Unlike the Web, Digital Newsbooks are designed to be downloaded and read offline. Here’s what you need to read a Digital Newsbook:
- A computer with Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP operating system, or Apple Macintosh 9.x or 10.x operating system
- A broadband connection via cable modem, DSL telephone line, Wi-Fi or other high-speed service
- Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 or later version (free copies are available to download from www.Adobe.com)
- QuickTime Player 5.0 or later version is required to run video clips (free copies are available to download from www.Apple.com)
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“Creating Digital Newsbooks”
– Roger FidlerDigital Newsbooks range between two and 10 megabytes. The download time with a broadband connection should be less than a minute, but the actual time is dependent on the amount of Internet traffic, the capacity of the servers, and other factors.
All Digital Newsbooks are set to open in full-screen mode from within the Adobe Acrobat Reader. To access the Reader application menu, click the view button in the bottom-right corner or press the escape key on your keyboard. To return to full-screen mode click the view button again.
If a newsbook opens in your Web browser, save the file to your computer and reopen in Acrobat Reader. Macintosh computers running OS X can launch newsbooks in Apple’s preview application. Preview is a simple portable document format (PDF) viewer that does not recognize hyperlinks, layered 
content or multimedia elements, such as video and audio clips. If a newsbook opens in preview, quit preview and launch Acrobat Reader, then open the newsbook from the Acrobat Reader menu bar.
Liquid crystal displays (LCD’s) found in contemporary flat-screen desktop monitors, laptops and tablet PC’s provide the best reading experience. Your reading experience will be even better if you select “CoolType” and “Smooth Line Art” in the Acrobat Reader preferences.
All Digital Newsbooks produced by the Kent State University Institute for CyberInformation, including the Rocky Mountain News’s “Dividing the Waters,” can be found on the institute’s Web site at www.ici.kent.edu/dnb2.htm. More information about Digital Newsbooks and my work on them is available at www.rogerfidler.com.