These instructions are courtesy of Ilona Andrews, who wrote a fabulous post detailing this. Here are different types of free downloadable software that allow you to read an ebook without an e-reader. Browse through to decide which one would work best for you.
On Your Computer
Kindle App
Top Features (courtesy of Amazon Website):
- Get the best reading experience available on your PC. No Kindle required
- Access your Kindle books even if you don’t have your Kindle with you
- Automatically synchronizes your last page read and annotations between
devices with Whispersync - Create new highlights, notes, and bookmarks and manage those created on your
Kindle - Search for words or phrases within the book you’re reading
- Use the built-in dictionary to seamlessly look up the definitions of English
words without interrupting your reading. - Full screen reading view, color modes, and brightness controls offer an
immersive reading experience - Real page numbers for thousands of books in the Kindle Store. Now you can
easily reference and cite passages, and read alongside others in a book club or
class. - A German language version of Kindle for PC is
available for customers purchasing content from the Amazon.de Kindle Store, which includes instant
dictionary word lookup using the Duden Deutsches Universalwörterbuch. - Support for collections allows you to take control of your Kindle library
and organize your books with ease. - Book Extras by Shelfari. Access character descriptions, important places,
popular quotations, themes, and book-specific glossaries from Shelfari, the
community-powered encyclopedia for book-lovers. - Support for Print Kindle Replica content, which
look like the corresponding print book with words and images in the position
corresponding to the print edition. See more detail on Print Replica content here. - Support for reading most PDF files within the Kindle application, including
functionality such as zoom and pan, highlighting, note taking, dictionary
lookup, and bookmarks.
Go here: Kindle PC or here: Kindle for Mac
Download Kindle App.
Follow the installation instructions, which I believe, consist of double
clicking on the downloaded file. I don’t think you have to register, but I
don’t remember.
Download the Kindle, prc format of the file above.
Double click the file.
Done.
Kindle app is easy to use and it looks nice, but it’s not the only choice out
there.
Kindle app accepts a prc and mobi formats.
Calibre
Top Features (courtsey of Calibre website)
- Library Management
- E-book conversion
- Syncing to e-book reader devices
- Downloading news from the web and converting it into e-book form
- Comprehensive e-book viewer
- Content server for online access to your book collection
Go here: Calibre
Download Calibre.
Follow the installation instructions.
Download Epub format of the file above.
Double click it.
Done.
Calibre helps you organize your ebook library. You can also use it to
convert files into different formats. This file is not DRM’ed, so you should
have no problems.
Calibre accepts a variety of formats including epub and PDF.
Adobe
Digital
Editions
Top features (courtesy of Adobe website):
- Interface designed for digital reading
- Fast, free download
- Standalone installer
- Content portability
- Support for Sony® Reader
- Powerful markup features
- Support for PDF and EPUB, a reflow-centric XHTML-based format
- Support for borrowing eBooks
Go here: Adobe Digital Editions
Click Launch.
Follow installation instructions.
Download Epub or PDF version of the file above. It will
take both, although PDF version has a shmancier font for some weird reason.
Open the ADE. Click Library. Choose add item to library.
A window will pop up. Click your downloaded file.
Done.
On
Your
Phone
Fair warning: these are the applications I know about but I do not read on my
phone. Your mileage will vary, because I have no clue what these apps look
like.
For
Iphone/iPad:
Kindle App: Click Here
Stanza: Click Here
For
Other
Phones
Aldiko: Click Here
Nook for PC
Download file and information here.