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Best epub reader on Mac

A

andy8

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 6, 2009
156
1
Hi,

I have been searching for a good and stable epub reader for Mac. Currently, I've got "Kitabu" and "Ehon" applications installed.

After experimenting a little, I found out that both applications are unstable and for reasons unknown, isn't able to open all the epub ebooks I have. I am sure my epub files are not corrupted.

I am really interested to know if the Mac platform does have a stable and brilliant epub reader.

THANKS !
 
Partron22

Partron22

macrumors 68030
Apr 13, 2011
2,655
808
Yes
Stooby Mcdoobie said:
confused by what you're trying to get at
Click to expand...
ePubs from Apple store are generally not readable on a Mac.
That's a handy thing to know before you go freighting up on Mac programming guides from Apple, or any other book for that matter. For whatever reason, Apple has decided we ought'nt be able to read their books on our Macs.
 
Stooby Mcdoobie

Stooby Mcdoobie

macrumors 6502a
Jun 26, 2012
834
45
Partron22 said:
ePubs from Apple store are generally not readable on a Mac.
That's a handy thing to know before you go freighting up on Mac programming guides from Apple, or any other book for that matter. For whatever reason, Apple has decided we ought'nt be able to read their books on our Macs.
Click to expand...

Okay, I see where you're coming from now. I guess I could've been more clear in my initial post, but I was referring to his collection in general - not just what he's purchased (if he has) from Apple. I didn't know they couldn't be read on a Mac at all, though (for some reason I thought iTunes had an eBook reader built in).
 
Nermal

Nermal

Moderator
Staff member
Dec 7, 2002
20,627
3,986
New Zealand
Inside iTunes if you do a Get Info on a book then it'll either say "Protected" or "Purchased" in the Kind field. "Purchased" files should be regular epubs. Obviously with "Protected" you'd need to remove the DRM before you could read them on a computer.

I don't know how to tell the DRM status prior to purchase.
 
osiris24x

osiris24x

macrumors member
Mar 11, 2007
51
0
There's also Readium, a Chrome extension ePub reader. Nice interface and works great. It's absurd that iTunes doesn't let you read eBooks on the Mac.
 
jahala

jahala

macrumors regular
Feb 7, 2008
207
16
I used to use FBreader, but it wants to make an library of your books. I have been using Stanza for years now. I can just open a non-protected epub file and read it. I have tried a lot of the other alternatives and always end up coming back to Stanza.

That said, I am not satisfied with Stanza at all. I wish there were better ebook applications available for the mac. In fact, I have basically stopped reading ebooks on my mac. I read them on my iPhone now.
 
L

lorcar

macrumors member
Mar 2, 2013
86
0
any update on this? which program would you suggest for a 15 retina mac book pro?
thanks
 
M

macmini27

macrumors newbie
Nov 5, 2012
16
0
I am using an app called as Clearview

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/clearview/id557090104?mt=12

Description: Easy-to-use tabbed style ebook reader, equipped with library shelf, supports popular ebook formats as PDF, EPUB (DRM free), CHM, and MOBI. You can make annotations, insert bookmarks, and do searching freely.

I am using this app for approx 6 months, while i am happy with reading epub and mobi file, chm is still buggy. The best part is annotation, however i am searching for exporting these annotations to nvAlt
 
H

hammao

macrumors newbie
Jul 22, 2013
1
0
andy8 said:
Hi,

I have been searching for a good and stable epub reader for Mac. Currently, I've got "Kitabu" and "Ehon" applications installed.

After experimenting a little, I found out that both applications are unstable and for reasons unknown, isn't able to open all the epub ebooks I have. I am sure my epub files are not corrupted.

I am really interested to know if the Mac platform does have a stable and brilliant epub reader.

THANKS !
Click to expand...

Try Adobe Digital Editions it will do exactly what you want and read the protected files....http://www.adobe.com/products/digital-editions.html?PID=3662453
 
CylonGlitch

CylonGlitch

macrumors 68030
Jul 7, 2009
2,956
268
Nashville
chabig said:
OS X Mavericks will ship with an ePub reader. I bet it will be pretty good.
Click to expand...

While I do 90% of my reading in iBooks on the iPad; it would be nice to be able to read on my MBP. I have Kindle for OSX right now, and rarely use it, but I'm really looking forward to Mavericks for iBooks on OSX. That's a big feature for me.

I do hope they make a way to better organize your books, right now I have too many books and they are kind of a mess.
 
O

onekerato

macrumors regular
Jun 6, 2011
222
1
CylonGlitch said:
I'm really looking forward to Mavericks for iBooks on OSX. That's a big feature for me. I do hope they make a way to better organize your books, right now I have too many books and they are kind of a mess.
Click to expand...

Exactly... but iBooks on Mavericks GM feels very laggy so far :( It has the collections feature from iBooks for iOS, but iCloud sync for EPUBs doesn't seem to work across iOS and Mac iBooks apps. Moreover, the risk of losing your annotations is quite high since it keeps all annotations from all EPUBs together in one database. I've had EPUBs and annotations vanish into the great unknown.

Hopefully, Apple will figure it out soon.
 
O

onekerato

macrumors regular
Jun 6, 2011
222
1
onekerato said:
but iBooks on Mavericks GM feels very laggy so far :(
Click to expand...

Ahem... I would like to correct myself. I've been reading "The Emperor of Maladies: A Biography of Cancer" - fascinating book BTW - on iBooks for Mac, and the highlighting shortcut using "hold down CMD & drag" is brilliant. EPUB rendering is excellent, and iBooks doesn't feel laggy anymore. Combined with speedy offline dictation in OS X Mavericks, it's the best EPUB reading experience so far.

I also liked BookReader but highlighting/note-taking requires a right-click in that app, which gets frustrating quickly. BookReader makes it very convenient to export your notes & highlights while iBooks has a nice UI for reviewing your notes within the app.

I'm still wary of iCloud sync for annotations (the EPUB itself, not purchased from the store, doesn't seem to sync via iCloud) so I intend to test reading/annotating on multiple Macs only after the 0.1 update to iBooks.
 
O

onekerato

macrumors regular
Jun 6, 2011
222
1
I evaluated the current set of features in iBooks, BookReader and Clearview - three excellent EPUB readers on Mac OS X, and these are my conclusions:

* For technical books, where you're likely to make lots of notes, BookReader is the only reliable way to export annotations (for example to make your notes searchable in Evernote).
* For novels and general nonfiction, iBooks for Mac allows you to continue reading across your Macs and iOS devices which likely outweighs the need to export annotations.
* If Clearview can fix it's EPUB text rendering and notes export bugs, it would be a better choice than BookReader for technical books.

Full pros & cons analysis here: http://onekerato.me/best-epub-reader-on-mac-os-x
 
Ritmo

Ritmo

macrumors member
Mar 27, 2009
53
44
Finland
All these apps seem to create a copy of the books or some kind of cache. So is there any app that will just open the epub file without filling my hard drive?
 
O

onekerato

macrumors regular
Jun 6, 2011
222
1
I'm using Murasaki app for opening EPUBs directly (it doesn't import them into a Library.) Available on Mac App Store. It's priced at $8.



Ritmo said:
All these apps seem to create a copy of the books or some kind of cache. So is there any app that will just open the epub file without filling my hard drive?
Click to expand...
 
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