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Ever since Edge dropped EPUB support, I've been trying to find a suitable "just open this EPUB file" replacement. Okular is janky and renders a lot of EPUBs inc

Ever since Edge dropped EPUB support, I've been trying to find a suitable "just open this EPUB file" replacement. Okular is janky and renders a lot of EPUBs incorrectly. I've found Calibre's eBook Viewer the best I've installed as of yet, though I wish I could install just that part. Calibre feels a little heavyweight for what I want. But it does what it does pretty darn well, I think the lack of alternatives is because everyone has just decided to use Calibre.

radicaldreamer 6y ago
The alternatives are really really bad and Calibre is really good at what it does.
shscs911 6y ago
If you're looking for an e-book reader in Linux, Foliate (https://github.com/johnfactotum/foliate/ https://github.com/johnfactotum/foliate/) is the best I've seen. I used to be a fan of Calibre E-book reader and had my own custom CSS for theming, but the redesigned e-book reader (I think it was Calibre 4.0) completely broke my setup. I don't know how it is these days, but it was extremely buggy and lagging when I tried some months ago. Even Bookworm (https://github.com/babluboy/bookworm https://github.com/babluboy/bookworm) is a far better alternative than Calibre E-book reader.
shadowprofile77 6y ago
In case you're referring to mobile apps, there's also FBreader. Not great, but not bad, I've used it for years to read both epub and Mobi books on my phone just fine. (bad for the eyes I know but still useful for always having a book at hand). FBReader is terrible for PDFs though, warning on that.
- rayrag 6y ago
  Try Readera, much nicer Ui and good pdf support. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.readera&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.readera&hl...
- astkaasa 6y ago
  For iOS, try KyBook 3
- ivanche 6y ago
  I'm a happy user of AlReader. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.neverland.alreader&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.neverland....
- mkl 6y ago
  FBReader runs fine on desktop as well (though it looks like the Windows version is pretty old). It is simple but works, and I have read a few books using it on desktop (now I use a Kobo).
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Yup. I don't get the obsession with "managing the library", just like every music player also just has to focus on managing "libraries". I already have a perfect library management system: my filesystem. I want my book reader to just open the file I give it, and the same with the music player.
- Semaphor 6y ago
  > just like every music player also just has to focus on managing "libraries" IME music players usually focus on playing music and library management is usually just tacked on. Is there any other player where library management is close to as comprehensive as it is in MediaMonkey [0] (windows only)? It’s one of the extremely few I’ve seen that’s management first, player second. [0]: https://www.mediamonkey.com/ https://www.mediamonkey.com/
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Haven't seen anything in music space that's like Calibre for books, except on mobile. Mobile I understand (though it still annoys me to no end) - as an industry, we've decided to eschew a perfectly good abstraction of a file system, an abstraction that could be learned once and used everywhere, and instead decided that every app will have to reinvent and reimplement document management experience on its own, each in its own inconsistent way. I know there are CLI music players, though I haven't used them much. Of the ones I did, Winamp 3 was nice; Foobar2000 was great once I switched its default layout to display folder-oriented structure of the music library. I stayed with Foobar2000 for almost a decade (now I just use YouTube for streaming), because every other player I've tried out either didn't support incremental filtering (super convenient feature), or didn't understand that I don't care about metadata on mp3s (most of the time they're missing or wrong anyway) - I want its "library" to reflect the folder structure, instead of the player adding its own VFS on top of the native FS. And now there's the same problem with ebook readers. I've recently tried to find a Windows epub reader that would just open the file, like a PDF reader opens a PDF. I failed. Everything wants to bundle its own "book library" management. But here's the thing: I already use Zotero for managing my research documents, including an occasional epub. I want a reader that will open an epub that I double-click on in Zotero. (EDIT: Elsewhere in the thread someone mentioned Sumatra; maybe I'll give it another shot. I previously dismissed it because I don't need another PDF reader, and I really like Drawboard PDF - I use its annotation features a lot.) At least in the image space, photo library management is a separate category of applications from photo viewers.
rahimnathwani 6y ago
For Windows, Sumatra PDF can read epubs.
Ao7bei3s 6y ago
You can't install it separately, but you can use just the viewer part of calibre, without the library management. Try "ebook-viewer ~/example.epub".
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  This is effectively how I use it now (through right click Open With on Windows), but it's pretty slow to "prepare book for first read" and such that feels like it's trying to do more central stuff than I asked for.
wz1000 6y ago
Zathura supports epubs using zathura-pdf-mupdf
darekkay 6y ago
I've tried several epub readers after Edge dropped the support. It's probably not a popular choice, but I now use the CLI tools from Calibre to convert epub books to azw3 and then use the Windows Kindle app to open/read them.
pnutjam 6y ago
Get yourself a small vm and you can run calibre headless in the cloud. I only open it locally to add books and fix the metadata. Then I rsync it to my vps, kill my calibre PID, and restart calibre. I use this command: /usr/bin/calibre-server --daemonize --enable-auth --url-prefix=/calibre --port 8000 --enable-local-write --log /home/user/calibre_log /home/user/library /home/user/comic_library

radicaldreamer 6y ago

The alternatives are really really bad and Calibre is really good at what it does.

shscs911 6y ago

If you're looking for an e-book reader in Linux, Foliate (https://github.com/johnfactotum/foliate/ https://github.com/johnfactotum/foliate/) is the best I've seen. I used to be a fan of Calibre E-book reader and had my own custom CSS for theming, but the redesigned e-book reader (I think it was Calibre 4.0) completely broke my setup. I don't know how it is these days, but it was extremely buggy and lagging when I tried some months ago. Even Bookworm (https://github.com/babluboy/bookworm https://github.com/babluboy/bookworm) is a far better alternative than Calibre E-book reader.

shadowprofile77 6y ago

In case you're referring to mobile apps, there's also FBreader. Not great, but not bad, I've used it for years to read both epub and Mobi books on my phone just fine. (bad for the eyes I know but still useful for always having a book at hand). FBReader is terrible for PDFs though, warning on that.

rayrag 6y ago
Try Readera, much nicer Ui and good pdf support. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.readera&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.readera&hl...
astkaasa 6y ago
For iOS, try KyBook 3
ivanche 6y ago
I'm a happy user of AlReader. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.neverland.alreader&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.neverland....
mkl 6y ago
FBReader runs fine on desktop as well (though it looks like the Windows version is pretty old). It is simple but works, and I have read a few books using it on desktop (now I use a Kobo).

TeMPOraL 6y ago

Yup. I don't get the obsession with "managing the library", just like every music player also just has to focus on managing "libraries". I already have a perfect library management system: my filesystem. I want my book reader to just open the file I give it, and the same with the music player.

Semaphor 6y ago
> just like every music player also just has to focus on managing "libraries" IME music players usually focus on playing music and library management is usually just tacked on. Is there any other player where library management is close to as comprehensive as it is in MediaMonkey [0] (windows only)? It’s one of the extremely few I’ve seen that’s management first, player second. [0]: https://www.mediamonkey.com/ https://www.mediamonkey.com/
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Haven't seen anything in music space that's like Calibre for books, except on mobile. Mobile I understand (though it still annoys me to no end) - as an industry, we've decided to eschew a perfectly good abstraction of a file system, an abstraction that could be learned once and used everywhere, and instead decided that every app will have to reinvent and reimplement document management experience on its own, each in its own inconsistent way. I know there are CLI music players, though I haven't used them much. Of the ones I did, Winamp 3 was nice; Foobar2000 was great once I switched its default layout to display folder-oriented structure of the music library. I stayed with Foobar2000 for almost a decade (now I just use YouTube for streaming), because every other player I've tried out either didn't support incremental filtering (super convenient feature), or didn't understand that I don't care about metadata on mp3s (most of the time they're missing or wrong anyway) - I want its "library" to reflect the folder structure, instead of the player adding its own VFS on top of the native FS. And now there's the same problem with ebook readers. I've recently tried to find a Windows epub reader that would just open the file, like a PDF reader opens a PDF. I failed. Everything wants to bundle its own "book library" management. But here's the thing: I already use Zotero for managing my research documents, including an occasional epub. I want a reader that will open an epub that I double-click on in Zotero. (EDIT: Elsewhere in the thread someone mentioned Sumatra; maybe I'll give it another shot. I previously dismissed it because I don't need another PDF reader, and I really like Drawboard PDF - I use its annotation features a lot.) At least in the image space, photo library management is a separate category of applications from photo viewers.

rahimnathwani 6y ago

For Windows, Sumatra PDF can read epubs.

Ao7bei3s 6y ago

You can't install it separately, but you can use just the viewer part of calibre, without the library management. Try "ebook-viewer ~/example.epub".

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
This is effectively how I use it now (through right click Open With on Windows), but it's pretty slow to "prepare book for first read" and such that feels like it's trying to do more central stuff than I asked for.

wz1000 6y ago

Zathura supports epubs using zathura-pdf-mupdf

darekkay 6y ago

I've tried several epub readers after Edge dropped the support. It's probably not a popular choice, but I now use the CLI tools from Calibre to convert epub books to azw3 and then use the Windows Kindle app to open/read them.

pnutjam 6y ago

Get yourself a small vm and you can run calibre headless in the cloud. I only open it locally to add books and fix the metadata. Then I rsync it to my vps, kill my calibre PID, and restart calibre. I use this command: /usr/bin/calibre-server --daemonize --enable-auth --url-prefix=/calibre --port 8000 --enable-local-write --log /home/user/calibre_log /home/user/library /home/user/comic_library