The Native Beauty Of LIT

So of course Moriah Jovan couldn’t let me rest.

No.

She told me to run my Abyss files through ReaderWorks Standard and see what happened.

I’ve never done a LIT file before.

Downloaded the software, installed it, and when it came time to choose the files, I just selected all of my source files and told it to use them.

What resulted wasn’t an eBook so much as a melange of one. Last chapter was first, followed by all of the photos — each on a separate page! — then the cover, introduction, and then the chapters in order (except the last, which was Biblically first).

This isn’t even alpha. This is pre-alpha!

Still, I drooled.

Here are some snapshots (click on each for big).

Right off: it looks like a book!

Yes, the spacing is all off, but still book-like!

Proper indented blockquote with centered italic subhead.

The Yes!es are flowing down the side as they should (although I’d open the line spacing more in the final).

I knew those dammed hyphens would cause trouble! Here too!

Again, spacing is incorrect, but it’s soooo much like a book.

Smaller type experimented with in extract.

One of those tables. I’d fix that font and spacing, of course.

Proper blockquote.

Another Table. Spacing incorrect top and bottom. I’d see if I could get a thinner border too.

Seeing Abyss in Adobe Digital Editions, in the Sony eLibrary software, and even on my LifeDrive in MobiPocket format, none of them felt like a proper book.

Only the defunct LIT format has given me that experience.

I’m beginning to wonder if Microsoft exited the eBook field too soon.

Ah, Gorgeous LIT!

Writer and eBook wiz Moriah Jovan did a multi-format eBook for someone.

The first version of it I happened to see in the old — and just about now-obsolete — Microsoft LIT format.

It’s just absolutely gorgeous!

I hadn’t looked at anything in MS Reader for ages.

On the other hand, I’ve spent several weeks of consecutive days looking at my The People of the Abyss alpha eBook in Adobe Digital Editions.

So the contrast between these two was shocking.

First, MS Reader on the PC opens in a book-size window. And, as you can see above, it looks like a page from a book.

Contrast it to Adobe Digital Editions, which even after filling the screen, presents a glob of text that never, ever feels or resembles a book page.

Second, even the way MS Reader handles quotation marks is beautiful. They’re tucked in with the precision of printed typesetting.

The first eBook I ever read was in MS Reader on a now-dead Toshiba GENIO Pocket PC (it had a great four-inch screen, huge at the time).

The GENIO is dead. So is the LIT format.

Given what eBooks look like recently, it might be a shame that LIT is dead.