Adobe unveils new e-book reader, Digital Editions

New format similar to Adobe Reader

24 October 2006 17:50 GMT / By Amber Maitland

Adobe has released the beta of an e-book viewer and manager named Digital Editions.

The software is meant to be a simple e-book reader that is more streamlined than Adobe Reader, its PDF-based reader. Digital Editions is a small 2.5MB download, and features as an add-in to Flash Player 9.

As well as ready PDFs, it can also hand XHTML content used for long book texts as well as magazine articles. Because it's integrated into Flash Player, it can also display Flash videos and animations.

At the moment Digital Editions is only available for Windows, but Adobe plans to release the software for Mac and Linux, as well as mobile devices, in the future. The Digital Editions format will also be supported across the latest version of the Creative Suite when it's released next year.

To go along with the new reader, Adobe is also offering a hosted DRM service called Adobe Digital Editions Protection Service.

Full tags

Software, PC software, Office software, Adobe, ebooks