DaisyWorm is a DAISY digital talking book playback app for the Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. DaisyWorm supports the playback of non-encrypted DAISY 2.02, DAISY/NISO z3986 audio only and full text full audio books.

DaisyWorm was developed by the Association for the Blind of Western Australia and can be used to play books from our library as well as talking book libraries worldwide which use the non-encrypted DAISY format.

For support in using Daisy Bookworm please contact us at dtb@guidedogswa.com.au.

Downloading books into DaisyWorm

There are three ways to download books into DaisyWorm:

iTunes File Sharing

The fastest and most reliable method is via iTunes file sharing. For this to work users need to zip the directory holding their book into a single zip file. Then connect your device. At the bottom of the App tab will be a list of programs which take direct downloads. DaisyWorm will be one of these Apps. Press the ‘add' button and select your zip file. It will be uploaded to the device. When finished DaisyWorm will process the zip file and add it to the list of books.

Wireless Downloads

In this method you activate the FTP server built into DaisyWorm by pressing the ‘Transfer Books' button in the Options screen. DaisyWorm will then tell you the IP address and username and password to connect to DaisyWorm by means of your preferred FTP client on your computer. Once you've done this, transfer the directory contents of your DAISY book to the device.

Remember to transfer the whole directory and not the DAISY files themselves. DAISY books are made up of any number of files including .html, .smil and audio files, as well as others. These files should all be placed into a directory and that directory transferred to DaisyWorm.

USB Cable Transfer

USB cable transfer is much faster than wireless FTP transfer. You'll need a free program called ‘iPhone Explorer'. When using ‘iPhone Explorer' you'll need to place the books into the following location:

iPhone/Apps/DaisyWorm/Documents/Books

In all methods it's important to remember to transfer the directory holding the DAISY book's files and not the files individually. DaisyWorm should read all valid DAISY 2.02 and DAISY/NISO z3986 (2005) books.

If you encounter a book which will not play or does not appear on the list:

Check the FAQ section below for trouble shooting
Email the book's ncc.html or .ncx file to dtb@guidedogswa.com.au so that we may look at the issue here. It is not necessary to send us the whole book only the ncc.html or .ncx file are needed.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do I do if my book does not show up on the list after I upload it to the device?

Option 1

Check whether all of the DAISY files were transferred. You can do this with your FTP client or ‘iPhone Explorer' attached to the device. Open the book's directory and compare it to the original directory on your computer. In particular, look for a file named ncc.html or files with the extensions .opf or .ncx. If these files are not present, move them and any other missing files to the book's directory on your device.

Option 2

Turn the device off and on again and reopen DaisyWorm to see if the book appears.

Option 3

The file may be encoded in something other than UTF-8 or UTF-16. You can change a book's text encoding by using the free program Daisy Pipeline, which is available in versions for Windows, Macintosh and Linux from the DAISY Consortium. Once installed follow these steps:

Start Daisy Pipeline and select New then Pipeline Job from the File menu.
From the list choose the Modify and Improve then Multi-format section and select the Character Set Switcher job.
This job will create a new version of the book in a location of your choosing. You'll be presented with a dialog box asking for you to find the ncc.html or .ncx or .opf file of the book and to provide a new location for the altered book.
The other option that needs to be supplied is the Output encoding which should be set to UTF-8 for western languages and UTF-16 for oriental languages such as Japanese or Chinese.
Click the Finnish button to add the job to the job list. Select the job from the job list and Run from the Run menu.
In a few minutes, depending upon the size of the book, you will have a new version of the book in the location you specified in step 3. Load this new version to DaisyWorm.

Should all of these steps fail please email the book's ncc.html or .ncx file to dtb@guidedogswa.com.au and we will look into the issue. You don't need to send us the whole book, only the ncc.html or .ncx file is needed.

Will DaisyWorm read Bookshare.org books?

Bookshare.org provides books in text only DAISY format which cannot be played by DaisyWorm at this time. This feature will be added in a future version of DaisyWorm.

I don't have a wireless network. Are there other ways to load books to DaisyWorm?

Yes. You can load books using the USB cable that comes with your device and a free program ‘iPhone Explorer'. When using ‘iPhone Explorer' you'll need to place the books into the following location: iPhone/Apps/DaisWorm/Documents/Books. Ensure you put the book's directory into this location and not the book's files. Using ‘iPhone Explorer' is much faster than using the wireless network option.

What FTP client should I use?

On window you can use the built in Windows Explorer interface. Simply enter the IP address that DaisyWorm supplies when the Transfer Books button is pressed as follows: ftp://[ip number here].

When asked for a username and password enter ‘daisy' and ‘worm' respectively. A new window will open with the contents of DaisyWorm's books directory. You can then simply copy your book to that directory just as you would any other file in Windows. On Macintosh and Linux computers any FTP client program should work.