Simple ePub Reading Software

[Jaime_Astorga]

I decided to try ePub before, and while I saw that it was a great format, I've been unable to make serious use of it because every program I've found that can open it has been unsuitable to my purposes. FBReader and the Firefox EPUBReader Add-On came closest, but they both had a pretty big flaw... I found their automatic library building incredibly annoying, and knew of no way to disable it. Is there any reading software similar to the above, but which merely opens books upon command rather than try to automagically add files to a library?

I'm using Windows XP SP3 and Ubuntu 10.04.1 Lucid Lynx LTS, though if somebody also had an Android recommendation I would appreciate it.

[Latinandgreek]

Have you tried Calibre? Or the Sony Reader software? I don't know if it will do what you're looking for, but I thought I'd mention it.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

I decided to try ePub before, and while I saw that it was a great format, I've been unable to make serious use of it because every program I've found that can open it has been unsuitable to my purposes. FBReader and the Firefox EPUBReader Add-On came closest, but they both had a pretty big flaw... I found their automatic library building incredibly annoying, and knew of no way to disable it. Is there any reading software similar to the above, but which merely opens books upon command rather than try to automagically add files to a library?

I'm using Windows XP SP3 and Ubuntu 10.04.1 Lucid Lynx LTS, though if somebody also had an Android recommendation I would appreciate it.

I have FBReader and the Firefox EPUB reader up under Windows XP SP3 and Ubuntu Linux 10.10. I don't see the problems you mention, because I don't let them build libraries. There is no requirement to add a file to the application's library to open and read it.

In Firefox, I simply navigate to the ePub file and open it. (I could theoretically make bookmarks of them, and get to them that way.) FBReader is associated with various file types as the default application for opening the file, so I can simply double-click the file in Windows Explorer or whatever file manager I'm in on Linux and FBReader is invoked to read it.

I use a folder structure to categorize and classify ebooks, and don't want the viewer to perform library functions.

The big win in FBReader for me is the ability to read Plucker files, since I have about 3,800 of those, and FBReader lets me read them in Windows and Linux as well as on my Palm OS PDA.

You might look at FBReaderJ for Android. It's a rewrite of FBReader in Java. It doesn't support all of the formats FBReader does - right now it does OEB, ePub, and FB2, with future plans to expand the offerings to those supported by FBReader - but since you mainly want to read ePub this should work for you.
______
Dennis

[ATDrake]

Lucidor, available in Firefox add-on (not compatible with ePubReader; you'll have to choose one or the other) and standalone (less buggy, features work better) cross-platform versions.

Doesn't do that auto-add thing that ePubReader does where it copies a copy of every ePub you open into your Firefox profile folder, though Lucidor does pop up a "do you want to add this to your bookshelf" notice when you drag a random ePub over to it. But that's easily ignored. And I think you might be able to select a preference to make it stop asking that.

Also, you can point it to sets of folders on your computer or a homebrew OPDS catalogue in case you do want a library function out of it.

[Jaime_Astorga]

Thanks for the Lucidor recommendation! I didn't much like the cross-platform version, but it works great as a Firefox add-on. I also tried installing both FBReaderJ and Moon+ reader, and I thought the later was awesome so I'm gonna keep it as my Android ePub reading solution. With that, I think my problems are solved, so thank you very much MobileRead Forums.

[Wingman4l7]

Another option is Sumatra PDF, the portable version. It is a standalone executable that can read ePUBs.

[shevirsy]

Sumatra is a quite good solution. And it works well on Linux too with the help of Wine. I have met a few cases where Sumatra was showing up the letters overlapping. A formatting problem most probably. And in this case you can use the reader from Calibre. Which is quite slow to start.