What is an Electronic Book?
A BookManager® electronic book is a single file including all of the text and graphics in a highly compressed format. It is built using a variety of ways -- by using one of BookManager's BUILD products or by publishing your document as Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files, and then adding a BookManager search index to the document via the IBM Library Server for z/OS Document Instance Indexer (aka PDF Indexer).
Once built, the same portable book can be read on a variety of platforms using any of the BookManager tools such as Library Server and Softcopy Reader, regardless of whether the customer documents are in BookManager .BOO format, or Adobe .PDF format. The IBM Library Server products and the Softcopy Reader tool can search them by working in conjunction with the IBM Advanced Linguistic Search Plug-in for Adobe installed as an Adobe Reader plug-in. Books can also be put on a diskette, CD-ROM, your company's Intranet, or the World Wide Web.
The metaphor of a book, provides a much broader implementation of hyper-text function than routinely available in almost any other mechanism (including the web). For the author, BookManager automatically creates the hierarchical structure of chapters, topics and subtopics, as well as additional navigational elements such as table of contents, figure lists, and revision lists, that allow readers to jump directly to information of interest or around material they do not wish to see.
For the reader, the book metaphor makes the use of the BookManager products intuitive to even the newest users. Readers are already familiar with terms like books, bookshelves, bookcases, bookmarks, table of contents, "sticky notes," index, figure lists, etc. And just as physical books can be organized, electronic books can be organized into an entire library, with shelves and bookcases -- so you can organize your books the way you want them, and change the structure as you add more books to your library. All of this means that when reading electronic books with BookManager, you are productive in minutes!
Building BookManager Books
Whether customers chose to author their documents using word processors, professional publishing tools, or using tagged languages such as HTML, XML and DITA, they may continue to do so. Using their existing tools, customer documents can then be published as Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files. BookManager search indexes can be added to their PDF files via the IBM Library Server for z/OS Document Instance Indexer (aka PDF Indexer). Indexed PDFs can be added to Extended Shelves which themselves, can also be indexed. These PDF and Shelf indexes will enable customer on-line information (books, libraries and collections) to support linguistic-based searches using the various IBM softcopy products such as Library Server and Softcopy Reader, regardless of whether the customer documents are in BookManager .BOO format, or Adobe .PDF format.
For the mainframe user, IBM BookManager offers BookManager BUILD products to build books from documents authored using the IBM BookMaster® product.
So you can take your existing documents and put them on the Web, without transforming your source file into HTML and your pictures into GIF format. A single source file can generate hardcopy and softcopy, on a single workstation, a LAN, a mainframe, or on the Web. The networking possibilities are endless!
Reading BookManager Books
Once you have built your books, there are several different ways to read them. All methods offer the same patented linguistical based searching, search ranking, hypertext linking, annotation, and other unique features that our customers love.
- The BookManager family of free readers allows you to read your books on workstation platforms - the Java-based IBM Softcopy Reader on Windows and Linux® and the Library Reader for Windows® . You can read books in both BookManager book format, or in PDF format, provided from IBM, other vendors, or books you built with one of the BookManager BUILD products.
- We have READ products to read your electronic books on the MVS/TSO and VM platforms. In addition, there are companion products which extend the platform coverage to MVS/CICS and VSE/CICS.
- With the Library Server products, the same BookManager books and PDF files that you read on your workstation, or mainframe machine, can be served to Web browsers, so your Internet attached readers can enjoy the same benefits, and share the same information. There is no need to convert your documents to HTML -- let Library Server do your conversion for you -- dynamically, as you read. Library Server products are available on z/OS™, Windows, AIX®, and Linux platforms.
