Read Assistant

With the abundance of computer applications that make writing more practical, the pen and paper method is slowly becoming extinct. Books have also migrated to this virtual space, but it does not mean they became obsolete. You can now read pieces of fiction from the comfort of your desktop using applications such as Read Assistant.

The application's core function is to encourage you to open a virtual book and start reading. Your computer won't even notice it is installed, with an incredibly small amount of system resources used and roughly about 1 Mb of space required on your hard disk drive.

Once you load a text file, you can sit back and enjoy the desired content without having to lift a finger. An integrated function makes this possible, as you can enable auto-scrolling through pages at a speed you set using a provided slider.

One of the biggest disappointments is that a limited number of text formats can be loaded in the application. Basic TXT, DOC and RTF files can be opened, but no possibility to view PDF, one of the most commonly used formats of storing important content. Moreover, the drag and drop function is not implemented so you can only view files by accessing them through the file menu.

You are able to organize your book collection in a manager. It provides a tree view of imported items and you can arrange or rename them as you see fit. A history tracker remembers all books you read in case you forgot to save them in the manager.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that Read Assistant gets the job properly done, but does not fully live up to expectations. The lack of several advanced features is not the main issue, but you can only open an incredibly little variety of file formats, making it less practical than intended.