released for free distribution.
The Arizona Macintosh Users Group (AMUG) once offered a huge collection of Newton Books, but the FTP server is currently missing in action.
Josie Farmer compiled a handful of books (mostly relating to author and composer Paul Bowles) at Planet Newton UK.
Newton’s Library was compiled by Anniqa Tjernlund and company between 1997 and 2002.
A resurrected version of Newton’s Library is currently maintained by Eric Brown.
UNNA Books
The UNNA mirror of Planet Newton Books.
Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts
Terry Fischer’s Yet Another Newton Book Site!
Ed Kummel’s Newton Books page is optimized for installing book packages directly to your device.

4) Can I view Palm Pilot Doc books on a Newton?

With Steve Weyer’s plugin for Newt’s Cape, you can read Pilot Doc books. Please see https://communicrossings.com/html/newton/newtscape/pilotdoc.htm for more details.

B) Creating Newton Books

1) What desktop software can I use to create a Newton Book?

You can use Apple’s software to design books from RTF files or any other XTND format (Newton Press) or from files with a special format (Newton Book Maker).

See: Book creation and development software

2) Can I create a Newton Book on a Newton?

Steve Weyer’s Newt’s Cape will allow you to save a web page as a Newton Book package.

3) Can I view PDF files on a Newton?

There is no PDF viewer for the Newton platform. However, there are several online tools which will convert PDF to another format viewable in your favourite browser.

Adobe’s online conversion tools.

Convertio’s File Converter can convert PDF files to HTML, text, and dozens of other formats.

PDFConv, by Hendrik Lipka and Eric Schneck, can convert a PDF to pictures and a HTML file which you can use with Newt’s Cape. http://www.hendriklipka.de/newton/pdfconv.html