eBook Formats

eBooks come in a wide variety of formats and not every ebook reader is compatible with every type of format. Below is a description of the most popular ebook formats.

Kindle - (.azw) Developed by Amazon specifially for the Kindle. eBooks are downloaded to the Kindle in .azw format via their wireless EvDO network.

ePUB - (.epub) Compatible with the Sony Reader and BeBook, this open ebook format was created by the International Publishing Forum. Many software programs such as Adobe Digital Editions and OpenBerg (a Firefox add-on) also support this ebook format.

Portable Document File – (.pdf) Widely used format created by Adobe Systems. Since this format is usable by so many different platforms, more compatibility issues exist than with any other format. Pages which are normally sized for standard paper are sometimes hard to view on a handheld screen unless the pages are resizes for ebook readers, which is not always the case.

For more information on ebook formats check out Wikipedia.