Microsoft Reader is a discontinued

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

application for reading

e-book An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Al ...

s, first released in August 2000, that used its own .LIT format. It was available for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

computers and Pocket PC PDAs. The name was also used later for an unrelated application for reading

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

and XPS files, first released with

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- this app was discontinued in 2018.

E-book Reader

The e-book reader was available for download from Microsoft as a free application for computers running

and on PDAs running Pocket PC, where it has been built into the ROM since Windows CE 3.0. Microsoft Reader was compatible with

Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDA). Designed to be the portable equivalent of the Windows desktop OS in the emerging Mobile device, mobile/port ...

, but was not supported on newer Windows Phone 7 devices. Microsoft Reader displays books in the .LIT (shortened from "literature") format, an extension of the Microsoft Compressed HTML Help format to include DRM. These e-books can be purchased and downloaded from 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 plug-in for

text-to-speech Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or Computer hardware, hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system conv ...

, enabling books to be read out loud. Companies such as

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. The company operates approximately 600 retail stores across the United States. Barnes & Noble operates mainly through its B ...

and Amazon.com partnered with Microsoft to provide books in the format when released in 2000. 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.

Compatibility

Copy protection

Books accessible by Reader can be protected, or unprotected, only allowing access to protected books if the user has activated the software. This can be accomplished by registering using their

Passport A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that certifies a person's identity and nationality for international travel. A passport allows its bearer to enter and temporarily reside in a foreign country, access local aid ...

account. Only six Reader installations can be activated per account, after which, Microsoft requires the user to request further activations.

Creating .LIT files

''Read in Microsoft Reader'' is an add-on, available from Microsoft, that can be used with Microsoft Word (versions 2000, 2002 and 2003) to create .LIT extension e-books. This software is not fully compatible with Office 2007.

Version history

Desktop

Pocket PC

Read in Microsoft Reader

Software Development Kit

Text to Speech

Third party

Notable third-party apps and tools to convert and read MS .LIT format on various devices include: * Calibre; an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

e-book library manager that runs on many environments; it can convert .LIT format files * Lexcycle Stanza (discontinued); a freeware program for reading eBooks; can read .LIT format, supports iOS.

Document viewer

In 2012, Microsoft released a Microsoft Reader Metro-style app with

for reading documents in PDF, XPS and TIFF formats. Reader was included in Windows 8.1 and was a free download from the

Windows Store The Microsoft Store (formerly known as the Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It was created as an app store for Windows 8 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform apps. With ...

for Windows 10. Support for Windows 10 Mobile ended in 2016 in favor of opening PDF documents within the Microsoft Edge egacybrowser. Microsoft discontinued the application in February 2018, as PDF reading functionality was moved to Edge egacyon desktops as well.

References

{{Ebooks Reader Pocket PC software Electronic publishing Document viewers Ebooks