About This Guide

This QuickStart Guide is designed to help you quickly get familiar with Versabook. It shows you only the basic features of the product. An explanation of all the Versabook features can be found in Online Help.

In the QuickStart Guide, you will learn how to:

       Add books to your Research Desk
       Get around the Research Center
       Work with books
       Search books
       Display media items
       Organize your research in folders called Binders

What is Versabook?

Versabooks are electronic books immediately accessible on your computer for viewing, updating and searching whenever you want. Versabooks provide you with powerful search functions, multimedia features and the ability to build you own searchable electronic library. You can work with Versabooks the same way you would with printed books. You can take notes on each article and organize relevant articles in Binders. Books can be put on shelves and arranged according to categories such as author and subject.

Taking Notes and Highlighting

Using the Annotation feature you can add notes to the articles in your books. Annotations can also be grouped into Booklets that can then be sent to a local or network drive. The Highlighting feature enables you to mark text you want to emphasize.

Binders

When you find articles relevant to your research, you can save them to a Binder for easy access later. You can create a new Binder for each subject and the contents of each Binder can be printed and exported to HTML, Microsoft Word, and Palm Pilot. You can also import HTML documents to a Binder and conduct searches on the information.

Searches

Versabooks can have the following types of Searches enabling you to find information quickly and efficiently:

      Full Text
      Natural Language Query
      Highlight
      Keyword
      Title
      Topic
      Date
      Advanced Searches

Hypersearch

With the Hypersearch feature, you can search for articles that contain a certain word. You can conduct the search while the original article is displayed in the View pane. You can even go to a new article and then return to the original one. The Hypersearch feature is especially useful when you want additional information. For example, if you have included a dictionary in your hypersearch, you can use it to get definitions for words you don't understand in your article.

Media

To enhance your research experience, Versabooks contain media items such as:

      Photos
      Flags
      Maps
      Animations
      Sounds
      Speeches
      Musical Excerpts
      Videos

You can conduct searches for Media items and they can also be sorted by type.

Note:

Depending on your product and the books in your library, some of the media items may not be available while other books may have special media types.

Library

Using the Library, you can organize your books on shelves according to author, project or any subject relevant to your research. When updates to the books are available, they can be downloaded automatically so you always have access to the latest information.

Support for Iomega Disks

Iomega disks are high capacity removable disk storage devices. You can download and save books on different Iomega disks and switch disks to access and work with different books.

Getting Started

Research Center

The Research Center is where your electronic books are displayed. Here you can read, search, and compile sets of relevant items.

To open the Research Center:

1. Click the product icon on your Desktop. The Main Menu is displayed.
2. Click Books. The Books View shows you all the library books on your Research Desk.

Getting Around the Research Center

The Research Center is where your electronic books are displayed and where you can:

      Read your Versabooks.
      Search books for specific information and media.
      Compile sets of relevant items.
      Add your own notes.

The parts of the Research Center are described in the table below:

Area	Description
Control Pane	Located on the left side of the Research Center, the Control pane enables you to:       Choose the books and articles to display       Conduct searches on books       Search media items       Manage Binders
View Pane	Located on the right side of the Research Center, this is the window where the selected article or media item is displayed.
Navigation Tree	Located in the Control pane, this window lists media items, search results or the contents of books or Binders. Using the Navigation Tree, you can locate an article in a book or a Binder.
Toolbar	The toolbar icons provide shortcuts for various Versabook functions.
Status Bar	The Status bar is located at the bottom of the screen. It displays information and enables you to perform certain functions.

Research Desk

The Research Desk is where you keep your active books for fast and easy access. You can only read your Versabooks after adding them to the Research Desk.

To add books to the Research Desk:

1. Click Books on the Status bar. A List of Books dialog box appears.
2. Mark the check box next to the book you want to add to your Research Desk.

Working With Books

After you put your books on the Research Desk, you are ready to begin. You can read your Versabooks the same way you would any printed book, by displaying each article in the order it appears in the Navigation Tree.

To display an article in a book:

1. Click Books.
2. Click a book on the Research Desk. A list of articles appears in the Control pane on the left.
3. Click an article in the list. The text appears in the View pane on the right.

You can work only with books in the Research Desk that are in the Iomega disk that is currently in the drive. When you remove an Iomega disk, all the books in that disk are removed automatically from the Research Desk.

To work with books on different Iomega drives:

1. Choose Swap Iomega Disk from the File menu.
2. Remove the Iomega disk from the drive.
3. Insert a new Iomega disk.
4. Click OK. The list of books on the new Iomega disk appears.
5. Mark the check boxes next to the books you want to add to the Research Desk.

You can purchase new books to add to your library by accessing the Internet bookstore or buying CD-ROMs/DVDs.

Purchasing Books

To purchase a new book from the Internet Bookstore:

1. From the Internet menu, choose Go To Internet Bookstore.
2. Follow the bookstore's instructions for purchasing and downloading a book into your Home Digital Library. Your new book is placed on your Research Desk for immediate access.

Updating Books

Publishers often provide updates for their books. You can easily check for updates and download them. Updates to the Versabook program can also be downloaded automatically when they are available.

To check if there are updates available for a specific book:

1. From the View menu, select Current Book Properties.
2. Click the Updates tab. The Status bar tells whether it is time to check for an update.
3. If update(s) are available, click Updates Now to start the download and install book update process.

Taking Notes and Highlighting

While reading an article, you can add your own notes using the Annotations feature. You can also highlight sections of an article for greater emphasis. You can access these features on the menu bar in the Research Center.

Searching Your Books

You can conduct the following types of searches in your Versabook:

Full Text

This search mode enables you to search through the text in all the books on your Research Desk. You can use one or more words.

Natural Language Query

You can conduct a search using a phrase or full sentence of natural English.

Example: You can search for the question "Who is Ronald Reagan?"

Highlight

Using the highlight search, you can search text that you have highlighted.

Keyword

Some articles have been indexed with one or more related keywords that you can use the same way you would use an index in a printed book.

Title

You can search for titles of articles or media. For example, if you would like to find an article titled Abnormal Psychology, you can conduct a search for this title. The results appear in the Navigation Tree.

Topic

Some of the articles and media items are indexed by topic. You can search for these articles and media items with the Topic search option. This is similar to looking through an index in a printed book.

Date Searches

Using the date search, you can look for information relevant to a time period or a specific date.

Media

When you conduct a Full Text or Title search, you can limit your search results so that only media items will be displayed.

Hypersearch

With the Hypersearch feature, you can search for articles that contain a certain word. You can conduct the search while the original article is displayed in the View pane. You can even go to a new article and then return to the original.

Advanced Search

The Advanced Search functions enable you to narrow your search criteria to make sure the results are accurate. For example, when searching for a group of words, you can choose to search for the words in the order they were written.

Note:

Depending on your product and the books in your library, some of the search functions may not be available.

Displaying Media

You can display a list of media items in your books. Media items can also be sorted alphabetically or according to type. You can also search for a particular item.

To display a media item:

1. Click Gallery.
2. Click a media item in the Navigation Tree. The item appears in the View pane on the right.

Organizing Your Research in Binders

After you have researched a subject, you can store any item - article, media or even URL in a Binder for further reference. You can export Binders to HTML, Microsoft Word, and Palm Pilot. After you have organized your Binder, you can print it and include a cover page, title and table of contents.

An item in a Binder that is not on the current Iomega disk has an Iomega icon by it in the Navigation tree. If you want to view or add an item that is not on the current Iomega disk, you will be prompted to switch Iomega disks. If you want to print or export a Binder containing items on multiple disks, you will be prompted to switch disks during the printing and exporting of the Binder.

To create a new Binder:

1. Click Binders. Click New. The New Binders dialog box appears.
2. Enter the name of the Binder and click OK.

To add an article to an existing Binder:

1. Display the article you want to add.
2. Click Save. A drop down list appears displaying the names of your existing Binders.
3. Select the Binder where you want to save the item.

To print a Binder:

1. Click Binders.
2. Select a Binder from the list.
3. Click the Print button in Binders view. The Print dialog box appears.
4. Mark the appropriate options and enter the appropriate information.
5. Click the OK button.