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Anybody know of an ebook reader that actually works? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/freeebooks@sh.itjust.works
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I can't find one. I've tried about a dozen across Linux and Android, not a single one is even remotely usable. It may be that epub is a write-only format?

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[–] [S] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

I tried the non-pro version, it mangles the formatting of the book, text size and position is wrong on the page and the UI.

It might be designed for text-only books? It seems to have every font option other than "display as intended." Might be useful for text-only novels where end-users messing with the fonts makes sense. I've got books like "The Complete Illustrated Guide To Table Saws" which has a lot of images and diagrams with text overlaid, so it needs to be displayed correctly, exactly as it was typeset. Applying font and size adjustments only breaks things.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago

    I think you may be misunderstanding the purpose of e-book formats like epub. It's not like PDF or word documents, where the file dictates the exact layout of each page, or even how many pages are in a book.

    Rather it's meant to be a flexible description of a book, that adapts to different screen sizes. More like old websites than a book. So, with a larger screen, more words may fit on a page, so there's fewer pages. This also means the exact location of an image isn't fixed.

    This is not a bug or bad rendering, it's working as designed. The reader/user usually decides the font, font size, margins, line spacing etc.

    If a book requires precise positioning, control over pages etx.,, epub is the wrong format, you need pdf

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