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Palm eBook studio
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By Jeff Kirvin, Wednesday 29 May 2002  
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Jeff Kirvin takes a look at Palm's new eBook Studio, a tool recently released by Palm for creating eBooks in its own format which makes the process a whole lot easier than before.
Palm's new Palm eBook Studio is a WYSIWYG editor for MacOS and Windows that allows anyone to create Palm Reader ebooks without having to know a lick of PML (Palm Markup Language). It works pretty much like any other word processor, with control over all of the text formatting that Palm Reader supports. The user can create a document fresh in Palm eBook Studio, but the more likely source of material is to open a text or RTF file into the program, or paste in text from other applications such as Microsoft Word.
 | The display in Palm's eBook Editor takes a while to get used to
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The display in Palm eBook Editor takes some getting used to. Instead of the system fonts normally seen on the computer, the user sees the squarish, blocked off Palm OS default font. This seems anachronistic at first, but it really helps in making sure the formatting in the book works on the handheld as well as the PC.
When the user is happy with how the book looks on screen, the book is saved as a .PML file, basically an ASCII text file with PML markup. Then the user would use the "Make book..." menu item to compile the book into an unencrypted .PDB file that can be read on any Palm OS device or Pocket PC running Palm Reader.
Palm Reader format offers significantly more formatting options that the essentially plain text PalmDoc format, and makes for a more professional presentation. It also provides internal hyperlinks and endnoting capabilities. These features make it worthwhile for internal business documents or manuals, as well as for "personal favorite" books that deserve an elegant presentation.
Palm eBook Studio costs $30 USD for personal use, compared to Palm Digital Media's free DropBook tool. The difference is that DropBook requires the user to learn and tune PML markup on text files manually before using DropBook just for the compile step. It's analogous to HTML editors: some people make do with just notepad or vi, editing the code manually, but others are willing to pay a little more to use WYSIWYG tools like FrontPage.
Palm Digital Media plans to provide the Palm eBook Studio Commerce Pak in June for $130 USD to allow individuals or small publishers to release commercial titles in Palm Reader format. Those wanting to release encrypted ebooks - like those sold by Palm Digital Media themselves - will be able to buy Palm Retail Encryption Server Software (PRESS), also available in June. A price for PRESS was not specified, but it will run on both Windows and Unix/Linux servers.
Conclusion
Palm eBook Studio is an excellent solution for users looking for more formatting options than vanilla PalmDoc provides, but that don't want to learn the sometimes cryptic Palm Markup Language (for example, who wants to remember that em dashes are \a151?). It's got a ways to go before it really shines as a publishing application, but it's a fine start.
- What's positive: WYSIWYG desktop publishing features, doesn't require any knowledge of the underlying markup language, fast and stable
- What's negative: Doesn't import HTML directly, doesn't convert images from the source file, pricey
Overall: 
Conclusion
Palm eBook Studio is an excellent solution for users looking for more formatting options than vanilla PalmDoc provides, but that don't want to learn the sometimes cryptic Palm Markup Language (for example, who wants to remember that em dashes are \a151?). It's got a ways to go before it really shines as a publishing application, but it's a fine start.
What's positive:
WYSIWYG desktop publishing features, doesn't require any knowledge of the underlying markup language, fast and stable
What's negative:
Doesn't import HTML directly, doesn't convert images from the source file, pricey
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| Hands-on impressions, news, reviews, prices and release dates; now all-in-one-page: |
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