# Reading books on a cell phone. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 13, 2007, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-on-a-cell-phone/419019 "2007-09-13T03:28:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fireclown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f19dbf/32.png) [@Fireclown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fireclown)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-on-a-cell-phone/419019/1 "2007-09-13T03:28:55Z")
Is there a way to save books in txt format to a cell phone and read them? I have a system in place now where I place text files on a temporary web page and point my Opera Mini browser to the site which enables me to read. However I have to depend on a connection and opera splits it into several pages which causes me to have to keep connecting. I have a Nokia 6030b which has almost 3MB space on it. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-on-a-cell-phone/419019/2 "2007-09-13T05:38:43Z")
The [Baen Free Library](http://www.baen.com/library/) has many books in various formats to download. I’m not familiar with your particular phone, but I use a Windows Mobile 6 smart phone and I find that the .rtf format read with the native Word application works best for me, especially since I use a specific system font which is maximally readable for me in small point. (Palatino Linotype and Clear Type if anyone’s interested.) I tried reading .pdf files but they format stupidly and by the time the type’s readable I have to scroll sideways for a month to read a sentence and I can’t do that–I read in blocks and crawling line by line drives me insane. E-books are great because they’re very small and a shitload will fit on a memory card. The best thing about the Free Library is that every book is available in multiple formats so you can experiment with what works best–then you can go buy e-books without wasting your time or money on the wrong format. ---
**Author:** ![semperdcy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@semperdcy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/semperdcy)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-on-a-cell-phone/419019/3 "2007-09-13T05:45:32Z")
Oh, your phone is much more advanced than my Nokia1600. I’m sorry that, IMHO, there is no software or any other skill to transform it. If everypage has a great length of contexts, I think it’s not boring to do it manually. Is anyone has a good tip? ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-on-a-cell-phone/419019/4 "2007-09-13T14:44:15Z")
I’m interested in downloading books onto my Treo and I just googled “free book downloads.” Whee!!! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-on-a-cell-phone/419019/5 "2007-09-13T14:48:04Z")
Can’t help with the Nokia thing, but (for **Ellen Cherry** ) there’s a load of interesting stuff available at Project Gutenberg in Plucker format, which works well on PalmOS. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-on-a-cell-phone/419019/6 "2007-09-13T14:55:04Z")
Thank you, Mssr. Tout. I was all excited, and most of the places I’ve checked don’t seem to have any titles I’m interested in. I’ll check out Project Gutenberg. 🙂