To summarize, you have all the following options for distributing eWriter eBooks and making sure that your readers and users have the necessary viewer:
Making sure your users have the viewer
It's a good idea to inform your users and customers how this works:
If they don't already have the viewer, Windows 10 users will be prompted to get it from the Windows Store when they try to open an eWriter eBook, provided it has the .ewriter file extension.
Windows 10 users are prompted to get the viewer when they open an eWriter eBook
Windows Store location:
https://www.microsoft.com/de-at/p/ewriter-viewer/9mzd18c6288w
Viewer installer for users on earlier Windows versions:
You should inform users on older versions of Windows (XP, Vista and Windows 7) that they need to download the viewer from the eWriter site at:
You can also distribute the viewer yourself, but that is generally only something that software developers need to do. See EWriter for Software Help for details.
Downloadable eWriter eBooks
In many cases you will be distributing your eBooks by offering them for download on your website. When you do this you may want to package them in a zip archive. If you don't, browsers may try to just open the book, since the .ewriter extension is registered in the Windows Store. Apart from that, there are no issues to consider. EWriter books are really very easy to distribute.
Sending eWriter eBooks by email
This is not a problem. You can just mail .ewriter book files as regular attachments.The books are compact, neutral, compressed data packages that should not raise any red flags in AV and mail server filters, including those that examine the contents of zips and other archives.
Distributing eWriter EXE eBooks
The EXE books are the original all-in-one option that combine the viewer and the book in a single file. This is not really very practical nowadays, because downloading EXE files is almost always problematic. It also increases the size of every eBook by around 4 megabytes. Even so, there may still be some situations in which you prefer to distribute your eWriter books in this format. For example, it is quite possible to use EXE eBooks as integrated help files for software, as they support the same context references from your application as the separate viewer application.
EXE eBooks should be signed
If you do decide to distribute EXE eBooks you must sign them digitally yourself. Our viewer is signed digitally by us, but as soon as you combine it with a book, that changes the checksum of the file and the signature is no longer valid. You need a code signing certificate, which you will already have anyway if your are a software developer.
Distributing standalone eWriter books for earlier versions of Windows and users without online access
Windows 7 and XP users can't install the Windows Store app. The same applies to Windows 10 users without online access, of course. There are two ways you can deal with this:
Method 1: Provide a download link for eWriter Viewer
The simplest solution is to give your users the download link for the free, Win32 version of eWriter Viewer. This installs the viewer and registers the .ewriter extension so that books open automatically in the viewer when double-clicked. Users without online access can get the installer on a computer where they can go online and then install it on their machine that doesn't have access.
Method 2: Distribute stand-alone EXE eBooks
Alternatively, you can also continue to use the old method and generate standalone EXE versions of your books. This produces a single EXE file that contains both the book and an integrated viewer. Since the EXE is created by you, you do need to sign it digitally with a code signing certificate. However this is no longer really recommended now that the very accessible stand-alone viewers are available.
EXE eBooks should be signed
Please note that if you do decide to distribute EXE eBooks you must sign them digitally yourself. Our viewer is signed digitally by us, but as soon as you compile it into your own book that changes the checksum of the file and the signature is no longer valid. You need a code signing certificate, which you will already have anyway if your are a software developer.
