Microsoft Reader

Microsoft Reader: E-book Reader Softwares

Microsoft Reader is an e-book reader software developed by Microsoft, allowing users to read .lit format e-books with highlighting and note-taking capabilities, discontinued in 2012.

What is Microsoft Reader?

Microsoft Reader was an e-book reader software application developed by Microsoft for reading e-books in .lit format. It was first released in August 2000 and was in development until 2012 when Microsoft discontinued it.

Some key features of Microsoft Reader included:

• Support for annotation and highlighting directly in e-books
• Text-to-speech functionality to read e-books aloud
• Customizable layouts and fonts for reading
• Built-in dictionary to look up words
• Support for table of contents, bookmarks, search
• Compatibility with Pocket PC/Windows CE devices

The .lit format allowed for e-book formatting features not available in standard PDFs. Microsoft developed the .lit format along with OeBF, an international consortium of e-book publishers. Titles needed to be specifically formatted for Microsoft Reader in .lit to support all of its features for e-book reading.

Over its lifetime, Microsoft Reader accumulated over 160,000 e-book titles available for purchase or download. However, it failed to gain widespread popularity beyond a niche audience. Microsoft officially discontinued development and support for Microsoft Reader in August 2012, directing users to Kindle instead.

Microsoft Reader Features

Official Links