The project below shows an e-book reader for small devices. The design is done in such a way that it performs well while showing the e-book in the small screen size.

There are numerous books available over the internet in the epub format. The epub format is basically a collection of html or jpeg files and xml metadata such as author/title/table of contents bundled into a zip file folder.

The epubgrider is a tool that reads standard epub files and creates ‘.epb’ files that is readable by the microtouch code. The transcoder has a simple layout engine that organizes and paginates the content to a format that is appropriate for viewing on a 320×240 screen.

It records and stores hyperlinks within the html and resizes and transcodes images from jpg/png/gif to a raw 16bit RGB format

The EPB books can be bundled into BKS bookshelves. Both the formats are based on ‘blob’ files that is suitable for 8-bit micros with microSD cards.

The app, on launch shows a list of available books. To open a book you just need to tap it with your finger. By touching the right edge you can scroll down the page of the book. The reader supports illustrations and hyperlinks within the books for navigation and footnotes.