I own a late 2005 Mac Mini G4, the last model Apple made with a Power PC processor before switching to Intel. I've been messing about with this "how to read e-books" issue myself and here's a summary of what I found out. This document does not conccern itself with reading ebooks on smartphones or tablet devices.
See this thread at Barnes and Noble: Does anyone know WHEN the powerPC will be supported for ereader?.
Here's what I wrote on 2011-01-23, plus what else I've found out since.
Which e-book reader software you want to use depends on the type of e-book you've got and there are several popular and therefore generally useful formats: file types .epub, .mobi (Palm), .pdf (Adobe), .pdb (which seems to have at least 3 flavours), plus .mdp format and a whole slew of others.
Here's a short summary of what e-reader programs are available for OSX 10.4 PPC and which common e-book formats (file types) they can handle.
| Product | Can open files of type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Adobe Acrobat | Both Acrobat and OSX Preview can open .pdf files. | |
| Adobe Digital Editions | .epub and .pdf | Requires Adobe registration. |
| Calibre Version 0.7.28 |
It can convert from (and therefore read) .azw, .epub, .mobi, and many other formats to .epub, .fb2, .lit, .lrf, .mobi, .pdb, .pdf, .pmlz, .rb, .rtf, .snb, .tcf, .tct, .zip | Version 0.82 requires OSX for Intel. |
| eReader | .txt, .pnut.pdb and .pdb files from memoware.com or Open Office | Will not load .epub, .mbp, .mobi, or .plkr.pdb files. |
| Ibis | .epub | Ibis Reader is a "cloud" application. Go to ibisreader.com. It uses public domain .epub books from feedbooks.com, and links to Developer tools at threepress.org |
| OSX Preview | ||
| SONY Reader Library | .epub, .pdf, .txt, .doc, .rtf | Also opens various other file types including .mp3. It uses some Adobe components but it is very open and flexible. |
| Stanza Desktop | .epub, .mobi | Stanza Desktop is still just Beta software but it runs on PPC. The current version of Stanza runs on iPad, iPhone, iPod only (requires iOS). |
Since B&N's e-books are in .epub format I suggest the SONY Reader Library software which you can get for free from here. It's fast, flexible and free and you can readily use it to load files from anywhere on your 'puter, whereas Adobe Digital Editions requires registration so is more of a closed system, is quite a bit more clunky to use, and there may be DRM or lending issues similar to those you will find with ebooks from Amazon and Apple.
Books in .epub format from ibisreader.com are very reasonably-priced and the public domain .epub books from feedbooks.com are free, making the combination of SONY Reader and Ibis an excellent easy-to-use combination for a large collection of material.
Various free tools allow you to readily convert ebooks from, say .mobi format to .epub format.
Various methods are available to help you circumvent DRM and/or lending issues that you might encounter otherwise if you are so inclined.
For writers, lots of word processing programs can generate different types of e-book from different types of input.
For example, Open Office can save files in Palm .pdb format which eReader can read.
Also check out the WSIWYG .epub editor program Sigil here. For OSX 10.4 you'll want Sigil-0.2.4-Mac-Package.dmg.
Calibre can convert .txt files into .epub format. In fact it can accept these input options: comic, FB2, PDB, PDF, TXT, and it can output: EPUB, FB2, LRF, MOBI, PDB, PDF, RB, TXT, SNB. See here. You'll want calibre-0.7.2.8.dmg for OSX 10.4.
Ibis Reader links to Developer tools at threepress.org. Some of these are used within Ibis Reader and Calibre. Most of them seem to be open-sourced.
Ibis Reader "apps" are available for Droid, Nexus One, iPad and iPhone. PCs or Macs use the web browser only.
MobiPocket Reader runs on Windows/Windows Mobile/PalmOS/Symbian/Blackberry. MobiPocket Creator runs on Windows 2000/XP with Internet Explorer 5.0 or above.
This information STILL doesn't seem to be collected anyplace else.
Update history:
v3 2011-05-25
v3 2011-05-23
v2 2011-01-24
v1 2011-01-23