Yesterday, I wrote about the new GeniiCollection class, but one of the examples I mentioned should get more attention. In the new version, the Midas Rich Text LSX will allow the creation of EPUB files. EPUB is the most widely used format for ebooks, readable by the Nook, the iPhone/iPad and most other mobile devices.

I will go into much more depth about EPUB in future posts, as well as other formats for ebooks which Midas may generate, but today I thought I'd give a very simple example of the power of a customizable ebook. Obviously, an ebook generated from Notes documents would be customizable, but there are other ways.

As many of you know, I have recently published a collection of short stories, Savage Fire. It is available on Amazon and elsewhere, and it is also available from my author website, http://www.BenLanghinrichs.net, but with a twist. From my site, you can pay by credit card and specify a format as well as a name, and the ebook will be personally dedicated to that person, whether it be you or somebody else. The dedication is built right into the cover page, as if the author had signed your ebook.

If you want to see what this looks like, there's a post over on my author website called Does your ebook come with a personalized dedication? and you can even see the link on the right where you can order the personalized copy.

Think about the power of being able to create an ebook, or any collection of rendered text and links, on the fly using LotusScript. It could be a sales report sent to the boss's iPhone, or a proposal customized with names from a client company, or simply a segment of a database sent to somebody without Notes. Dynamic and customizable with just a few lines of LotusScript.