A. Road Runner ships ready to use with a set of installed AA batteries, a pair of stereo headphones, a serial cable for transferring text, a belt clip and software for your computer. No, it is helpful, but not necessary to know Windows. The software that ships with Road Runner will permit you to transfer text files into the unit using a Windows or MS DOS based loader program. They are straightforward with plenty of short cut keys for each function. You must, however, use a personal computer to communicate to the Road Runner.
Many people use their computers to scan books and other documents into text format.
Also, there are newspapers, magazines and even books available on the Internet for downloading. In the United States, REcordings for the Blind and Dyslexic provides some of its titles in text file format. It is a popular request, however, so don't rule it out for the future. To a large degree you can. Road Runner lets you move through your document by word, character, sentence, paragraph or page.