[old-topic]ebook-viewer: Open source, crossplatform viewer for EPUB, LIT, MOBI, etc

[frabjous]

Could be the qt problem I alluded to above then. I'll see if I can iron it out. Thanks for your help.

[frabjous]

I can confirm that the redundant tag problem is fixed in 0.6.7.

As for the Greek letter problem, I fixed the other problems I was having with Qt apps, but this problem remains. I also installed the qt webkit based browser, Arora (0.5, which is what is in synaptic--I'm running Ubuntu Jaunty 32 bit; I'll check on 64 bit on Monday at work), but it does not have similar problems displaying either my source html or the html extracted from the epub created by calibre. It may be using a different version of webkit.

I still suspect the problem could be on my end, but I thought I'd provide as much information as I can, in case it comes up again.

Thanks again.

EDIT: I spoke too soon. While Arora doesn't have problems with my very minimal example above, it does have similar problems with larger files with Greek letters, so I guess this is a webkit problem. I'll report it to them after some more investigation.

[sherlockfan]

Hello,
I saw a reccommendation for calibre on the internet, and thought I'd try it. This is my first experience and I haven't spent a lot of time with it, so forgive me if I am not understanding it or not aware of some settings.

I have a collection from gutenburg, and other sources which are usually .txt or .rtf or even .html. I don't have an ebook reader. I have a new book and I just needed something to display the text, but in a larger font size. I could select all and change the font, but I'd lose the nice chapter headers.

I tried Calibre. First I was dismayed that I had to set a place to store my books. I already have them nicely organized into directories, I would rather just index my existing files. Next, I wish you had an edit text box for the storage directory. I had my directory already open in windows and I like to just copy and paste from the address bar to the programs settings box. Unlike some people, I don't keep everything under My Documents and it takes a long time to click around to find my files.

Next issue, I wish I could import whole directories of my books. As the program stands now, I had to highlight all the files in just one directory. When importing, the title and author were randomly switched and I have no idea how this is picked up. In my case, the files were named as last, first - title - series#. I think it would be great to be given a sample 'parsing' and buttons to swap fields on import, and also when imported to just click to swap field order. I also have books stored as directory by author and then files as book titles. So there's a few things useful for importing.

The next issue was reading the books. I clicked on a book and Wordpad came up - I was surprised, I thought there would be a book reader included. This should never happen. It was an .rtf file.

I clicked another file in a real ebook format to try to trick the program into giving me a book viewer. Finally I discovered your book viewer! It's not obvious how to open it. I then looked for an open menu but there were no menus. I finally guessed at the right icon, but I didn't find it obvious. The open folder icon is normal for programs.

When I got the book open, the formatting was completely messed up. Quoted text was in smallcaps, things were randomly in smallcaps and also bolded. It looked quite plain in Wordpad, just bold chapter headers and plain body. The ends of lines were also cutoff and I couldn't find any way to fix this. There was no horizontal scrollbar. I need some way to read text even if you have to purposely break formatting. I can't read text by moving a horizontal scrollbar on each line, that would be exhausting after hours.

I thought I used something called fbreader on ubuntu and I just loved it, it worked for me right away and was simple to use. I don't think I can get it for windows, but since I just remembered the name I'll have to look again

I'm sure your program has many great features and works for a lot of people, but if you could make it easier for a beginner it would be even greater! Just something to consider.

For me, I'll just have to resize the font in Wordpad and get back to reading.

[itimpi]

Perhaps you are missing the main purpose of Calibre? It is intended to be a ebook library management tool designed for storing ebooks; converting them between formats; and sending them to erader devices. The eBook biewer is just a small part of the total system, and quite likely never used by the vast majority of Calibre users on any regular basis.

[sherlockfan]

but that's why I'm posting in the ebook-viewer section of calibre.
But in general, if that's the point of the program then it doesn't meet my needs.
I did find fbreader for windows and it has a few issues in fact, however I was able to start reading my book quickly.

Anyhow, there *are* bugs which I've pointed out in terms of no horizontal scrollbar and words getting cutoff (and others have brought up the same issues before in page 1 of the thread for example.).

Thanks for the reply!

[atjnjk]

@sherlockfan. If you only want to view books, you don't need to add books to calibre's library. Just open calibre viewer (search your start menu) > click the open ebook button (the third button) & browse to your books. Or you could try to associate your chosen ebook format to calibre viewer.
If you need more help, feel free to ask.

[sherlockfan]

Thanks,
That's a great tip for next time but, the book is unusable in bookviewer for now due to formatting bugs and lack of scrollbar. In fact, even fbreader crashed reading my .rtf file.

[itimpi]

The other point to remeber is that basically the Calibre viewer is an ePub viewer. Any other format is first internally converted to ePub format and that conversion can itself introduce formatting issues.

[atjnjk]

Originally Posted by itimpi

The other point to remeber is that basically the Calibre viewer is an ePub viewer.

AFAIK, epub, mobi and other html based formats are the ones that work best with calibre viewer (fast, extremly customizable with CSS, reopening last page read). If you want to read rtf, try AlReader (scroll down, the download link for english windows version is on the buttom right, or you could use google translate). If you have more questions about this software, please create a new thread here and point me there as this is not related to calibre.
Some rough translated information:

Spoiler:

more english info: http://reeed.ru/en_prog_alreader_win.php
info [russian]: http://reeed.ru/prog_alreader_win.php
help [russian]: http://reeed.ru/prog_alreader_help.php

# rotate the screen 90 °, 180 °, 270 °
# Profiles «Day» / «Night» (in the profile includes settings of text font: size, Bold, smoothing, color: the background, text, and the status bar) - up to 8 profiles
# Read HTML, FB2, EPUB - support text styles, images, referrals, content.
# Reading CHM - experimental support.
# Read TXT, RTF, PDB / PRC (PalmDOC, zTXT mode 1), TCR files, DOC, DOCX, ODT, SXW, ABW, ZABW - text only.
# Read from ZIP archives and GZ.
# Read the archives RAR (required unrar.dll, which currently is only for Win2000, WinXP, Vista)
# JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP. EMF and WMF formats are supported only for Win2000, XP, Vista
# Any choice of encoding
# Proper translations for 23 languages ​​(templates TeX)
# Normal full-screen mode (no top line)
# Status bar (time, battery, percentage and number of pages read). Visibility status bar is configured separately for full-screen mode and normal
# Line position in the text (bottom, right or in the status bar). Visibility is configured separately for full-screen mode and normal
# Display the battery status on the line of the text
# Joystick buttons are rearranged along with the rotation of the screen
# Interline adjustment and character spacing [change space between lines and characters]
# Alignment on width [width adjustment]
# List of recent open books[List of last opened books]
# ClearType font
# Several types of Autoscroll (wave, small wave and smooth)
# Bookmarks with navigation on them
# Global bookmarks with navigation on them
# Configuring hardware buttons taps and strokes on the screen
# Search for any text string + using the search bar with symbol «?», which is interpreted as any one character.[Search for any text string, excluding the number of spaces and line breaks between words + using the search string character "?" which is interpreted as one character. Search регистронечуствителен.]
# Jump to text (percent and pages)
# Preservation of quotations [Saving quotes]
# Save readable file as TXT, PDB or HTML.
# Screen highlighting [backlight can be left on]
# test support for the librarian
# footnote at the bottom of the page
# edit typos in fb2 straight while reading
# Work with built-in dictionary and dictionary Dict, Lingvo and Slovoed [Work with dictionaries: Dict, Lingvo and Slovoed]

Supported OS: Windows Mobile 2003, Windows Mobile 2003 SE, Windows Mobile 5, Windows Mobile 6 Standard, Windows Mobile 6 Classic, Windows Mobile 6 Professional, Phone Edition, WM VGA 480x640, Real VGA, WM 240x240, WM 480x480, MS Smartphone 2002, MS Smartphone 2003, WM Smartphone 2003 SE, WM Smartphone 5, WM Smartphone 240x320, Win 2000, Win XP, Win 7