Chapter 13. Reading on Your NOOK and Beyond

Although your NOOK has many unique features and capabilities, when it comes right down to it, its primary purpose is for reading books and other content. One of the benefits of owning a NOOK is that you can carry a complete library with you everywhere you go. If you don’t happen to have your NOOK with you, you can also read your ebooks on your PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Android phone, and Blackberry.

Various forms of content are available to read on your NOOK, such as NOOK Books, PDFs, and other EPUB ebooks. Appendix A, “Understanding ebook Formats,” explains more about the details of ebook formats.

Browsing Your Library

There are two main places for content on your NOOK: The Home screen and My Library.

The Home Screen

The Home screen includes information automatically delivered to your NOOK in the New Reads section, which includes new subscription content, new samples, and new ebooks. Tap See Library at the bottom of the New Reads section to go to your full library.

The Reading Now section shows the last item you were reading along with which page you are on. Tap the cover to continue reading that content.

Additionally on the Home screen, B&N provides recommendations for what to read next at the bottom of the screen. These picks are based on your purchase history. Tap a cover to see more details about that NOOK Book, including an option to purchase it. Tap See All B&N Picks to connect to the B&N store. See Chapter 16, “Using the Social Features of Your NOOK,” to learn more about shopping on your NOOK.

The Library

The Library contains all the content you purchase from B&N. This includes not only books you purchase, but also magazine and newspaper subscriptions, sample books, free books downloaded from B&N, documents you place on the NOOK, and everything else.

First, consider the basic controls in the Library:

• Synch (button is two arrows forming a circle): The Synch button forces your Library to update, which means that it downloads any new content that has not yet downloaded and synchs reading location, annotation, notes, and bookmarks on NOOK Books across NOOK reading devices (NOOK Color, NOOK, NOOK for iPad, and so on).

• Search (button is a magnifying glass): Tap this to search your Library. When the search screen appears, type your search criteria and tap the Search key. You can scroll through the results (if more than a few). Tap the item to open it. Tap Close to close the search screen and return to the Library. This feature doesn’t search inside your content. It searches only the metadata for your content. Metadata includes the title, author, publisher, contributors, and subject.

• Type: The default is All, but you can narrow what you see in your Library by choosing what type of content you want to see: All, Books, Newsstand, LendMe, Shelves, My Files, Archived, or Everything Else.

To change what you want to see, tap the drop-down list, and then tap your choice. A few of them offer additional actions beyond seeing what’s available. Newsstand items show the overall subscription with the number of issues available. Tap the cover to see the individual issues. Tap the individual issue’s cover to open it.

LendMe shows your NOOK Books available to Lend.

Shelves enables you to see any shelves you created and enables you to add more. See “Shelves” for more information about using them.

My Documents enables you navigate the NOOK internal memory and the microSD card for non-NOOK Books content. Tap the folder to navigate to the location you want, and then double-tap the file to open it.

In Archived, tap the Unarchive button on the cover (or to the right of the title’s name) to unarchive the title.

• Sort: Enables you to sort what you are viewing by the Most Recent items (that is, added to the NOOK), by title, or by author.

• Grid/List View: These two options (Grid view is a set of nine boxes in a grid format, whereas List view is a set of five stacked lines) determine how you view the content in the Library. Grid shows the covers. List shows the title without the cover.

• Library: This is, of course, the main reason for this screen. You can scroll through the Library. Double-tap the cover (or the title if in List view) to see the Title Details screen. See “View Item Details & Options” for more information about that screen. Tap the cover (or the title if in List view) to open that ebook.

Items in the Library are in one of three categories:

• Items on your NOOK: Items on your NOOK are available for reading immediately by selecting the item. They are stored in your NOOK’s memory or on a microSD card if one is installed.

• Archived items: These are items in My NOOK Library on bn.com and that have been downloaded to your NOOK at one point but that have since been removed from your NOOK. These items appear as light-colored text (grayed out) in the Library.

• Everything Else: These are items in My NOOK Library that are not compatible with the NOOK. For example, the NOOK Color supports apps, but the NOOK does not. So the Library shows any apps you have purchased. Other examples include NOOK Books for Kids, some magazines (for example, National Geographic), and textbooks among others.

For more information on using My NOOK Library on bn.com, see Chapter 20, “Using My NOOK Library.”

When you purchase a NOOK Book, that book is added to My NOOK Library on bn.com and is downloaded to your NOOK.

Some items in the Library might have an indicator banner on the top-right corner of the cover or to the right of the title. This icon indicates special properties of the item (such as the ability to lend the item to a friend using the LendMe feature), or it might indicate that an item has been lent to someone or is borrowed from someone.

For more information on the LendMe feature, see Chapter 14, “Lending and Borrowing Books on Your NOOK Using LendMe.”

The following icons might be displayed for an item:

• LendMe: Indicates that the item can be lent to a friend using the LendMe feature.

• On Loan: Indicates that the item has been lent to a friend. You cannot read this item for a period of 14 days from the lend date.

• Borrowed: Indicates that the item has been borrowed from a friend. The item will be available to you for 14 days.

• Lent to You: Indicates that the item is one that a friend has offered to lend to you. After you accept the offer, the item shows a Borrowed banner.

• Sample: Indicates that the item is a sample ebook from B&N.

• Returned: Indicates that a NOOK Book you borrowed has been returned.

You can also see the buttons Download and Unarchive on the cover in Grid view (or the right of the title in List view). Tap Download to download the NOOK Book from B&N. Tap Unarchive to unarchive the book.

View Item Details & Options

When you double-tap a cover in the Library, you see the Title Details screen. The available options differ depending on the content you select:

• Download: Displayed only when the content has not already been downloaded to your NOOK. Tapping Download transfers it using Wi-Fi.

• Read: Displayed only when the content has been downloaded to your NOOK. Tapping Read opens the content on the reading screen.

• LendMe: Displayed only when the publisher has enabled the LendMe feature. This menu item enables you to lend the content to a friend.

• Rating: A series of stars is available so that you can rate your content. Tap the stars, and five large stars display. Touch the star that corresponds to your rating.

• Overview: This displays a description of the item (if available) and other details.

• Reviews: For B&N content, you can see customer and editorial reviews of that NOOK Book. You can also add a review. See Chapter 16 for more information.

• Related Titles: This displays similar titles divided by either Those Who Bought This Book Also Bought These Others or Other Books by the Author.

• Share: For more information about this feature, see Chapter 16.

• Archive: Removes the selected content from your NOOK’s storage. The item is still visible in the Library, but if you want to read the content, you need to unarchive it first.

For more information on using My NOOK Library, see Chapter 20.

Shelves

You can organize your ebooks into shelves, aligning them into whatever categories you want for easier access to similar ebooks. You can go directly to a shelf of books by pressing the Home button, tapping Library, and tapping Shelves in the Type list. If you have more than four titles on the shelf, tap See All to see all the titles on that shelf.

If you have shelves you created and you want to place ebooks onto those shelves, tap Edit. A list of title appears. Scroll to the title or titles you want, tapping the check box along the way. Tap Save to add those titles to the shelf. If you want to remove titles from the shelf, simply tap the check box to clear out the check box, and tap Save. You can add and remove titles at the same time.

The Sort options for shelves changes to Most Recent and Shelf name. Just tap the Sort drop-down list, and tap the sort order you want.

To create a new shelf, from the Shelf screen tap Add Shelf. Type the name of the shelf and tap Save. Add titles. (Although this is not required.) Tap Save.

To remove a shelf, tap Edit for the Shelf you want to delete, tap Delete Shelf, and tap OK.

To rename a shelf, tap Edit for the Shelf you want to delete, tap Rename, update the name, and tap Save.

Archiving Library Items

As mentioned earlier, you can archive an item by double-tapping the cover and then tapping Archive in the Overview tab. Archiving is a means to remove an item you purchased from B&N from your NOOK. Archived items still display in the Library, but they display with the Unarchive banner.

When an item is archived, you can still view details on the item, rate the item, and lend the item to a friend using the LendMe feature. However, to read the item, you must unarchive it.

To unarchive an item, tap Unarchive on the cover. The item begins downloading and disappears out of the Archived view.

My Files

My Files contains content you manually copy to your NOOK from other sources. B&N calls the process of manually copying books and other content to your NOOK sideloading, and any reading content you sideload onto your NOOK appears in the My Files portion of the Library (and also when you view All content).

View Item Details & Options

When you double-tap a My Files cover, you see the details for the selected item. Details include the publisher, publication date, and so on if available. You also see the file path for the selected item.

You have only one option from this Details screen: Open.

Reading Books on Your NOOK

If you open a NOOK Book or sideloaded EPUB file for the first time, after you select it, you go to the starting point that the publisher chose for that item. This might or might not be the first page. For example, this ebook opens on the first page of Chapter 1, “Getting Started with Your NOOK Color.” Other ebooks open on the cover or title page. The publisher of the book decides which page is visible when you first open an ebook.

If you open a NOOK Book that you have read on the NOOK before in any of the NOOK Apps, NOOK Study, or NOOK Color, you are taken to the last location you were reading. If you open a sideloaded EPUB file you have read on the NOOK before, it opens to the last page you were on in the NOOK. In other words, non-B&N content does not sync across applications.

As you’re reading, swipe right across the page to go to the previous page or swipe left across the page to go to the next page or use the buttons to the left and right.

Of course, there’s more to reading books than just reading, right? To see the Reading Tools, quickly tap the reading screen. (B&N recommends tapping the middle of the screen.)

The following are the Reading Tools options:

• Content: This opens up a screen to navigate the table of contents, notes and highlights, and bookmarks. To go to a specific table of contents, note, highlight, or bookmark, simply tap the appropriate tab, and tap the table of content location you want to go to. See Chapter 15, “Using Highlights, Bookmarks, and Annotations,” for more details about using these features.

• Find: Tap this option to search the text within this book. Type the text and tap Search. The NOOK searches through the book and displays the results, providing the page number and some context for the search word. If you want to go to the location of that search, tap the row and you are taken there. Otherwise, tap Close.

• Go To: Tapping this displays a scrollbar, your location within the book, and two options: Go Back and Go to Page. To scroll to a specific page, tap the vertical bar, and drag it to the location you want to go to. As you scroll the page number and location information change to reflect that location. To go to a specific page, tap Go to Page, type the number of the page, and tap Go. In either case of scrolling or going to a specific page, if you want to go back to the position in the book you were at immediately prior, tap Go Back.

• Text: Tap this to access the font and size options. See “Changing the Text Font and Text Size” section for more details.

• More: This opens up the Details screen.

To exit the Reading Tools, tap anywhere on the reading screen without those tools appearing.

Finally, while reading, you can press and hold on a word. The Text Selection Toolbar appears. If you want to select more than that single word, drag the selection highlight to the end of the block of text you want to select. For the Highlight, Add Note, and Look Up buttons, see Chapter 15. For the Share button, see Chapter 16. The “Looking Up Words” section discusses looking up words.

Changing the Text Font and Text Size

Your NOOK enables you to easily change the text font and text size while you read.

The text options are available from the Text option on the Reading Tools screen. An array of options display: Size, Font, Line Spacing, Margins, and Publisher Defaults. (If the options are locked down by the publisher, you may only have an option to adjust the text size.)

Your NOOK supports seven text sizes, represented by the A. The current text size A is black, whereas the sizes not used are gray. (Additionally, a small arrow appears above the size in use.) Tap the A for the size you want. You can see the text size adjust behind the text menu. Adjust the text size to whichever size you want.

The current font used has an arrow next to it. To change the font, tap from the six available fonts.

• You cannot change the text font if the publisher created the content with a specific font embedded in it.

• You cannot change the text font for PDF files. If the creator of the PDF file embedded a particular font, your NOOK uses that font. Otherwise, it uses the default font.

• Some ebooks consist of pages scanned as images, usually as PDF files. You cannot change the text font for these ebooks.

The Line Spacing options are similar to using single space or double space. The current selection is the darker option and has an arrow above it. You have three options. Tap the option you want. The reading screen adjusts.

The Margin options determine the amount of white space on the right and left sides of the text. The current selection is the darker option and has an arrow above it. You have three options. Tap the option you want. The reading screen adjusts.

Looking Up Words

One of the most convenient features of your NOOK is to quickly look up the definitions of words you don’t know. If you’re reading a book and encounter a word you don’t know or are curious about, press and hold on that word until the Text Selection toolbar appears. Tap Look Up. A window appears with a dictionary entry.

Reading Magazines and Newspapers on Your NOOK

In addition to books, B&N provides magazine and newspaper subscriptions for your NOOK. B&N automatically delivers subscription content to your NOOK if a Wi-Fi connection is available.

For more information on subscribing to content on your NOOK, see Chapter 17, “Shopping and Visiting B&N on Your NOOK.” Some magazines are not supported for reading on your NOOK (for example, National Geographic), so be sure to check the supported NOOK devices and apps on the B&N website.

Unlike books, magazine and newspaper content isn’t presented in a linear format. Content is often presented as article headlines followed by a small synopsis of each article. To read the specific article, tap the headline for that article. After an article is open, use swipe left and right gestures to navigate between pages just as you do when reading a book.

Tapping the screen displays the Reading Tools, which are the same as the ebook Read Tools.

Newspaper content often contains links that make navigating the content easier. For example, when reading The New York Times, you can move to the next or previous articles (as available) by tapping Previous Article or Next Article.

For more information on subscription content, including when your NOOK automatically deletes subscription content, see Chapter 17.

This chapter covered a lot of information on reading content on your NOOK. However, your NOOK is only one device of many that provides access to your My NOOK Library. You can also read content on your computer, your iPhone, and other devices as well.