Nothing thumps the sentiment of holding a book in your hands and reading it, but, that is not generally a feasible alternative. Say all you need about the benefits of a paperback or a hardcover, the growth of eBooks was inevitable – the simple reason that eBooks work, and work so well is that they are immediately accessible, to anyone and everyone who has access to the internet.
[ad type=”banner”]We have smart phones, laptops and even dedicated eBook readers nowadays; and for each of these, there has been an obvious growth in the number of applications that seem to offer eBook reading capabilities.
1.iBooks
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iBooks is Apple’s stock eBook reader application, and it is precisely what an eBook reader for a laptop ought to be. It has a clean UI, even in windowed mode. Though, go into the full-screen view by pressing “Command + Option + F” and you will see just why this app is one of the most beautiful eBook readers accessible on the Mac. Your whole screen is committed to the eBook you are reading, and nothing comes in the way. It utilities the entire screen of your Mac to the best possible extent.
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The fonts are nice and large, spacing is done very well, and it has four different themes you can choose from, depending on your mood or the time of the day.
It permits text highlighting, underlining, adding notes and even sharing selected text. Highlight text on your Harry Potter paperback, traditionalists. iBooks comes pre-installed on the Macbooks, so chances are, previously have it and you simply utilize it.
2. Calibre
To implement auto-scroll function, Calibre would provide that feature. The first thing noticed as installed – and then launched – Calibre, was the big splash image on my screen. But, if Calibre provides something great, don’t one to complaint about a splash image that vanishes in a second or two.
Sure, edit metadata for the eBooks and import into the app. You don’t need to change the cover for Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban.The thing that bugs me even more, if the way Calibre opens eBooks. In a individual window with unpleasant looking icons on the sidebar.
5 Free eBook Readers for Mac
The one good, useful feature that you found in Calibre was the ability to mark reference paragraphs; that should be helpful when making citations from eBooks. Not a feature you have any use for, but it’s a good feature to have in an eBook reader.
5 Free eBook Readers for Mac
3. Kitabu
This one is obtainable on the App Store, and is in many ways close to iBooks. At the very least, the UI is clean(er).
Almost Kitabu hits really close to the iBooks mark that you expect from eBook readers on Mac. It just misses out in a minor UI choice, and a rather irritating bug. Make sure, said bug does not affect the overall usability of the app, but it’s difficult to un-see once you have experienced it, because it’s always there. Restarting the app doesn’t fix it (IT support cliché).
Let me develop the minor UI issue that have faced: When you reading a book, and you go into full-screen mode, We expect all the UI junk to disappear (the way iBooks handles full-screen UI); on Kitabu.
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Additionally, the global keyboard shortcut to make an app go full-screen doesn’t seem to work with Kitabu, which is another big problem.When you expect from applications on my Mac: they should just work.
4. Readium Chrome App
The Readium Chrome App puts most of these apps to shame. It has a UI that is cleaner than both Calibre and Kindle, and it opens up almost instantly.
5 Free eBook Readers for Mac
You must have noticed that there are two “Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone” books in there, which transports major complaint about this app. In case you accidentally add the same book twice to the library, or if you accidentally added a book that you won’t need, you’re out of luck. There is no way to delete the books from the library.
In terms of full-screen UI, Readium has the same issue that Kitabu had. That top bar just doesn’t go away, and Readium also doesn’t respond to the global keyboard shortcut to make an app go full screen.
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Readium deserves credit, though. It’s only 329KB in size and is much better as an eBook reader than almost every app on this list.
5. Kindle App
The Kindle App is an app that have used on Android device and discarded for Moon+ Reader. At least the Library UI is decent on the Kindle app. Dark backgrounds and well arranged book covers look good.
5 Free eBook Readers for Mac
Opening an eBook not purchased directly through Amazon is a nightmare on the Kindle app. To convert the file to a “Kindle supported format” before the Kindle App would let me open it, and even then, the scrolling is laggy .
Amazon lets you send documents to your Kindle devices and Kindle Apps directly by simply emailing the files to your Kindle account. Ok, it’s not exactly “simple”, but you get gist. The happiness is short-lived. But that email delivery only works on mobile devices, and is not available for Kindle on Mac. Awesome.
Plus, the app itself is 155 MB when installed, as compared to 52 MB for iBooks, a whopping 206 MB for Calibre, and a minuscule 3.4 MB for Kitabu.