A note on Palm Formats

There are several ways to read text documents or view images on your PalmOS device (or PocketPC). A comprehensive comparison of these formats is available at Memoware.com.

I like to use the following formats:

Doc

DOC, or Doc, is a generic name for a type of text document format usable by nearly all PDA platforms. Note that this format is not the same as the .doc filename extension usually given to Microsoft Word document files. These files will have a ".pdb" filename extension. Slow conversion process.

iSilo (v2 and iSiloX)

Silo has a couple of advantages over the DOC format, such as higher compression rates (which saves your precious RAM) and extended formatting (such as bold, italics, horizontal dividers, and hyperlinks). On this site the iSiloX files include graphics if they're present in the original document. Fast conversion process.

Plucker

Plucker is an extended text-and-graphics document format for handhelds. It can be used for both local and remote (e.g., Internet) files. There isn't a lot of support for this yet, as the parser is written in Python, and still has some rough edges. This is a very slow conversion process, but it will display extended formatting like iSilo, and graphics.

Recommended document readers for the Palm:

iSilo

iSilo reads DOC files in addition to its own proprietary format, and it's very easy to convert text, HTML, and DOC files into the iSilo format; with iSiloWeb, iSiloXC, or iSiloX (for Mac, Linux, or Windows), you can grab content off the web and make iSilo documents automatically. A free version with limited capabilities is available for iSilo version 2 documents; iSiloX (v3) requires the full version, which is well worth the price. A PocketPC version has been completed, and is available on the iSilo website.

Plucker

Plucker is a suite of programs which provide an off-line web browser for Palm OS systems. It's free software under the conditions of the Free Software Foundation's General Public License, so you can copy, change, or even sell this program without giving anyone any money, as long as you make the source code (and your changes, if any) publicly available. Plucker only reads plucker formatted documents.

CSpotRun

CSpotRun is a free reader for documents in the popular Pilot DOC format. CSpotRun is targeted at those of us who do not use a reader enough to justify spending the money on one. It was designed to be smaller and simpler than the commercial readers.

TiBR aka "Tiny Book Reader"

TiBR is a freeware PalmDoc book reader that only requires 49k. If you're in need of one that uses less memory, try the Lite version, which lacks search support, but only uses 25k of memory!