Travel Tech Tip: Reading The “Chron” On The Road

One of the things I love about my iPhone is that it lets me read the news when I’m away from TVs, radios and computers.  The New York Times has a great iPhone app for reading that paper on-line, but much to my disappointment, reading the San Francisco Chronicle on my phone hasn’t been all that easy until now. 

Accessing the Paper’s “E-Edition”

Chronicle print subscribers automatically have access to the newspaper’s “e-Edition” (as do those who subscribe to the electronic version only) and all of the current news stories.  (Non-subscribers can access the paper’s Website, SFGate.com for free, but not all current news and feature stories are available to them).  But trying to reading the Chronicle using the iPhone’s Safari Web browser presents the typical “spread the page with your fingers” chore, and the original mobile version of the paper wasn’t any better.

Setting Up “Stanza” To Read The Chronicle

Now Chronicle print and e-Edition subscribers can download the Stanza e-reader app (free from the iTunes Store) to their iPhones and set it up to access the last thirty days of the newspaper.
 
Using Stanza is still a somewhat clumsy and non-intuitive way to read the paper (perhaps the Chronicle will someday offer an iPhone app as good as the one available for the New York Times), but it’s the best option now for Chronicle readers.  Once you’ve downloaded a copy of the paper to your iPhone you can use Stanza read it “off-line” even if you don’t have a 3G or Wi-Fi connection to the Internet.

Here’s how the newspaper says to set up Stanza, followed by my tips on how to read the paper on your iPhone:

1. Open Stanza and press the "Get Books" icon at the bottom of the screen.

2. Press the "Shared" button at the top of the screen.

3. Press "Edit" to be able to add a new Book Source 4.

4. Press "Add Book Source."

5. Press the button "Web Page."  It is important that you do this, since this screen defaults on the "Catalog" source, and if you proceed on this screen, you will not be able to access the e-Edition.

6. Provide a name for your source - any name will be fine. (I used “SF Chronicle E-Edition).

7. In the URL field, type in "http://sanfranciscochronicle.ca.newsmemory.com/ebook.php"

8. Save the entry.

9. Press the "Done" button to finish the changes.

10. Now you simply select the book source you just entered, and Stanza will direct you to a start page.

11. Select the "E-Books" link at the bottom of the page that corresponds to the iPhone/iPod line [the other choices are “Mobile Device”, Amazon Kindle”, “Sony Reader”, “Nook Reader”, and “Computer”] and you will be directed to a login page. Your login is the e-mail address that the Chronicle uses to contact you, and your password is 'sfchronicle'.

12. Once the login is entered, you will be able to access the 30-day archive of San Francisco Chronicle newspapers, including today's edition. The file will be downloaded to your phone, and you can then proceed to read the e-Edition.

13.  To download another edition of the paper, go to the “Get Books” screen of Stanza and then click on “Shared” at the top of the page, click on “SF Chronicle E-Edition” (or whatever name you entered in Step 6), select the “E-Books” link for iPhone/iPod just as you did in Step 11 when you set up Stanza to read the paper.

Reading The Chronicle On Your iPhone

When you open Stanza it goes back to the page you were last reading.  So if you exited Stanza in the middle of a Chronicle article that’s where you will start when you open Stanza again.

To return to the list of copies of the Chronicle which you have already downloaded (with the latest download, not necessarily the latest edition of the paper, listed at the top) hit the backwards facing arrow button at the top left corner and you should be returned to your “Library” and the list of e-books on your phone.
 
Do the same thing if Stanza opens to another “e-book” which you have reading and you want to read a copy of the Chronicle which you have already downloaded. (If you want to download a different edition of the Chronicle, hit “Get Books” at the bottom of the page and follow the same procedure outlined in Step 13 above).

To find a specific section of the paper tap the screen, hit the little “Open Book” icon in the bottom left corner and the Table of Contents for that day’s edition of the paper will open.

To read through an article page by page sweep your finger left (to go forward) or right (to go back) just as though you might do while reading a print copy of a newspaper or book.

To quickly move forward/backward through the paper while you have an article tap on the screen and open use the slider button at the bottom of the page.
 
(If you have questions or need additional help setting up Stanza or using it to read the Chronicle, contact the Customer Service Center at homedelivery@sfchronicle.com or 1-800-310-2455).