ReadThemAll is a e-book reader for Windows primarily designed to used in a hand-free mode. It is a Windows successor of the identically named software for PalmOS. Although it can be used as a general purpose reader, its main benefits comes from its innovative auto-scrollings, the way of reading books when you don't have to manually list pages.
ReadThemAll basically implements the same scrolling types as RTA for PalmOS, while also adding some new ones.
The range of auto-scrolling options are:
- "Never-ending page" scroll (ReadThemAll-scroll/screen-wrap scroll/auto-wipe) with options to update the screen line by line or pixel by pixel
- Spotlight-scroll, smoother version of the similar principle Just follow the spotlight!
- (NEW) Mixcroll (Mix sCroll) . Brand-new scrolling, also smooth, but also almost completely unnoticable. Try it
To see all these concepts in action without necessity to install the program please use the following youtube links (please, be aware that the videos have some artifacts related to compression):
Note: "ReadThemAll" is not a trademark, it's just a unique way to identify the program on the Internet. Sometimes it is referred as "Read Them All" or "RTA" but the three words spelled together are preferred.
Features
- Three unique auto-scrolling options having roots from the well-known ReadThemAll software for PalmOS for comfortable, eye-friendly hands-free reading: Rta-scroll, Spotlight-scroll, Mixcroll.
- Text files and clipboard contents (for example to read a big article from your browser)
- Rotation
- Bookmarks
- Searching
- Hyphenation (with bundled TeX hyphenation files for English and Russian and expandable to any other)
- Portability. The software doesn't need installation, runs from any place
"Why would I need a e-book reader for Windows at the first place"
This question can be asked by anyone who either familiar with mobile versions of e-book reading software or who uses e-ink display devices like Amazon Kindle.
There are several reasons that can be taken in consideration
- More and more devices that run Windows looks like real mobile companion (also thanks to Apple iPad buzz). Asus EEE PC T91, T91MT, T101MT, upcoming HP Slate PC. All these devices can be used to read e-books on the go. (See the topic on EEEUser forum about this software). This software was developed to be CPU-friendly with general RTA-scroll to be the winner consuming about 1-5% of CPU time in auto-scroll mode.
- If you spend some time on the net, you already read a lot, but always with different colors, fonts and so on. In order to read more comfortably, maybe even without necessity to click buttons, just use ReadThemAll with its build in feature to read texts from clipboard.
- Sometimes people says that reading on a general display is a bad experience leading to eye strain. But that's because people are used to reading close to the monitor. With comfortable innovative auto-scrolling of the RTA you no longer have to be close to the monitor in order to read your favorite books. Set your font bigger, choose your speed and read from the distance.Moreover, more and more PCs today are connected to big TV sets and you can even read from your TV.
Download and installation
Requirements: Windows 95/98/XP/Vista/Windows 7. No special additional libraries or frameworks needed
Download the latest version 1.2.11.0 and extract it anywhere you want. But please choose some folder with write access rights, so for current version of Windows 7 it should not be any of subfolders of "Program files". This is due to the way RTA saves the settings (it saves it near the executable files).
Together with the RTA bundles several hyphenation files. If you have plans to use hyphenation with you books, please download the proper so called TeX hyphenation files for your language and place it in the Hyphenation folder near the RTA.exe
Note also that the program is still in its beta phase so some bugs are possible, pleast let me know about them. Thanks
Previous versions
Here is a list of previous versions of ReadThemAll. You can use them to compare features or identify incompatibilities.
Credits
The development of the windows version took place thanks to an old-time user of the PalmOS version who made me think that it would be useful for some of the PC users. Due to some reasons he did not want to reveal his identity, maybe some other time :)
Also I would like to note that in some way it is a "proof of concept" software replacing the PalmOS version since at the moment it is probably much easier to find a windows pc than a palmos computer :)
Feedback
Feel free to send suggestion and comments to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Let me know what is the features you'd like to see in future versions.
(c) Maxim Vlasov 2009-2010, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
