Simplest way to view epub files

[mouldy]

I was looking around for a truly minimalist CLI epub reader. Meh. Didnt find anything that worked that well. But did find what has to be absolutely most basic way of reading epub. Open terminal and use unzip command, it can unzip epub without renaming it. You will get several html files which contain the text, ignore any other files. Oddly Firefox refuses to open them. But Seamonkey can and is maybe most pleasant way to view them, so can little html viewer called Surfer that BarryK included in EasyOS. No menu entry, you have to call it from CLI. LibreWriter can. So can Geany and Leafpad though they show all the html tags so makes it unpleasant to try and read. Oh well I thought it was interesting.

Gotta say my favorite ebook reader is actually a free Android only one called Librera PRO. Its not minimalist but its pleasant to use. Honestly lot ereaders arent that pleasant. Usable but not pleasant.

[April]

Can you convert from epub to pdf?

I thought I did that in Puppy but it may have been an online converter.

[amethyst]

@mouldy
Not cli but a forum member attempted an epubviewer application, see here: viewtopic.php?p=26010#p26010
Haven't used it myself but you may be interested. Personally, I use Windows programs with WINE when processing epub files. SumatraPDF is a good reader for epub, see here: viewtopic.php?t=3466 and screenshot viewtopic.php?p=31011#p31011. I make my own audiobooks to listen to and that involves converting epub to text first. This thread may be of interest to you: viewtopic.php?p=15274#p15274.

[mouldy]

There is probably a nice CLI one out there, linux has been around long time. Just one man band type app that got lost in time when no longer supported. I did run across a couple old ones but they needed some old oddball libraries and such.

Whats weird is that there isnt even a truly nice one for windows. I did find a 1MB one for windows that isnt horrible. Guessing from win95/98 days when size mattered more. 100MB apps werent really practical. It works ok in WINE except tiny text and the ctrl++ to zoom doesnt work. And yea unless you have WINE for other reasons that kinda defeats the purpose of looking for minimalist.

Actually if size doesnt matter and you have WINE, then Balabolka isnt bad. Yea its more designed as a text to voice app, but it can open epub books and it displays text and you can set font and size of font. There are also old versions of Calibre that werent so monster size. Honestly Calibre has its uses converting formats and storing libraries of ebooks, but as a actual ebook reader its so-so.

So yea honestly unzip plus Seamonkey might be one of more pleasant ways to go. Did nice job presenting the text without chopping it up when font size changed. Probably a small html viewer or older minimalist browser that would work. Surfer works but no options for font, etc. Maybe links or something. Oh there is some CLI app to extract text from epub. I didnt try it. No idea if it kept paragraphs etc. Or if you just get pages of run together text.

[mouldy]

@mouldy
Not cli but a forum member attempted an epubviewer application, see here: viewtopic.php?p=26010#p26010

This is exactly what I was looking for. It is tiny script with no oddball libraries needed, and it works well with options for font, background, etc. Surprised this didnt get included as standard app in most Puppies.

[mouldy]

@mouldy
Not cli but a forum member attempted an epubviewer application, see here: viewtopic.php?p=26010#p26010

This is exactly what I was looking for. It is tiny script with no oddball libraries needed, and it works well with options for font, background, etc. Surprised this didnt get included as standard app in most Puppies.

Ok, its got its quirks and guess that is why. Worked great with first book I tried. Little less with second, put the chapter html files in wrong order. And any illustrations at the end. You also have to be really patient while it opens the epub and populates with the html files for longer books. It will keep background color change, but not font changes. So yea needs more work. But still for its size, its not bad at all. If you are aware of its limitations. And being able to choose an easy on eyes light green background is nice. No idea why all the other ebook readers assume you want black text on bright white background or white text on black background. Just needs more polishing.

Thinking maybe best way to go is to use that Android ebook reader I like and then scrcpy so not squinting. Swear some of the choices make the Kindle for PC app look good and its nothing to write home about. Unfortunately its more concerned with DRM than anything else.

[mouldy]

Oh found one I have never seen before, no not CLI, but its 2MB, called Lucidor. And it requires either an old version Firefox or current PaleMoon. Which if you have Palemoon installed, great. Otherwise its not so small. So thinking yea FossaPup has Palemoon so booted from Fossapup dvd and clicked on the deb file. Installed fine and now choice in menu. Tried starting it. Nope, you have to start Palemoon, then click on Lucidor. Its actually fairly pleasant. One bad thing, it lets the book define the width of the page. One book it showed everything in this narrow newspaper like column. The other book it used the whole page. You can set font and font size and background color. Anyway I like this one except for it letting book decide width of page displayed. Might be a plugin or something that gets around this, didnt read the manual.

[mouldy]

Ok, I hate to admit this, but 188kb addon epub reader for Firefox actually probably the best. Oh well, live and learn. Only thing I dont like about it, and its a picky thing, it wont let me go full screen.

[amethyst]

The older SumatraPDF version I use is 5Mb (less than 3 MB if you pack it as an sfs). It's my default PDF and ebook reader (epub, mobi and some other ebook formats are supported). You can also configure the text and background colours and fonts, set it to show 1 page at a time or 2 pages (like a book), read full screen, etc. I don't read ebooks actually, I've never been one to sit for a long time reading...but I love listening, so audiobooks are my thing.

[mouldy]

Actually most of what I read will be on "Kindle for PC" run in WINE, mostly why I bother with WINE 6+. Either use the app or buy a Paperwhite Kindle gadget. Really no other choice for Kindle books if one reads offline. Amazon no longer lets one pin books for offline use in its Cloud Reader. Its not horrible interface, but Kindle app's prime function is to protect with DRM crap and try to encourage people to stay in the Amazon marketplace. However the Kindle app sucks to try and use it for any non-Kindle books. About as much hassle to put a non-Kindle book on Kindle as to de-DRM and convert a Kindle book. Unfortunately Kindle/Amazon is the elephant in the room for ebooks.

If Sumatra is that old windows reader I remember from XP, its smallish and works but has quirks or thats way I remember it. If you have WINE and dont need to use it often, its ok. It works in WINE but there was some annoying quirk I vaguely remember.

I use Firefox browser as my main browser, so that EPUBreader addon makes most sense for my epub needs, I suppose. It had improved greatly from last time I tried it few years back. Unusual, lot of epub readers seem to get very little improvement/development. For actual reading, it is probably one of nicer interfaces of linux/windows reader. Fills the space without the newspaper column format stuff and lets me control font and background color. For me black text on light green background is easiest on my eyes. Though nothing I have seen matches that Librera PRO reader for android only. I so wish they ported it to linux or at least to something that could run in WINE.

Messing with all this I did install Balabolka in WINE and yea its probably best option for text to speech. And ok for epub reading too. \

[amethyst]

I've been using 2nd Speech Center text-to-speech for years. I use Balabolka's text converter utility to convert documents to text. Look in the Wine32 thread, there are numerous small programs I have recommended, things I have been using for ages. Wine is useful for me since I still use many of those small Windows programs (more than 20). I also use older versions of Wine. Version 3.3 works well.

[mouldy]

Oh had forgotten, sometime in past had installed Foliate and FBreader on MX19. Apt-get makes life so dang easy. So just played with them a bit. Its the old FB, the new one is no longer open source and unfortunately only available via snap for linux or the Windows store for windows. As unpopular as windows store is, would think that was death knell to only offer your windows app there. You need a Microsoft account to use it so that leaves me out. The old open source version, ok, got it set with font and background BUT wont turn page at time, only scroll line by line. I found it annoying.

Foliate is better. Its reasonably small, it will let me have font and background. And choice of scroll or page turn. Foliate is for some unknown reason kinda slow to initially load. Fine once loaded. But considering its small size, if I could get it intalled, probably ok. Only downside, like say its kinda slow to load for some reason. It is open source.

Depends how often you are going to use epub reader. Daily, find one you really, really like. Once in a blue moon, meh, any that will open the text will do occasionally. Even manually unzip and use a html app.

[amethyst]

@mouldy
For ebooks, you can pay me later: https://za1lib.org/

[mouldy]

@mouldy
For ebooks, you can pay me later: https://za1lib.org/

LOL

[mouldy]

Its amazing how much the book can control the epub reader. I opened a Sherlock Holmes book "The Yellow Face" and best reader for it was Balabolka with my preferred font and background color. Since I have it installed in WINE, next time I get more high speed data, may try again to add sapi5 voice. I am in throttled limp home data at this point. I know some said they had it working in thread on old forum but I never bothered figuring it out. You can get ok results with the sapi4, just lot tweaking with speed and pitch. Some of sapi5, its hard to tell difference to real human though some arent any better than best sapi4. I know the text to voice on my cell phone, and its not anything special, is pretty good. Far as I know none of native linux text to voice like espeak used sapi5 or some linux equivalent.

[amethyst]

Its amazing how much the book can control the epub reader. I opened a Sherlock Holmes book "The Yellow Face" and best reader for it was Balabolka with my preferred font and background color. Since I have it installed in WINE, next time I get more high speed data, may try again to add sapi5 voice. I am in throttled limp home data at this point. I know some said they had it working in thread on old forum but I never bothered figuring it out. You can get ok results with the sapi4, just lot tweaking with speed and pitch. Some of sapi5, its hard to tell difference to real human though some arent any better best sapi4. I know the text to voice on my cell phone, and its not anything special, is pretty good. Far as I know none of native linux text to voice like espeak used sapi5 or some linux equivalent.

sapi4, L&H American Tru Voice (Peter) is actually exceptionally good given its tiny size. Have been using it for ages. And yes, needs a bit of work to get it to a very acceptable level of performance. The first thing you need to do with this specific voice is to change ! just to a fullstop because the exclamation feature results in a terrible screech. I've also made more than 500 pronunciation corrections with this voice. Changed the speed to 165. Works very well for me, I use it a lot. Probably reading/listening to about 2 books a week with this. I've used some sapi5 voices before, it does not really sound better than the voice I've been using but maybe a bit more sophisticated.

[mouldy]

Oh the linux version of latest Calibre, the generic one for all linux on their website, installs, opens but cant load or view any books. Assume something in EasyOS that it doesnt work with. Well its a big download so didnt want to download another version as I have already burned through over half my monthly data. But in good ole days, it was actually smaller download to get portable WINE plus older windows version Calibre than trying to install linux version with all its dependencies. Still had that around. SUre, it works fine in WINE. AND something I guess I never realized, you can run ebook-viewer.exe separate from Calibre. This is actually a nice stand alone ebook reader when not called from huge clunky Calibre. Supposedly can use it like this in linux version too. Its small, but I didnt try copying it and running it without rest of Calibre installed, so it may call and depend on other parts of Calibre, have no idea. Still good ebook reader. One of these days I will just copy ebook-viewer to a system without Calibre installed and see. I am guessing it might be unhappy and missing something. I mean the linux version wouldnt run even with Calibre fully installed.