Read and edit ePUB files

Read an ePUB file

Cool Reader 3

Cool Reader is focused on ePUB reading and favors a clean view, with large icons and large fonts.

Notable features:

• Option to switch to night mode, in order to have a dark background, more pleasant for the eyes
• Animation on page change
• Audio playback of the document
• Clear and quickly accessible icon bar
• Pleasant interface and navigation between pages entirely possible with the mouse

Calibre

A true ePUB Swiss Army Knife, however, Calibre can become a heavyweight when it comes to quickly viewing an ePUB file.

Notable features:

• Editing file metadata
• Multilingual interfaceData library, with classification, searches, import from different sources...
• Advanced file conversion (different reprocessing possible) to MOBI, ePUB, PDF, RTF, TXT, ZIP...

Disadvantages

• Obligation to go through library mode, even when you just want to display an ePUB immediately
• Slowness when launching the viewing of an ePUB
• Ergonomics sometimes painful, as for example with the options that are displayed in cascade (one under the other).

FBReader

FBReader is a fast reader of ePUB files.

Notable features:

• Multilingual interface
• Page rotation
• Choice of colors (background, text, hyperlink, selected text)
• Viewing books in a virtual library

STDU Viewer

STDU Viewer displays in thumbnail form the list of documents in a directory (PDF, ePUB, images, etc.) and displays the page and the tree structure on the left when selecting.

Notable features:

• Can open of CBR, CBZ, ePUB, PDF...
• Proposes at start-up to reopen the last open file, to the last page browsed.
• Can change the brightness, contrast, and gamma of the page
• Multilingual interface (French, English, German, Polish)
• Can rotate the page, display several pages at once on the screen
• Text selection with copy and export possibilities
• Show bookmarks, page thumbnails. Possibility to choose the size and number of thumbnails
• Conversion CBR, CBZ, TIFF to PDF (paid version only)

Edit an ePUB file

Sigil

Sigil allows you to completely view and edit the technical content of an ePUB file: metadata, HTML files, images ... If you need to correct a text precisely, to search / replace, Sigil is the tool for you.

Notable features:

• Proposes to correct structure errors found in ePUB archive, delete unused resources
• Show HTML rendering and code simultaneously
• Metadata editor
• Browsing the entire ePUB archive, deleting and adding files possible
• Spellchecking
• Multilingual interface

Disadvantages

• The pages are edited with HTML tags. This display does not make it easier to focus on the content as it clutters the user's view, although a preview window is offered.

Magic

Presenting the same interface as Sigil because it is built on the same code base, Magic has many similar options, but offers a more convenient input mode, in WYSIWYG mode.

Notable features:

• Easy text editing: you can format the text like on a word processor, without being bothered by HTML tags (unlike Sigil software)
• Switch between HTML code and HTML edit mode (F2 key), possibility to inspect the HTML code from the preview window (like in a browser)
• HTML validation
• Multilingual interface

ePUBMetadataEditor

ePUB Metadata Editor provides an interface for configuring the metadata of an ePUB file.

However, you have to be careful: if this tool works well most of the time, I have noticed file corruption on versions 1.8.7 and lower. Incorrect writes can occur in the content.opf file, due to incorrect interpretation of the XML.

Edit metadata quickly

To quickly edit the metadata of an EPUB file, if you are using FreeCommander, you can tell it your editing software. So, by selecting a file and pressing F4, it will launch the software which will in turn open the EPUB file.

Example with ePubMetadataEditor :

• On FreeCommander, go to Extra / Preferences
• Go to External Programs
• Add an action in the Editor part like this:
  
• Validate the modification.
• Now, on FreeCommander Explorer, choose a file and press F4 so that ePubMetadataEditor opens on the selected file.