Announcing... 
    Paperback 1.02 for Macintosh 
       and 
    Paperback 1.00 for Microsoft Windows

  Paperback takes pure text files and generates a Newton Package file from
them... allowing you to create Newton books straight from your text,
without the NTK, for free!

  Paperback can be found on newton.uiowa.edu (look first in the /submissions
directory) or on AOL, or eWorld, or CompuServe, or many other places.  It
is completely free; please don't charge for it, but you may distribute it
as you like.  I retain all the legal rights to it, of course.

How to use Paperback:
  On the Macintosh or using the Windows File Manager, drop a text file on the
Paperback icon.  A dialog box will appear, letting you choose the name to
appear in the Extras drawer, the title to appear while reading the book,
and the unique name of the package.  You can also choose the default font,
and whether the user is permitted to change the font.  An area to provide
contact information or help is also provided; the users can access that
dialog by pressing the "?" button on the status bar while reading the book.

  When you hit "OK", you can save the package file wherever you would like,
and then Paperback quits.  The generated package file is a completely
stand-alone Newton application, ready to be downloaded using Apple's Newton
Package Installer, the Macintosh or Windows Connection Kit, or the
shareware "PDA Package Downloader" utility.

  Paperback is intended to be simple and straightforward, giving the users
the ability to create normal Newton books without having to pay $800 for the 
Newton Toolkit, and without having to take the time to mark up their text.  I 
have used Paperback for the last month to put email and news on my Newton to
read it on the train while commuting to work; I would never use BookMaker
for that purpose.

  While reading the text, the user can change the font from the default
setting if they want.  I can read 9 point Simple just fine, but other folks
prefer 12 point fancy.  No problem, the reader can set it to whatever they
prefer.  The horizontal slider at the bottom of the screen lets the user
quickly move around in the document, and gives an indication of how far
through it they are.


More information for techie types:
  Paperback doesn't (currently) support multiple imbedded fonts or graphics
or any non-text files.  I may well improve Paperback to support multiple
fonts in the future, but that depends on the amount of my spare time.  And
with a baby due in the next month, well... :-)

  Paperback currently runs on Macintoshes and also on Microsoft Windows.  It
could theoretically run on any platform, but it doesn't make much sense on
platforms which don't have the applications to download the packages to the
Newton.

  Paperback does not create "real" Newton books like those created with
Apple's BookMaker application.  If the file format of that were made public
and there was strong demand, I would consider changing Paperback to use it,
but for now it does not.  The reader application (i.e. overhead in each
Paperback book) is about 14k uncompressed, which is not very large as
applications go.  Converting ASCII into Unicode of course doubles the size
of the text, which will result in packages over double the size of the
original text.

  And yes, I know the format of Newton Package files.  If you have an
application which would benefit from being able to create Newton packages,
feel free to contact me.  I'm not going to give the information out
publicly, but would be quite willing to help software developers who really
need to know.

  If you have feature suggestions, bug reports, etc., feel free to contact 
me at fedor@mcs.com.  I'll be glad to hear from you.

I hope you find Paperback useful!

-David Fedor


Macintosh version history: 
1.02  Fix problem on 68000 Macs, also fix possible hang on exit of app. 
      Also add 18 point font choices on Newton popup.
1.01  Fix global Find. In fixing RC1's local Find, I broke 1.0's global find.
1.0   Initial public release.

Windows version history:
1.0   Initial public release.