The Portable Freeware Collection Forums

[Moderator note: this thread was split from the Sumatra PDF thread after a prompt for recommended ebook/epub readers.]

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Even if it is not being updated any longer, STDU Viewer (https://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=2045) is a program I keep in my toolset for this purpose.

It reads EPUB (is EBOOK a different format?), CBR, DJVU and PDF alright. It has some quirks, but overall it has been reliable.

Before Microsoft Edge decided to move to Chromium, their browser had a built-in epub reader that many liked as well.

webfork wrote: ↑Wed Apr 01, 2020 6:37 pm I've been very interested in being able to comfortably read ebooks on my machine lately and I've not been super happy with Sumatra's ebook reader. The text looks (to me) over-dense and it's not customizable (unless there's been some improvement in the new version).

A couple of recommendations for epub:

FBReader: Last version from 2010. Customizable. Not portable.

AlReader2: portable, very customizable, but for some reason line-spacing maxes at 12.

freakazoid wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 8:57 am Before Microsoft Edge decided to move to Chromium, their browser had a built-in epub reader that many liked as well.

I'm surprised more browsers don't have an epub reader as it's primarily HTML. Firefox has an add-on that looks fairly good: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... ub-reader/

Midas wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 2:58 am STDU Viewer (https://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=2045) is a program I keep in my toolset for this purpose.

vevy wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 1:10 pm FBReader: Last version from 2010. Customizable. Not portable.

AlReader2: portable, very customizable, but for some reason line-spacing maxes at 12.

Thanks, I'll look at those.

Midas wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 2:58 am It reads EPUB (is EBOOK a different format?), CBR, DJVU and PDF alright. It has some quirks, but overall it has been reliable.

And yeah .EPUB is just another word for ebook. It has numerous advantages over .CHM and .KPF/.MOBI (Windows Help and Amazon Kindle) formats. My favorite feature is that it's easy to move epub files into other formats (text, word, HTML, pull out images, print-outs, etc), while other formats make it difficult.

A fairly good format comparison: https://www.guidingtech.com/9661/differ ... k-formats/

A lot of times when I'm creating documents at work, I try to do a kind of "home" document where I start out, regardless of the format it will be eventually. Lately that's been either Markdown or LibreOffice, but I'm playing with a few other options. If I was doing more publishing, I'd probably start in EPUB and then just export to other formats as needed.

Unless you're doing research and that research is only available as an ebook, I wouldn't use a computer monitor to read. I prefer to use my mobile device or dedicated ebook reader to read ebooks.

webfork wrote: ↑Wed Apr 01, 2020 6:37 pm The search continues I guess.

You may want to take advantage of this before the end of the day. I can't vouch for the software; just thought you might be interested.

vevy wrote: ↑You may want to take advantage of this before the end of the day. I can't vouch for the software; just thought you might be interested.

webfork already tried that Icecream: viewtopic.php?t=24223...

(As did I, BTW -- viewtopic.php?t=21807)

Oh, never mind then!

vevy wrote: ↑Wed Apr 15, 2020 3:49 am Oh, never mind then!

My last test was some time ago but it was also *very* poor, so I've avoided their programs. I generally don't return to a software group after getting burned, hence the Problematic Software list Midas pointed to.

@Webfork

Another one: https://sharewareonsale.com/s/alfa-eboo ... oupon-sale

A cool CLI/TUI EPUB reader I found in a list shared by lintalist (thanks!) is epr.

Some of the features:
- read last file by default
- remember position
- lanuch by history search. e.g type epr juli to launch best match in your reading history of "juli" e.g. "Romeo and Juliet.epub"
- launch by number e.g. epr 2 launches second most recent file in your history.
- regex search.
- TOC.
- view images using default viewer.
- set width per book.
- dump epub (export epub text).
- etc.

Screen readers should be supported by any modern console.

Not portable by default (%HOME%\.epr) but you can work around that by launching it through this command (through a batch file or a shortcut for example): ---------------
Maybe split these posts into a "epub/book readers" thread or something?

vevy wrote: ↑Tue Oct 27, 2020 6:42 am A cool CLI/TUI EPUB reader I found in a list shared by lintalist (thanks!) is epr.

I had not considered that a CLI window could make a good ebook reader, but that makes a lot of sense. If you can customize the fonts and backgrounds a bit (as many tools will), you could have a pretty great reading tool. Excluding images of course.

vevy wrote: ↑Tue Oct 27, 2020 6:42 am Maybe split these posts into a "epub/book readers" thread or something?

Yeah, I think the ebook topic has gone on long enough to represent a different subject. I'll try to separate them.

webfork wrote: ↑Tue Oct 27, 2020 11:05 am I had not considered that a CLI window could make a good ebook reader, but that makes a lot of sense. If you can customize the fonts and backgrounds a bit (as many tools will), you could have a pretty great reading tool. Excluding images of course.

You can do that using the console/terminal, for example, cmder or ConEmu. Either from within the app or without.

"A tool to manipulate ePub files."
https://github.com/pgaskin/epubtool

mobitool (incl. MOBI to EPUB)
fb2toepub
ConvertLIT
Also, MultiMarkdown can convert Markdown to EPUB