The Catholic Digital News

New issues of The Catholic Digital News are published every Saturday as free e-book downloads that are released exclusively through this website. Although these files are provided gratis to the public, they remain fully protected under copyright law.

Users should be aware that certain actions are expressly forbidden once an issue of The Catholic Digital News has been downloaded onto a device. These include reproduction or distribution of the file at other websites, over the Internet, or through other media; utilization of the file for commercial use or other unauthorized purposes; disassembly of the file or alteration of its internal code or content; modification of the file to create derivate works; or violation of third-party copyrights on text and images contained within the file.

For full compliance, please download issues of The Catholic Digital News for personal use only and refer others to this website instead of sharing downloaded copies.

Free Reading Apps

The Catholic Digital News is published in e-book format, which means that its files are ready for immediate use on dedicated e-readers like Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook. However, these files can also be readily accessed by any electronic device that has a digital reading app installed, including smartphones, tablets, and computers. Since our e-books offer exceptional features like dual navigation menus, custom font sizes and styles, and full-page ad-free text, they provide the user with a superior reading experience compared to website pages and PDF files, particularly on the smaller screens of mobile devices.

While e-book files containing The Catholic Digital News will run on any reading app, there are two software packages that we highly recommend: Amazon's Kindle Reading App (download) and Apple's iBooks (download). Both are completely free, provide excellent support, and have been tested extensively by The Catholic Digital News. Whereas use of the iBooks app is restricted to Apple iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch) and late-model Mac computers, versions of the Kindle Reading App are available for virtually any electronic device, including Windows and Mac computers, Apple iPhone and iPad, Android smartphones and tablets, and BlackBerry and Windows smartphones.

MOBI versus ePUB

Each issue of The Catholic Digital News is released in two e-book formats, MOBI (.mobi file) and ePUB (.epub file). When using either an Amazon Kindle or a device on which a Kindle Reading App has been installed, the MOBI version of the issue should be downloaded. For all other devices and apps, including Apple iBooks on iPad and iPhone, download the ePUB version. Specific instructions for opening these two types of files within some common e-book reading setups are presented below.

The easiest way to load The Catholic Digital News onto a Kindle (the device, not the Kindle Reading App) is to email the file containing the MOBI version to the personal @kindle.com email address associated with the unit. Amazon will then deliver the e-book file wirelessly to the Kindle and it will open automatically upon arrival. Alternatively, the MOBI file can also be sideloaded directly onto the Kindle's hard drive using the micro-USB cable that was supplied with the device.

On an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch which already has the iBooks app installed, just tap on the website link for the ePUB version of The Catholic Digital News. The file will be automatically downloaded onto the device and then opened from within the app. If prompted to choose an action after tapping on the link, select the "Open in iBooks" option. These devices also have the ability to access The Catholic Digital News using a Kindle Reading App, but in this scenario the MOBI version of the issue must be downloaded instead of the ePUB.

For a Windows or Mac computer which already has e-reader software such as the Kindle Reading App installed, first download the MOBI or ePUB file containing The Catholic Digital News to disk and then open it from within the application. Alternatively, right-click on the file after it has been saved to the hard drive and select the e-reader application to open it with, then double-click on its icon.

In general, a MOBI or ePUB file containing The Catholic Digital News that has been downloaded onto an Android tablet or smartphone will first need to be moved into the library folder of the e-reader software before it can be read. For example, when using the Kindle for Android app, a downloaded file of the MOBI version should be copied from the "Downloads" folder of the browser app and pasted into the "Kindle" folder of the Kindle app using the file manager app of the device.

Other Software Options

In addition to the retailer apps recommended above, the ePUB version of The Catholic Digital News can also be read with the free Firefox browser add-on EPUBReader (available for Windows, Mac, and Android; download) and the free e-book management software suite Calibre (available for Windows, Mac, and Android; download). However, some minor text formatting issues may occur when using these applications, as they each rewrite portions of an ePUB file's code before importing it into their respective libraries.

Tips for First-time Users

Once a MOBI or ePUB file containing The Catholic Digital News has been launched, the issue will be loaded into the device's library and should open to either the front cover image or the first page of text. Just swipe across the screen, tap on its right edge, or use the arrow button to turn the page and browse through the content. There are two tables of contents within the issue, the first of which is situated immediately after the front cover. Each of the items listed there is an active link that will go to the indicated article by tapping on it. Once inside the document, the second table of contents can be opened at any time by accessing its icon within the application's menu. This menu will also contain options for changing the font type or font size of the text as well as allowing full word or phrase search capability within the issue. To view screenshots of each of these features in the iBooks app on an iPad, click here.

Technical Specifications

LGC Publishing carefully crafts each issue of The Catholic Digital News using processes that meet or exceed the highest industry standards for e-book publishing. Individual articles are hand-coded as separate W3C-validated XHTML 1.1 files before they are assembled into a final ePUB v.2.0.1 document that is certified as error-free with the most recent version of ePubCheck. This ePUB file is then converted into a KF8/AZW3-formatted MOBI document using the latest iteration of Amazon's KindleGen software and is confirmed to be error-free during the conversion process. Forced styling of fonts and text is intentionally kept to a minimum within the finished product so that users may fully customize their reading experience across a broad range of devices.