QL eBooks

Last Updated: 31.03.23

A selection of electronic books for eBook readers, tablet pcs, etc. Available in a selection of formats, including .ePub, .Mobi, and in some cases .pdf. Kindle. users should be able to use the .Mobi formats, although it will be necessary to transfer the file to your Kindle until I get around to making the documents available directly for Kindle.

Most eBook readers will not download directly from this page, so you will most likely need to download them to your computer and transfer them to the relevant directory or memory card on your eBook reader or tablet PC. For iPad users, Lee Privett has prepared this YouTube video he made showing him opening up the eBooks directly from this page in his iPad's Kindle and iBooks viewers: Click here to view the video.

I very much hope that making these eBook files available will help everyone associated with the QL because many documents and reference manuals can be held on an eBook reader or tablet PC, thus reducing the need for paper manuals and clutter around your computer desk, plus being able to refer to the guides on a small handheld screen as you work may be more convenient than bringing up PDFs and DOC files onscreen on your emulator or main computer.

The eBook called "The Sinclair QL" is an interesting book in the sense that it is derived from the Wikipedia encyclopedia using its facility to build and extract a book made of pages you have selected. This can then be supplied free of charge on a non-profit basis under license. The book contains all information I could find about the QL in Wikipedia together with a lot of information about Sinclair, past Sinclair products and so on. It is interesting reading and contains a wealth of external links too. Its only downside is the sheer size, over 25MB depending on which format you select (it is a 255 page book after all!), so don't try to download it on a dial-up internet connection, for example.

For the record, most of these have been converted using the Calibre software on a Windows PC. Calibre is a pretty good piece of software, although if you do try to use it to convert to eBook formats, make sure you read its instructions/help files well first so you get the most out of it. E.g. don't try to convert Word docs directly, follow the advice on exporting Word docs as filtered html files, and observe the guidelines on using facilities such as the Word 'heading' styles so a chapter index can be generated automatically and so on.

If you have converted further QL eBooks which can be made available free of charge for other QL users, please do email a copy to me for inclusion on this page so that I may expand the range available.

The QL User Guide is available in several formats below, and is also available to read online for occasional users who may not wish or need to download all of the QL User Guide documents. Alternatively, you can download the entire online HTML QL User Guide as a zip file here (2.5MB).

Further information on eBook formats can be found on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats

Slightly updated versions (reintroduced graphics in to the turbo manual, George Gwilt's additions and changes in basic text form but with additional graphics, corrected typos etc. as described in the preface) of the three Turbo guides are available from iTunes store, thanks to Lee Privett.

Paolo Proietti  has kindly converted the complete plain text QL manual and a few other articles from my website to eBook formats. The QL manual is best viewed with a monspaced font (if your eBook reader has that facility) as it contains character diagrams etc, so might look bad on a proportional font.

A4 QL Manuals

A4 versions of the QL manual files. Note that these don't include guides for Abacus, Archive, Easel and Quill.

A5 QL Manuals

I've made A5 versions of the QL manual files. These may display rather better on some eBook readers if the print size of the above ones is too small. To some extent, it depends on whether the reader overrides font sizes, margins etc, but try these and see how we get on. Note that these don't include guides for Abacus, Archive, Easel and Quill.

QPC2 Guides

Martin Head's Concepts and Keywords guides for QPC2.

Abacus/Archive/Easel/Quill Manuals

As time allows, I will proof-read the OCR'ed Abacus, Archive, Easel and Quill manuals. I have already OCR'ed them, but they need proof reading and correcting before they can be placed here (volunteers, anyone?).

The first I have managed to do is the QL Quill manual:
Quill manual PDF (671K)
Quill manual Word DOC (1.1M)

Archive manual PDF (not searchable) (19M)

Tim Swenson has prepared searchable copies of the Abacus, Archive, Easel, Quill and Xchange manuals on his site at http://swensont.epizy.com/

French QL Manual

Olivier Basely has kindly started on the work of OCRing the French QL manual. Here's what he has been able to do so far:
Introduction.pdf (442K) - Introduction Guide (PDF file)
Introduction.docx (465K) - Introduction Guide (Word .docx file)
Guide_debutant.pdf (1141K) - Beginners Guide (PDF file)
Guide_debutant.docx (1471K) - Beginners Guide (Word .docx file)
Mots_cles.pdf (241K) - Keywords Guide (PDF file)
Mots_cles.docx (145K) - Keywords Guide (Word .docx file)
Concepts.pdf (798K) - Concepts Guide (PDF file)
Concepts.docx (866K) - Concepts Guide (Word .docx file)
QL_archive.pdf (307K) - QL Archive user guide (PDF file)
QL_archive.docx (174K) - QL Archive user guide (Word .docx file)
QL_Abacus.pdf (493K) - QL Abacus user guide (PDF file)
QL_Abacus.docx (783K) - QL Abacus user guide (Word .docx file)
QL_Easel.pdf (203K) - QL Easel user guide (PDF file)
QL_Easel.docx (295K) - QL Easel user guide (Word .docx file)
QL_Quill.pdf (290K) - QL Quill user guide (PDF file)
QL_Quill.docx (426K) - Quill Quill user guide (Word .docx file)

Greek QL Manual

Thanks to Christos Kotampitsis, here are two PDF files of the manuals which shipped with Greek QLs. These books were given for scanning from a QL user named Costas Giavrimis and the scanning work was made by Alexandros Karatasou.
qloxgr_med.pdf - the Greek QL User Guide (131K)
qlosgr_med.pdf - the Greek user guides for the Psion programs (100K)

SMSQ/E Manual

Updated versions of the SMSQ/E guides, including some new material on recent additions to SMSQ/E. Available in A4 and A5 size, the latter perhaps more suitable as eBooks. Based on original manuals from Jochen Merz et al, and used with his permission (thank you, Jochen). Please note that the page numbers in the index of the A5 versions refer to pages in the original A4 versions. From v1.02 the guides have a page listing the differences from the previous version. Currently v1.06.

The SMSQ/E manual is also available as an online HTML version. (1063K) Note that it was simply saved as 'filtered HTML' from the original Word document, so there may be some formatting and layout issues, and page numbers in the index may be meaningless.

I edit these in Word, so the originals are Word .docx files if anyone prefers them in that format:
SMSQE_A4.docx (329K) - A4 pages.
SMSQE_A5.docx (330K) - A5 pages

Some of the manuals listed here are available as Word document files, but not listed here partly because the page is cluttered enough as it is, partly due to the sheer size of some of them. If you want the Word document for any manual, please ask, if possible I'll email it to you. In some cases I don't want too many variations distributed and it might be better if you send me any additions/amendments to keep these up to date.

If you spot anything above which should not be there for copyright or other reason, or wish to notify me of an error, please let me know straight away so that the offending item may be removed.

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