I've just got hold of an i-pad (a cast-off from my sister who decided to upgrade) and tried downloading a couple of books from the net in Esperanto.

The original translation of Alice in Wonderland (alicio en mirlando) and an early translation of Christmas Carol (kristnaska kanto). By the way the latter a good read en bona lingvo.

I was surprised that that don't behave in the same way once they have been downloaded, though I have the impression that both were pdf files.

In one case I can tap on a word and it gets high-lighted and various options pop-up including 'define', which leads on to 'no definition' and options 'manage' and 'search web'. 'Manage' leads to a list of dictionaries with adjacent symbols that baffle me, but 'search web' leads to search results which are useful.

In the other case the pop-up, once the word is highlighted, provides just 'define' and 'search'. 'Define' behaves as above, but 'search' leads to searching the whole file for other instances of the word, and further options of 'search web' and 'search Wikipedia'.

Any expert out there who regularly reads Esperanto stuff on an i-pad with tips or experience to share?

I recommend buying GoodReader for iPad. It is well worth the few dollars/pounds you will have to pay for it. I have tried several different PDF readers and this is by far the best. It has a built-in manual that should explain the various options you may wonder about.

A nice lot of pdf's for your new gear at Here

Here's Tsvi Sadan's latest blog on pdf books, if this is of any use.

I think I have sussed out the meaning of the funny symbol against the each entry in list of dictionaries that pops up with 'manage'.

I clicked on the symbol against dictionaries in French and English. I then discovered quite by chance that highlighting 'energie' in an Esperanto text (a word that happens also to be a French word), 'define' would then lead to the definition in French.

The cloud and arrow symbol, I think, means download that dictionary to the i-pad.

Therefore if NPIV were uploaded to the Apple cloud, then perhaps it would be an option under 'manage' (ie select which dictionaries you wish to be consulted when using 'define'.

Can anybody think of a word that has the same spelling in French and Esperanto and English?

By the way, nobody has mentioned Bretaro as a source of downloadable books in Esperanto

sudanglo:Can anybody think of a word that has the same spelling in French and Esperanto and English?

radio.

By the way, nobody has mentioned Bretaro as a source of downloadable books in Esperanto

Thanks. I hadn't seen that site before.