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KOReader Document Viewer for E Ink devices

koreader.rocks

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Re: KOReader Document Viewer for E Ink devices

#3
post #2

I use this every single day, for English as well as Japanese books. Absolutely my go-to reader.

I use it on my Kobo Libra H2O, it's great. I love the Calibre integration that allows me to sync up with my library on my desktop in just a couple clicks and taps.

Re: KOReader Document Viewer for E Ink devices

#4
post #3
post #2

I use this every single day, for English as well as Japanese books. Absolutely my go-to reader.

I use it on my Kobo Libra H2O, it's great. I love the Calibre integration that allows me to sync up with my library on my desktop in just a couple clicks and taps.

Out of curiosity, what are the advantages of this app compared to using the built-in PDF/document reader all of your e-reader?

Re: KOReader Document Viewer for E Ink devices

#5
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it on my Kobo Libra H2O, it's great. I love the Calibre integration that allows me to sync up with my library on my desktop in just a couple clicks and taps.

Out of curiosity, what are the advantages of this app compared to using the built-in PDF/document reader all of your e-reader?

I will make a short list of some of the reasons:

1. I already have an ebook library in Calibre that I access on other devices, the sync feature allows me to seamlessly integrate into my other devices.

2. It's highly customization, almost every aspect of how books are displayed is able to be modified.

3. Progress can be synced across many devices without having to rely on some proprietary provider like Kindle.

4. Along with #3, you can get KOReader on many platforms to have the same experience anywhere (Android, Desktop, E-Reader). If I wanted I could push progress from my e-reader and then continue on my phone.

5. Easy shell access allows hacking and general tomfoolery. I don't use this much, but having this available makes me happy.

I could probably list more, but I'd need to refresh my memory on the core software (I've been using KOReader so long I've forgotten much of the original kobo interace).

Edit: Some relevant info in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39999476

Re: KOReader Document Viewer for E Ink devices

#7
post #6

This website doesn't do much to tell me why I would want to use it. Can anyone explain?

The GitHub readme may have been a better link to use, it contains some more information: https://github.com/koreader/koreader

- portable: runs on embedded devices (Cervantes, Kindle, Kobo, PocketBook, reMarkable), Android and Linux computers. Developers can run a KOReader emulator in Linux and MacOS.

- multi-format documents: supports fixed page formats (PDF, DjVu, CBT, CBZ) and reflowable e-book formats (EPUB, FB2, Mobi, DOC, RTF, HTML, CHM, TXT). Scanned PDF/DjVu documents can also be reflowed with the built-in K2pdfopt library. ZIP files are also supported for some formats.

- full-featured reading: multi-lingual user interface with a highly customizable reader view and many typesetting options. You can set arbitrary page margins, override line spacing and choose external fonts and styles. It has multi-lingual hyphenation dictionaries bundled into the application.

- integrated with calibre (search metadata, receive ebooks wirelessly, browse library via OPDS), Wallabag, Wikipedia, Google Translate and other content providers.

- optimized for e-ink devices: custom UI without animation, with paginated menus, adjustable text contrast, and easy zoom to fit content or page in paged media.

- extensible: via plugins

- fast: on some older devices, it has been measured to have less than half the page-turn delay as the built in reading software.

- and much more: look up words with StarDict dictionaries / Wikipedia, add your own online OPDS catalogs and RSS feeds, over-the-air software updates, an FTP client, an SSH server, …

Re: KOReader Document Viewer for E Ink devices

#8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what are the advantages of this app compared to using the built-in PDF/document reader all of your e-reader?

I will make a short list of some of the reasons: 1. I already have an ebook library in Calibre that I access on other devices, the sync feature allows me to seamlessly integrate into my other devices. 2. It's highly customization, almost every aspect of how books are displayed is able to be modified. 3. Progress can be synced across many devices without having to rely on some proprietary provider like Kindle. 4. Alon…

> 1. I already have an ebook library in Calibre that I access on other devices, the sync feature allows me to seamlessly integrate into my other devices.

just out of curiosity: I sync my Kindle with Calibre in a very seamless way, too. what is the main difference here?

Re: KOReader Document Viewer for E Ink devices

#9
post #7
post #6

This website doesn't do much to tell me why I would want to use it. Can anyone explain?

The GitHub readme may have been a better link to use, it contains some more information: https://github.com/koreader/koreader - portable: runs on embedded devices (Cervantes, Kindle, Kobo, PocketBook, reMarkable), Android and Linux computers. Developers can run a KOReader emulator in Linux and MacOS. - multi-format documents: supports fixed page formats (PDF, DjVu, CBT, CBZ) and reflowable e-book formats (EPUB, FB2,…

It also avoids a lot of the bloat that e-reader OSes tend to have for vendor lock-in reasons in favour of giving you software that's actually usable. Especially if you have a slightly older device where they've quietly started to pull the plug on most of the services or have pushed OS updates to the device past the point where the specs of that device can handle it.

That alone is a big feature that makes KOreaders existence worthwhile.

The only weakness is that there's no real "true" library view as far as I could find - you're stuck using an SD card browser, which is fine for me but is a notable presentation downgrade.

Re: KOReader Document Viewer for E Ink devices

#10
post #8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will make a short list of some of the reasons: 1. I already have an ebook library in Calibre that I access on other devices, the sync feature allows me to seamlessly integrate into my other devices. 2. It's highly customization, almost every aspect of how books are displayed is able to be modified. 3. Progress can be synced across many devices without having to rely on some proprietary provider like Kindle. 4. Alon…

> 1. I already have an ebook library in Calibre that I access on other devices, the sync feature allows me to seamlessly integrate into my other devices. just out of curiosity: I sync my Kindle with Calibre in a very seamless way, too. what is the main difference here?

Same, I also find that point of his perplexing as I could always sync my Tolino (German Kobo clone) to Calibre out of the box without any third party tools or hacks.
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