Can the conversion software be made to run under WINE?
Take a look at Plucker[1] for reading offline ebooks. We've been using it since 1998 for the same thing (as well as web content, HOWTO documents, technical manuals, converted pdf files, rss feeds and more). Our userbase spans hundreds of thousands of users in all corners of the globe (yes, literally). The content conversion tools run under Linux, OSX, Windows and other platforms and can be found in Python, C++, Java, and Perl flavors. The various handheld-side readers run on PalmOS, PocketPC and on Linux-based PDAs. There are commandline and GUI conversion programs to convert the content to Plucker format which run under all of the OS' mentioned, as well as an "email-only" interface called "Pler" that can convert the content for those who lack the platform necessary to convert the content. The viewer itself (the component on the handheld device) is currently translated to 16 different languages (ca, cs, da, de, en, es, fo, fr, it, ja, no, pl, ru, th, tr, zh_CN) to support many non-English users. Plucker is also the only format out there (out of the 17 different handheld reader formats currently available) that is 100% openly documented[2] that supports rich formatting found in web content (images, tags, tables, stylesheets, colors, etc.). The other free formats support compression and text, and maybe images, but nothing close to what we support. We also support anti-alias fonts for easier reading on tired eyes, which you can see some samples of here: http://code.plkr.org/aa/ Its also Free Software, covered by the GNU GPL, which means you can rebrand it and sell it if you wish (obviously in compliance with the license, of course). There are dozens of commercial companies who are using Plucker (viewer, format and distiller components, or a combination of all three) in their core product suites now, including schools, healthcare and educational institutions. Take a look at some custom works converted to Plucker format: http://www.plkr.org/samples http://code.plkr.org/ [1] http://www.plkr.org [2] http://cvs.plkr.org/index.cgi/*checkout*/docs/DBFormat.html David A. Desrosiers desrod@gnu-designs.com http://gnu-designs.com