[See note at the end of this post] Microsoft Word lets you view your document in several modes: Normal (=draft), Web page, printed page, outline, and print preview. Yet there’s no view designed strictly for readers. That’s too bad since many of us end up reading Word pages we have no editing rights to.

If Word added a Read view, it could have special functionality:

At the bottom of each screen would be Next and Previous buttons

Adjust font family and size with a click of a button…and save your adjustments as a theme

We could highlight text and have it saved on a per reader basis

Typing would automatically open up a comment window

We could choose to share our comments and highlights

We could easily set bookmarks for going back to particular spots

One click and you’re googling!

Copying and pasting into another document would (optionally!) create a footnote with the appropriate bibliographic information as entered by the author

Why not just take all of the best features of the existing e-books and turn them into a Read view for Word? And if not Word, then why not OpenOffice?

Helpful reader Shannon Clark points out in the comments that Word 2003 already has a Read view with most of these features. Damn! I knew I should have upgraded! (Thanks, Shannon.)

Categories: Uncategorized dw