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FAQ
Install only required language modules. Each language module installed in significantly slows down the import of books.
There are two main elements in the options: tree and panel settings. Tree selects a group setting. The selected group of settings is displayed in the right pane of the tree. One of the most important settings ICE Book Reader Professional is located in tree item "Mode". Click it. You will see on the panel radio buttons for selecting modes of ICE Book Reader Professional. There are two basic modes in ICE Book Reader Professional: "Scroll mode" and "Book mode". "Scroll mode" - in this mode, text appears in the form of an infinite scroll. Scroll can be scrolled. ICE Book Reader Professional supports a variety of ways of reading books. Therefore, panel "Mode" allows to specify a read mode is selected. There are next read modes in ICE Book Reader Professional: "Page Down mode" - in this is mode, ICE Book Reader Professional will page down the pages automatically at specified intervals. Page down speed can be set on at "Speech mode" - in this is mode, ICE Book Reader Professional will read the text aloud using a speech synthesizer. All necessary settings text to speech settings can be found in section "Scroll mode" - in this is mode, ICE Book Reader Professional will smoothly scroll the text. All necessary settings text can be found in section "Mode->Scroll mode". "Wave mode" - this is special scroll mode. However, in this mode, the text does not move, and moving the boundary update the text. All necessary settings text can be found in section "Mode->Scroll mode". It is important to understand which mode works now. For example, the font settings will only be used in sections selected mode. ICE Book Reader Professional has an independent set of fonts for different modes. If you selected a scroll mode, then on the panel
Very simple. Just find in options the button witch look like to this is image and click on it:
Scrolling is a very simple operation: it's just a shifting of the image step by step with constant frequency. Theoretically it's very simple: all you need to do is to use a timer or a custom delay. For instance, to make text scroll with a speed of 150 lines per second, you need to make a delay of 1000/150 = 7msec after scrolling the text by one line. Microsoft Windows has an internal clock working with a 100 Hz or less frequency, the exact frequency number is dependent on the OS version and CPU speed. But that means that the minimum delay specified in MS Windows roughly equals 10msec. Using only standard methods, the following frequencies can be implemented: 100 Hz, 50 Hz, 33 Hz, 25 Hz, 20 Hz, etc. ICE Book Reader Professional uses its own scrolling technology which allows you to specify any frequency within the 1HZ - 500Hz range to the nearest 1Hz. Hence the name of the technology: Ultra Smooth Scrolling Engine.
This mode is supposed to make your reading more comfortable and natural. In this mode, ICE Book Reader Professional adjusts the scroll speed automatically depending on the text density. Thus, more text on the screen makes scrolling go slower, less text on the screen does the opposite. All you have to do in this mode is just specify your comfortable reading speed, and ICE Book Reader Professional will take care of all the rest. Text antialiasing is a technology
whereby small fonts are replaced by bigger fonts (2, 3 or even 4 times
bigger) to paint all the text. This large matrix is then scaled down
to the actual requested size just before output to the screen. This
allows all the calculations to be done with larger numbers and therefore
to achieve more precise font imaging. Here's how antialiasing makes
text more readable: Without full text antialiasing With full text antialiasing
Original text, font size 20 Original text, font size 80 Original text enlarged in 4 times (for comparison),
font size 20 If we shrink both texts (size 80 and size
20 enlarged) and enlarge both again, we can see: Look at the top of the letter
'E'. It is clearly visible that full text antialiasing gives a more
accurate result. Super Scrolling permits the
inclusion of additional scroll steps with sub-pixel precision. Instead
of 1 scrolling step, Super Smooth generates 2, 3 or 4 small sub-steps.
This technology resembles the one used in 100Hz TV refresh rates. Super
Scrolling offers visible improvements only for low-speed scrolling,
i.e. less than 40 lines per second. Wave Scrolling is scrolling without moving the text. Instead of scrolling smoothly, the text is updated by a wave. This is very useful for slow LCD displays. Also, anybody who does not like moving text can use wave scrolling instead of manual browsing. For wave scrolling, the use of "DirectX mode" is not recommended. It's best to use "Hardware mode" for wave scrolling.
While screen scrolling, you
can see something like this: The first picture shows scrolling working correctly. The second picture shows synchronisation being lost for 2 frames.
There are a number of reasons
for this:
Software scroll mode implements scrolling as a continuous screen repaint. Hardware scroll mode uses direct access to the screen buffer. As a result, hardware scroll mode works much faster. Software scroll mode is mostly used in those rare cases when hardware scroll mode fails. DirectX mode uses Microsoft DirectX. Super Scrolling works only in DirectX mode. Keep in mind that DirectX requires a more powerful video card and CPU.
Some thin and small fonts can cause text flickering during Super Smooth scrolling. To prevent this, ICE Book Reader Professional has a special anti flicker filter built-in. Do not activate this filter unless you have visible text flickering. This filter might make your text look more blurry.
Text navigation with "scroll" means that pressing one of the movement keys on the keyboard (Arrows Up/Down, PgUp/PgDown) would make ICE Book Reader Professional scroll the text faster in the specified direction (i.e. if it's PgUp or PgDown, the program will scroll the whole screen of lines very fast). In the "jump" mode all the text movements will be done without actual scrolling (i.e. the current position will jump to the specified one, and the whole screen will be filled with new lines instantly). Scroll mode is better by default, due to the fact that human eyes have base points for tracking text movement. Jump mode is good for LCD display with slow refresh rate (notebooks with passive LCD). Also it can be good if you want to read text without automatic text scrolling.
Search mode is a special navigation mode for ultra-fast text navigation - up to 30 pages per second. In this mode, it is easy to find any lines of text by using only PgUp and PgDn.
ICE Book Reader Professional uses an internal cache for storing text images. Without this cache, fast page moving would be more difficult. A large cache size guarantees that multiple pages will move without visible delay. However, a large cache requires a lot of RAM. Check it carefully. If your computer does not have enough free RAM, do not use a large cache size. It's recommended that not more than 50% of total RAM be used for the cache. Also, a very large cache size can make ICE Book Reader Professional run more slowly in other modes.
There are three main parts in library window: a tree (at the left), the list of books (on the right) and area for fast viewing (below on the right). In many respects use of library reminds use classical Windows Explorer. To use library productively, it is necessary to understand the following concepts:
You can manually change the author and/or title of any book or group of the books. Just select required books and press "Edit" on toolbar. A dialog box will appear. There are three ways to enter the right author name and/or title of the book:
Using special symbol & is possible to mark author surname. For example: Mark &Twain, Artur &Conan &Doyle. Surname always place at beginning of the author name and automatically change register size. You will see on tree or in list changed author name. For example: TWAIN Mark, CONAN DOYLE Artur.
ICE Book Reader Professional allows searching by any books properties. There are two main search groups: textual search and non-textual search.
Collection is a set of books stored somewhere, as on DVD, local hard drive directory folder, or on LAN. Your personal collection is called MAIN. In this collection you are free to make any changes you want, such as renaming books and importing new ones. You can read from other collections also. The collections contribute to the following:
There are three types of collections:
All actions with collections are done through the Collections menu. To start using a collection, import one. For more convenience, there is a list of previously imported collections for quick access. If you want to read a book from external collection, just start reading it. This book will be automatically copied to the main collection. If you are interested in more than one, just select the books (or mark using sticky selection) and copy them to main collection using menu command Copy the Books from the External Library to Main Library. There is a possibility to select books using powerful search options. Now it is possible to search for books using full or partial name of collection. There is also a possibility to compare main collection with external collection to search for books missing or duplicated. You can select specific fields for this comparison. The most informative results are received when using fields Author Name and Book Title. The results of comparison are showed in tab Others, in tree nodes Collection Differences and Collection Duplicates.
To create a new collection select books you want to export, and use menu Export. Select Copy the Books or Copy the Books from the Collection if you want to create an external collection of books. Select Export List of the Books to Database or Export List of the Books to Database from the Collection if you want to export only information about the books (such as book titles, author names etc.) Text of books would not be copied.
You can create library on removable media: To exchange books with others users of ICE Book Reader Professional:
1. Select books for export.
There are a lot of various options in ICE Book Reader Professional. Therefore, switching of the mode of formatting can demand some operations. Presets allow to simplify switching between basic operating modes ICE Book Reader Professional. Presets split on two sections: Scroll and Book. The first section includes various scroll modes, and the second various "book view" modes. There are three modes in each section: DOS, WIN and Original. DOS. This mode assumes, that is used DOS format. It's mean, what length a line usually is less than 80 symbols. And the paragraph is united from several lines. WIN. This mode assumes, that is used WIN format. It's mean, what one line of the text are one paragraph. Original. In this mode of the text it is shown in an original format. Original format usually use monospaced fonts. However in "Book view" mode switching in monospaced mode occur only if monospaced font is using.
Profiles allow you to save any set of the options. You can store a single option or any given group of options. To create a profile, set all the program options to desired values - for instance, adjust the font family/size/color, scrolling speed, etc - and then press the "Create profile" button. In the dialog box which comes up, tick all the options you want to be stored in your profile, and enter the name in a text field. Press Ok to finish the operation. To make use of a profile, simply select it from the profiles drop-down menu. Using profiles can really
simplify program operations:
There are two panels in ICE Book Reader Professional:
Teleprompter mode is a mode where all texts are mirrored. Use of a mirrored image is required for an LCD/CRT operating as a teleprompter. The computer outputs a video signal to a monitor or monitors. A one-way mirrored glass is positioned over the monitor to reflect the text to the speaker. Several lines of text are visible and the text is scrolled by an operator who moves the lines at the speaker's pace, always allowing for pauses or adlibs. Windows teleprompter software normally costs more than $200. ICE Book Reader Professional presents you with a low-cost teleprompter solution. You can use different modes for changing teleprompter speed. There is special mode, adapted for teleprompters. Select in Options: "Options - Mouse click will change - Speed". In what mode mouse click will start/stop scrolling. Moving mouse up/down you can increase/decrease scroll speed very fast and accurate.
In the Crop mode, letters are never cropped by the window border.
If this option is activated, the Toolbar will be removed from the screen after 3 seconds of mouse inactivity in scrolling mode, or after 15 seconds of mouse inactivity in stay mode.
If this option is activated, text can be selected by the mouse and copied to the clipboard (Ctrl + C).
If this option is activated, the long author name and/or title will scroll in the Toolbar.
If this option is activated, ICE Book Reader Professional will estimate the amount of time left to complete reading the book. This option is supported in both scrolling and manual-reading mode.
Reactions at pressing buttons of the mouse can be various. There are four reactions: "Selection" - left mouse button (LMB) use for selecting text, right mouse button (RMB) use for activating pop-up menu. "Position" - LMB use for smooth text scrolling, RMB use for activating pop-up menu. "Page, mode 1" - click by LMB to the right side of screen cause switching to the next page, click by LMB to the left side of screen cause switching to the previous page, RMB use for activating pop-up menu. "Page, mode 2" - click by LMB cause switching to the next page, click by RMB cause switching to the previous page. Beware, due to in what mode pop-up menu is disabled, also are disabled all keyboard shortcuts.
Skins is just a simple .ZIP file. Do not unpack this .ZIP file !!! ICE Book Reader Professional opens this archive and unpacks the necessary files for use. All skins should be stored in the "Skins" directory. To add new skins, just copy new .ZIP files to the 'Skins' directory. You can see which skins have been added in the "Mode" tab under "Options". There is no need to restart ICE Book Reader Professional to use new skins. You can easily create skins. The detailed description of structure of skins files can be found in the ICE Book Reader Professional help file.
ICE Book Reader Professional creates a different library for each Windows user. The library directories are listed as 'Books-Username' in the program folder. This means that multiple readers can use a single copy of ICE Book Reader to read their own collection of books. It is also possible to force ICE Book Reader Professional to use a specific library and ignore the current user library. The path to this library can be set using the command line parameter: "/BOOKS_PATH=". Example: ICEReader.exe /BOOKS_PATH=E:\CommonBooks
ICE Book Reader Professional allows executing multiple copies of speech engines (multiple threads) for increasing speed of making WAV/MP3 books. Different parts of the text are "said" in parallel simultaneously. Then they gather in a uniform sound file. This is process can greatly decrease time need for making of a WAV/MP3 books. However, using more than one thread can be potentially dangerous. Some engines allow using many threads almost without restrictions (most SAPI5 engines). Some engines allow using not more than 2-4 threads (most SAPI4 engines). Some engines allow using only single thread (some old engines, like Digalo). If you are use multiple thread, some troubles can happened. ICE Book Reader Professional can freeze or Windows can inform about application error in the ICE Book Reader Professional or something similar. This is not ICE Book Reader Professional bug. Internal speech engine errors cause what problems. It happens because most speech engines never tested for using in multithread mode. However ICE Book Reader Professional does everything for prevention of this problem, only speech mode authors can solve it completely. Usually not need to use more than 4-8 threads, even if you have multiple CPU system. Try not set large quantity of threads from beginning. Try to increase quantity of threads slowly, beginning from 2. If you see what system is stable, you can try to increase quantity of threads.
ICE Book Reader Professional provides advanced control over pronunciations of words that are not pronounced correctly by Text-To-Speech engines. Pronunciation dictionaries is a simple Unicode textual file with extension .dic. Dictionaries in ASCII or any other codepages not supported. Dictionaries have to be stored in SpchDict directory. Dictionary works as multiple search/replace operators by mask. Before send text to Text-To-Speech engine dictionary rules apply to specified text segment. Dictionary file format is simple. Syntax of the every line in dictionary is: MASK=TEXT. There are multiple search modes:
ICE Book Reader Professional use high efficient dictionary engine. It's allow to apply dictionaries with millions words without visible delays. ICE Book Reader Professional can process multiple dictionaries in specified order. For this is need select that dictionaries in pronunciation panel.
ICE Book Reader Professional allows you to edit books, including editing styles and images. ICE Book Reader Professional edits the text line by line. Adding or removing new rows are not allowed. But allowed to combine a few paragraphs on a single line of text. Highlight a word or phrase to start editing. Then press Ctrl-E or use the pop-up menu. Open a text editor. When editing text, ICE Book Reader Professional does not replace the text in the book. ICE Book Reader Professional creates a patch, which replaces the book text. Patch can be removed, and then restore the original text and formatting. Editing text reminds editing HTML file. Although there are significant differences. Formatting text within each line is executed as if there is only one line in the text. This means that if two lines are marked bold, each line must be marked by bold independently. Field "Line number" indicates the current line number. If this field has a green background, then this line is fixed. There is a patch for this line. To correct the text in the book, you need to edit the text and click the "Apply". To remove the patch, click "Remove". Checked checkbox "Paragraph" means that this line begins a paragraph. Usually this checkbox is turned off only for text in the markup DOS. Checked checkbox "Marked" make line as text title. There are formatting tags:
The Trial Version of ICE Book Reader Professional has the following limitations:
THERE IS NO TRIAL (EXPIRY) PERIOD IN THE TRIAL VERSION.
The current version does not support styles, links and images in the export function of texts and video export. Full support of these functions will be made in future versions. |
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How to use ICE Book Reader Professional for book reading
Antialiasing gives text
a smoother look, without blurring
or 
. The first picture
shows your real scrolling speed (lines per second). The second picture
shows your real scrolling speed (lines per second) and a quantity of
frames, if and when synchronization was lost. You can also call them
"dropped out" frames if you like, though it's not absolutely
correct.