The document reader that I use is CspotRun, available from http://32768.com/bill/palmos/cspotrun/. Don't ask me to explain the name. This program has most of the features of the commercial programs, but its author has made it available for free.

As with any document reader, you use your Palm device's scroll buttons to move through the document. You can also search for a particular word or phrase, or jump through a certain percentage of the text. The program offers four fonts and three line spacing settings to give the most comfortable view, as shown in Figure A.

FIGURE A

The print is small, but when there's a lot to read, it's all the print that's fit to read.

CspotRun also allows you to rotate the text so you can hold your organizer sideways while reading, as shown in Figure B, which can be more convenient for reading long documents.

FIGURE B

It may seem strange to show the document sideways but, remember, you can just turn your Palm device on its side.

With this program, reading documents on your Palm organizer, while still a bit of an eye-squinting proposition, is quite easy. In my spare time -- while standing in line or on hold on the phone -- I've managed to read a lot of classic texts that I had always promised myself I would get to some day.

Most good document readers offer pretty similar features. But, of the free ones, CSpotRun is the only one I've found that isn't crippled in some way to encourage you to buy a related commercial (read "expensive") version of the program. Some programs, for example, only allow you to store a few documents at a time. With others, many features are disabled.

Document converters
But to read a document on your Palm, it needs to be in a language that the document reader can understand. Luckily, there's a widely accepted standard called "DOC" format. PalmPower regularly reviews DOC format literature in its PalmPower Book Club column. Visit the back issues at http://www.palmpower.com/backissues/backissues.html to get some ideas. You can also find thousands of DOC files at sites such as http://www.memoware.com. These sites have DOC files organized into various subject groups to make for easy browsing.

But, actually, you don't even need to use those sites. Virtually any document can be converted to DOC format and loaded into your Palm device with a freeware program for your Windows PC called MakeDocW, available at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Mark_Pierce/makedocw.htm.

As long as you can save the document as a text file, MakeDocW will then convert it to a doc format file for your Palm organizer. Although the program's options may look a bit confusing, it's actually very easy to use. Just select the file you want to convert, give it a title (so you can find it later on your device), make sure Compress and Auto-install are checked, and click the convert button. The document will be converted into DOC format and automatically downloaded to your Palm device the next time you HotSync.

Most of the DOC files I read on my Palm unit come from my own word processor. I save them as text (often known in geek-speak as an ASCII DOS text file) files, then run them through MakeDocW to convert and download them to my Palm organizer.