PyGE: Python Gutenberg E-text Project

PyGE: Python Gutenberg E-text Project is a neat looking project intended to make the texts at Project Gutenberg more accessible and readable on the consumer's desktop.

PyGE consists of a suite of three subprograms: a desktop search of Project Gutenberg texts and download them; a compiler to convert the texts into a more usable but still open source format (zTXT); provide a reader for the desktop to enable comfortable reading, said reader to have optional speech output.

It looks like the project is in a stable beta.

PyGE has some key cross platform capabilities:

• Windows platform
• Linux platform
• X11 platform on Mac OS X (although a true Mac OS X version does not seem to be available and I do not really consider X11 to be usable by the general public)
• Palm OS (since the zTXT files created can be read on the open source Weasel Reader for Palm)

This is exactly the kind of software needed to really make Gutenberg texts come alive with the public. Those applications need to be fairly seamless and easy to use. They also need to be easy to install, so I presume that someday any installation wizard will include the Python libraries needed for this program to work.

Unfortunately, as a Mac user, I was not able to test this suite of programs since it seems to be for Windows and Linux. If any of you try it on one of those systems, please let me know how the installation and trial went.