1. Adobe Reader For Mac
2. Bluefire Reader For Mac

The following is a comparison of e-book formats used to create and publish e-books.

Apple Footer. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided; every potential issue may involve several factors not detailed in the conversations captured in an electronic forum and Apple can therefore provide no guarantee as to the. Mavericks, the latest version of OS X, brought Apple’s iBooks service to the desktop. Long offered on iPads and iPhones, iBooks allows you to read the books you’ve purchased from Apple’s bookstore on your desktop – and also offers support for EPUB files.

The EPUB format is the most widely supported vendor-independent XML-based (as opposed to PDF) e-book format; that is, it is supported by the largest number of e-Readers, including Amazon Kindle Fire (but not standard Kindle).^[1] See table below for details.

• 1Format descriptions
• 2Comparison tables

Format descriptions[edit]

Formats available include, but are not limited to:

Broadband eBooks (BBeB)[edit]

The digital book format originally used by Sony Corporation. It is a proprietary format, but some reader software for general-purpose computers, particularly under GNU/Linux (for example, Calibre's internal viewer^[2]), have the capability to read it. The LRX file extension represents a DRM encrypted eBook. More recently, Sony has converted its books from BBeB to EPUB and is now issuing new titles in EPUB.

Comic Book Archive file[edit]

Compiled HTML[edit]

CHM format is a proprietary format based on HTML. Multiple pages and embedded graphics are distributed along with metadata as a single compressed file. The indexing is both for keywords and for full text search.

DAISY – ANSI/NISO Z39.86[edit]

The Digital Accessible Information SYstem (DAISY) is an XML-based open standard published by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and maintained by the DAISY Consortium for people with print disabilities. DAISY has wide international support with features for multimedia, navigation and synchronization. A subset of the DAISY format has been adopted by law in the United States as the National Instructional Material Accessibility Standard (NIMAS), and K-12 textbooks and instructional materials are now required to be provided to students with disabilities.

DAISY is already aligned with the EPUB technical standard, and is expected to fully converge with its forthcoming EPUB3 revision.^[3]

DjVu[edit]

DjVu is a format specialized for storing scanned documents. It includes advanced compressors optimized for low-color images, such as text documents. Individual files may contain one or more pages. DjVu files cannot be re-flowed.

The contained page images are divided in separate layers (such as multi-color, low-resolution, background layer using lossy compression, and few-colors, high-resolution, tightly compressed foreground layer), each compressed in the best available method. The format is designed to decompress very quickly, even faster than vector-based formats.

The advantage of DjVu is that it is possible to take a high-resolution scan (300–400 DPI), good enough for both on-screen reading and printing, and store it very efficiently. Several dozens of 300 DPI black-and-white scans can be stored in less than a megabyte.

DOC[edit]

DOC is a document file format that is directly supported by few ebook readers. Its advantages as an ebook format is that it can be easily converted to other ebook formats and it can be reflowed. It can be easily edited using Microsoft software, and any of several other programs. Note that the format has changed several times since its original release, and there are numerous incompatibility difficulties between various releases and the assorted programs which attempt to read / write the format.

DOCX[edit]

DOCX is a document file format that is directly supported by few ebook readers. Its advantages as an ebook format are that it can be easily converted to other ebook formats and it can be reflowed. It can be easily edited.

EPUB[edit]

The .epub or OEBPS format is a technical standard for e-books created by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF).

The EPUB format has gained some popularity as a vendor-independent XML-based e-book format. The format can be read by the Kobo eReader, BlackBerry devices, Apple's iBooks app running on Macintosh computers and iOS devices, Google Play Books app running on Android and iOS devices, Barnes & Noble Nook, Amazon Kindle Fire,^[1]Sony Reader, BeBook, Bookeen Cybook Gen3 (with firmware v2 and up), Adobe Digital Editions, Lexcycle Stanza, FBReader, PocketBook eReader, Aldiko, the Mozilla Firefoxadd-on EPUBReader, Lucifox, Okular and other reading apps.

Adobe Digital Editions uses .epub format for its e-books, with digital rights management (DRM) protection provided through their proprietary ADEPT mechanism. The ADEPT framework and scripts have been reverse-engineered to circumvent this DRM system.^[4]

eReader[edit]

Formerly Palm Digital Media/Peanut Press

eReader is a freeware program for viewing Palm Digital Media electronic books which use the pdb format used by many Palm applications. Versions are available for Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Palm OS (not webOS), Symbian, Windows Mobile Pocket PC/Smartphone, and macOS. The reader shows text one page at a time, as paper books do. eReader supports embedded hyperlinks and images. Additionally, the Stanza application for the iPhone and iPod touch can read both encrypted and unencrypted eReader files.

The program supports features like bookmarks and footnotes, enabling the user to mark any page with a bookmark and any part of the text with a footnote-like commentary. Footnotes can later be exported as a Memo document.

On July 20, 2009, Barnes & Noble made an announcement^[5] implying that eReader would be the company's preferred format to deliver e-books. Exactly three months later, in a press release by Adobe, it was revealed Barnes & Noble would be joining forces with the software company to standardize the EPUB and PDF eBook formats.^[6][7] Barnes & Noble e-books are now sold mostly in EPUB format.^[8][9][10]

FictionBook (fb2)[edit]

FictionBook^[11] is a popular XML-based e-book format, supported by free readers such as PocketBook eReader, FBReader, Okular, CoolReader, Bebook and STDU Viewer.

The FictionBook format does not specify the appearance of a document; instead, it describes its structure and semantics. All the ebook metadata, such as the author name, title, and publisher, is also present in the ebook file. Hence the format is convenient for automatic processing, indexing, and ebook collection management. This also is convenient to store books in it for later automatic conversion into other formats.

Founder Electronics[edit]

APABI is a format devised by Founder Electronics. It is a popular format for Chinese e-books. It can be read using the Apabi Reader software, and produced using Apabi Publisher. Both .xeb and .ceb files are encoded binary files. The Iliad e-book device includes an Apabi 'viewer'.

Hypertext Markup Language[edit]

HTML is the markup language used for most web pages. E-books using HTML can be read using a Web browser. The specifications for the format are available without charge from the W3C.

HTML adds specially marked meta-elements to otherwise plain text encoded using character sets like ASCII or UTF-8. As such, suitably formatted files can be, and sometimes are, generated by hand using a plain text editor or programmer's editor. Many HTML generator applications exist to ease this process and often require less intricate knowledge of the format details involved.

HTML on its own is not a particularly efficient format to store information in, requiring more storage space for a given work than many other formats. However, several e-Book formats including the Amazon Kindle, Open eBook, Compiled HTML, Mobipocket and EPUB store each book chapter in HTML format, then use ZIP compression to compress the HTML data, images, metadata and style sheets into a single, significantly smaller, file.

HTML files encompass a wide range of standards^[12] and displaying HTML files correctly can be complicated. Additionally many of the features supported, such as forms, are not relevant to e-books.

iBook (Apple)[edit]

The .ibooks format is created with the free iBooks Author ebook layout software from Apple Inc.. This proprietary format is based on the EPUB standard, with some differences in the CSS tags used in an ibooks format file, this making it incompatible with the EPUB specification. The End-User Licensing Agreement (EULA) included with iBooks Author states that 'If you want to charge a fee for a work that includes files in the .ibooks format generated using iBooks Author, you may only sell or distribute such work through Apple'. The 'through Apple' will typically be in the Apple iBooks store. The EULA further states that 'This restriction does not apply to the content of such works when distributed in a form that does not include files in the .ibooks format.' Therefore, Apple has not included distribution restrictions in the iBooks Author EULA for ibooks format ebooks created in iBooks Author that are made available for free, and it does not prevent authors from re-purposing the content in other ebook formats to be sold outside the iBookstore. This software currently supports import and export functionally for three formats. ibook, Plain text and PDF. The iBooks Author 2.3 and later supports importing EPUB and export EPUB 3.0.^[13]

IEC 62448[edit]

IEC 62448 is an international standard created by International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), Technical Committee 100, Technical Area 10 (Multimedia e-publishing and e-book).

The current version of IEC 62448 is an umbrella standard that contains as appendices two concrete formats, XMDF of Sharp and BBeB of Sony. However, BBeB has been discontinued by Sony and the version of XMDF that is in the specification is out of date. The IEC TA10 group is discussing the next steps, and has invited the IDPF organization which has standardized EPUB to be a liaison. It is possible that the current version of EPUB and/or the forthcoming EPUB3 revision may be added to IEC 62448. Meanwhile, a number of Japanese companies have proposed that IEC standardize a proposed new Japanese-centric file format that is expected to unify DotBook of Voyager Japan and XMDF of Sharp. This new format has not been publicly disclosed as of November 2010 but it is supposed to cover basic representations for the Japanese language. Technically speaking, this revision is supposed to provide a Japanese minimum set, a Japanese extension set, and a stylesheet language. These issues were discussed in the TC100 meeting held in October 2010 but no decisions were taken besides offering the liaison status to IDPF.

INF (IBM)[edit]

IBM created this e-book format and used it extensively for OS/2 and other of its operating systems. The INF files were often digital versions of printed books that came with some bundles of OS/2 and other products. There were many other newsletters and monthly publications (e.g.: EDM/2) available in the INF format too.

The advantage of INF is that it is very compact and very fast. It also supports images, reflowed text, tables and various list formats. INF files get generated by compiling the markup text files — in the Information Presentation Facility (IPF) format — into binary files.

Originally only IBM created an INF viewer and compiler, but later open source viewers like NewView, DocView and others appeared. There is also an open source IPF compiler named WIPFC, created by the Open Watcom project.

Kindle (Amazon)[edit]

With the release of the Kindle Fire reader in late 2011, Amazon.com also released Kindle Format 8, also known as .AZW3. The .azw3 file format supports a subset of HTML5 and CSS3 features, with some additional nonstandard features; the new data is stored within a container which can also be used to store a Mobi content document, allowing limited backwards compatibility.^[14][15][16]

Older Kindle e-readers use the proprietary format, AZW. It is based on the Mobipocket standard, with a slightly different serial number scheme (it uses an asterisk instead of a dollar sign) and its own DRM formatting. Because the ebooks bought on the Kindle are delivered over its wireless system called Whispernet, the user does not see the AZW files during the download process. The Kindle format is available on a variety of platforms, such as through the Kindle app for the various mobile device platforms.

Microsoft LIT[edit]

DRM-protected LIT files are only readable in the proprietary Microsoft Reader program, as the .LIT format, otherwise similar to Microsoft's CHM format, includes Digital Rights Management features. Other third party readers, such as Lexcycle Stanza, can read unprotected LIT files.

The Microsoft Reader uses patented ClearType display technology. In Reader navigation works with a keyboard, mouse, stylus, or through electronic bookmarks. The Catalog Library records reader books in a personalized 'home page', and books are displayed with ClearType to improve readability. A user can add annotations and notes to any page, create large-print e-books with a single command, or create free-form drawings on the reader pages. A built-in dictionary allows the user to look up words.

In August 2011, Microsoft announced they were discontinuing both Microsoft Reader and the use of the .lit format for ebooks^[17] at the end of August 2012, and ending sales of the format on November 8, 2011.^[18]

Mobipocket[edit]

The Mobipocket e-book format is based on the Open eBook standard using XHTML and can include JavaScript and frames. It also supports native SQL queries to be used with embedded databases. There is a corresponding e-book reader.

The Mobipocket Reader has a home page library. Readers can add blank pages in any part of a book and add free-hand drawings. Annotations – highlights, bookmarks, corrections, notes, and drawings – can be applied, organized, and recalled from a single location. Images are converted to GIF format and have a maximum size of 64K,^[19] sufficient for mobile phones with small screens, but rather restrictive for newer gadgets. Mobipocket Reader has electronic bookmarks, and a built-in dictionary.

The reader has a full screen mode for reading and support for many PDAs, Communicators, and Smartphones. Mobipocket products support most Windows, Symbian, BlackBerry and Palm operating systems, but not the Android platform. Using WINE, the reader works under Linux or Mac OS X. Third-party applications like Okular and FBReader can also be used under Linux or Mac OS X, but they work only with unencrypted files.

The Amazon Kindle's AZW format is basically just the Mobipocket format with a slightly different serial number scheme (it uses an asterisk instead of a dollar sign), and .prc publications can be read directly on the Kindle. The Kindle AZW format also lacks some Mobipocket features such as JavaScript.^[20]

Amazon has developed an .epub to .mobi converter called KindleGen,^[21] and it supports IDPF 1.0 and IDPF 2.0 EPUB format.

Multimedia eBooks[edit]

A multimedia ebook is media and bookcontent that utilizes a combination of different book content formats. The term can be used as a noun (a medium with multiple content formats) or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content formats.

The 'multimedia ebook' term is used in contrast to media which only utilize traditional forms of printed or text books. Multimedia ebooks include a combination of text, audio, images, video, or interactive content formats. Much like how a traditional book can contain images to help the text tell a story, a multimedia ebook can contain other elements not formerly possible to help tell the story.

With the advent of more widespread tablet-like computers, such as the smartphone, some publishing houses are planning to make multimedia ebooks, such as Penguin.^[22]

Newton Digital Book[edit]

Commonly known as a Newton Book^[23], but officially referred to as a Newton Digital Book^[24]; a single Newton package file can contain multiple books (for example, the three books of a trilogy might be packaged together). Newton Books are created using Newton Press, or, for more advanced content, Newton Book Maker and Newton Toolkit.

All systems running the Newton operating system (the most common include the Newton MessagePads, eMates, Siemens Secretary Stations, Motorola Marcos, Digital Ocean Seahorses and Tarpons) have built-in support for viewing Newton books, through a system service known as Newton Book Reader. The Newton package format was released to the public by Newton, Inc. prior to that company's absorption into Apple Computer. The format is thus arguably open and various people have written readers for it (writing a Newton book converter has even been assigned as a university-level class project^[25]).

Newton books have no support for DRM or encryption. They do support internal links, potentially multiple tables of contents and indexes, embedded gray scale images, and even some scripting capability using NewtonScript (for example, it's possible to make a book in which the reader can influence the outcome).^[26] Newton books utilize Unicode and are thus available in numerous languages. An individual Newton Book may actually contain multiple views representing the same content in different ways (such as for different screen resolutions).

Open Electronic Package[edit]

OPF is an XML-based e-book format created by E-Book Systems; it has been superseded by the EPUB electronic publication standard.

Portable Document Format[edit]

Invented by Adobe Systems, and first released in 1993, PDF became ISO 32000 in 2008. The format was developed to provide a platform-independent means of exchanging fixed-layout documents. Derived from PostScript, but without language features like loops, PDF adds support for features such as compression, passwords, semantic structures and DRM. Because PDF documents can easily be viewed and printed by users on a variety of computer platforms, they are very common on the World Wide Web and in document management systems worldwide. The current PDF specification, ISO 32000-1:2008, is available from ISO's website, and under special arrangement, without charge from Adobe.^[27]

Because the format is designed to reproduce fixed-layout pages, re-flowing text to fit mobile device and e-book reader screens has traditionally been problematic. This limitation was addressed in 2001 with the release of PDF Reference 1.5 and 'Tagged PDF',^[28] but 3rd party support for this feature was limited until the release of PDF/UA in 2012.

Many products support creating and reading PDF files, such as Adobe Acrobat, PDFCreator and OpenOffice.org, and several programming libraries such as iText and FOP. Third party viewers such as xpdf and Nitro PDF are also available. Mac OS X has built-in PDF support, both for creation as part of the printing system and for display using the built-in Preview application.

PDF files are supported by almost all modern e-book readers, tablets and smartphones. However, PDF reflow based on Tagged PDF, as opposed to re-flow based on the actual sequence of objects in the content-stream, is not yet commonly supported on mobile devices. Such Re-flow options as may exist are usually found under 'view' options, and may be called 'word-wrap'.

Plain text files[edit]

The first e-books in history were in plain text (.txt) format, supplied for free by the Project Gutenberg community, but the format itself existed before the e-book era. The plain text format doesn't support digital rights management (DRM) or formatting options (such as different fonts, graphics or colors), but it has excellent portability as it is the simplest e-book encoding possible as a plain text file contains only ASCII or Unicode text (text files with UTF-8 or UTF-16 encoding are also popular for languages other than English). Almost all operating systems can read ASCII text files (e.g. Unix, Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, DOS and other systems) and newer operating systems support Unicode text files as well. The only potential for portability problems of ASCII text files is that operating systems differ in their preferred line ending convention and their interpretation of values outside the ASCII range (their character encoding). Conversion of files from one to another line-ending convention is easy with free software. DOS and Windows uses CRLF, Unix and Apple's OS X use LF, Mac OS up to and including OS 9 uses CR. By convention, lines are often broken to fit into 80 characters, a legacy of older terminals and consoles. Alternately, each paragraph may be a single line.

When Unicode is not in use, the size in bytes of a text file is simply the number of characters, including spaces, and with a new line counting for 1 or 2. For example, the Bible, which is approximately 800,000 words, is about 4 MB.^[29]

Plucker[edit]

Plucker is an Open Source free mobile and desktop e-book reader application with its own associated file format and software to automatically generate Plucker files from text, PDF, HTML, or other document format files, web sites or RSS feeds. The format is public and well-documented. Free readers are available for all kinds of desktop computers and many PDAs.

PostScript[edit]

PostScript is a page description language used in the electronic and desktop publishing areas for defining the contents and layout of a printed page, which can be used by a rendering program to assemble and create the actual output bitmap. Many office printers directly support interpreting PostScript and printing the result. As a result, the format also sees wide use in the Unix world.

RTF[edit]

Rich Text Format is a document file format that is supported by many ebook readers. Its advantages as an ebook format is that it is widely supported, and it can be reflowed. It can be easily edited. It can be easily converted to other ebook formats, increasing its support.

SSReader[edit]

The digital book format used by a popular digital library company 超星数字图书馆^[30] in China. It is a proprietary raster image compression and binding format, with reading time OCR plug-in modules. The company scanned a huge number of Chinese books in the China National Library and this becomes the major stock of their service. The detailed format is not published. There are also some other commercial e-book formats used in Chinese digital libraries.

Text Encoding Initiative[edit]

Adobe Reader For Mac

TEI Lite is the most^{[citation needed]} popular of the TEI-based (and thus XML-based or SGML-based) electronic text formats.

TomeRaider[edit]

The TomeRaider e-book format is a proprietary format. There are versions of TomeRaider for Windows, Windows Mobile (aka Pocket PC), Palm, Symbian and iPhone. Several Wikipedias are available as TomeRaider files with all articles unabridged, some even with nearly all images. Capabilities of the TomeRaider3 e-book reader vary considerably per platform: the Windows and Windows Mobile editions support full HTML and CSS. The Palm edition supports limited HTML (e.g., no tables, no fonts), and CSS support is missing. For Symbian there is only the older TomeRaider2 format, which does not render images or offer category search facilities. Despite these differences any TomeRaider e-book can be browsed on all supported platforms. The Tomeraider website^[31] claims to have over 4000 e-books available, including free versions of the Internet Movie Database and Wikipedia.

Open XML Paper Specification[edit]

Open XML Paper Specification (also referred to as OpenXPS) is an open specification for a page description language and a fixed-document format. Microsoft developed it as the XML Paper Specification (XPS). In June 2009, Ecma International adopted it as international standard ECMA-388.^[32]

The format is intentionally restricted to sequences of:Glyphs (a fixed run of text),Paths (a geometry that can be filled, or stroked, by a brush), andBrushes (a description of a shaped brush used to in rendering paths).

This reduces the possibility of inadvertent introduction of malicious content and simplifies the implementation of compatible renderers.

Comparison tables[edit]

Features[edit]

1. ^ ^abcdDepends on the eReader application
2. ^With ePub 3
3. ^Table support added in FictionBook V2.1. Not supported in V2.0
4. ^ ^abWith HTML 5
5. ^Supported in all except 1st Generation Kindle. (Support level is as it is in mobipocket)
6. ^ ^abSupported only in kindle for iPhone, iPod, iPad.
7. ^'Reflow' is implemented by some readers.
8. ^With Flash Embedded

Supporting platforms[edit]

1. ^ ^abcdeProprietary format
2. ^Predecessor of ePUB
3. ^Yes, if the Duokan alternate Kindle OS (third-party software add-on) is used.
4. ^By adding epub capable apps, such as Aldiko
5. ^ ^{abcdefghijklmn}Requires latest firmware
6. ^With third party apps, such as CloudReader
7. ^ ^abVersions support either ePUB or MobiPocket
8. ^Only ePUB version and with FW 2.0+
9. ^KDE's Okular supports fb2
10. ^Calibre supports lrf/lrx
11. ^ICE Book Reader for Windows supports fb2
12. ^DRM-protected publications are supported as of Kindle for PC v1.3.0
13. ^Comic Book Reader for Windows
14. ^XP or later, not on Windows 2000

See also[edit]

• Comparison of Android e-book reader software – includes software e-book readers for Android devices
• Comparison of iOS e-book reader software – includes software e-book readers for iOS devices

References[edit]

General information

• Cavanaugh, T W (2006). The Digital Reader: Using E-Books in K-12 Education. Eugene, Oregon: International Society for Technology in Education. ISBN1564842215.
• Chandler, S (2010). From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur: Make Money with Books, EBooks, and Information Products. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN978-1118044773.
• Cope, B., & Mason, D. (2002). Markets for electronic book products. C-2-C series, bk. 3.2. Altona, Vic: Common Ground Pub.
• Henke, H (2001). Electronic Books and Epublishing: A Practical guide for Authors. London: Springer. ISBN1852334355.
• Hanttula, D. (2001). Pocket PC handbook.
• Rich, J (2006). Self-Publishing For Dummies. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN0470100370.

Footnotes

1. ^ ^ab'Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing: Get help with self-publishing your book to Amazon's Kindle Store'. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
2. ^About, Calibre
3. ^'DAISY Standard | DAISY Consortium'. Daisy.org. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
4. ^'i♥cabbages: Circumventing Adobe ADEPT DRM for EPUB'. I-u2665-cabbages.blogspot.com. 2009-02-18. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
5. ^'Barnes & Noble Booksellers'. Barnesandnobleinc.com. 2009-07-20. Archived from the original on 2015-09-23. Retrieved 2015-08-31.Cite uses deprecated parameter |deadurl= (help)
6. ^'Barnes & Noble adopts open EPUB eBook Format, PDF and Adobe Content Server' (Press release). Adobe Systems. 2009-10-20. Retrieved 2013-05-06.
7. ^Rothman, David (2009-10-20), Barnes & Noble adopts open EPUB eBook Format, PDF and Adobe Content Server, TeleRead, archived from the original on 2013-05-06, retrieved 2013-05-06Cite uses deprecated parameter |deadurl= (help)
8. ^Bell, Ian (2009-11-18), Barnes & Noble Adopts ePub Standard; Aligns With Adobe, Digital Trends, retrieved 2013-05-06
9. ^Meadows, Chris (2009-12-13), Barnes & Noble quietly changes e-book format, neglects to tell consumers, TeleRead, archived from the original on 2013-01-30, retrieved 2013-05-06Cite uses deprecated parameter |deadurl= (help)
10. ^James, Kendrick (2009-12-14), Has Barnes & Noble Changed Its e-Book Format to ePUB?, GigaOM, retrieved 2013-05-06
11. ^[1]Archived July 3, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
12. ^'Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - The Web Standards Project'. Webstandards.org. 2002-02-27. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
13. ^'About ePubs created with iBooks Author'. Retrieved 2016-09-25.
14. ^'Kindle Format 8 Overview'. 2012.
15. ^'The New Kindle Format KF8'. Musings and Marvels:Learning the ins and outs of the publishing industry. 2012-03-06. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
16. ^'HTML5 tags supported by KF8'. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
17. ^'Ebooks'. Aazae.
18. ^'Microsoft is discontinuing Microsoft Reader effective August 30, 2012, which includes download access of the Microsoft Reader application from the Microsoft Reader website.'Microsoft ReaderArchived August 22, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
19. ^'Mobipocket Developer Center - Importing Image files'. Mobipocket.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2015-08-31.Cite uses deprecated parameter |deadurl= (help)
20. ^'MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Javascript in mobi ebooks?'. Mobileread.com. 2010-12-29. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
21. ^'Mobipocket Developer Center'. Mobipocket.com. Archived from the original on 2015-08-22. Retrieved 2015-08-31.Cite uses deprecated parameter |deadurl= (help)
22. ^[2]Archived June 17, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
23. ^'Newton Book'. Newton Glossary. Retrieved 2018-03-05.
24. ^Newton Book Maker User's Guide(PDF). Software manual. Apple Computer, Inc. 1995. pp. 1–1, 1–2.
25. ^'MET CS 331 Intermediate Computer Science With C++ Newton Book Parsing Project'. Archived from the original on September 4, 2006. Retrieved July 6, 2007.Cite uses deprecated parameter |deadurl= (help)
26. ^'WikiWikiNewt Undergoing Maintenance'. Tools.unna.org. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
27. ^'PDF Reference and Adobe Extensions to the PDF Specification | Adobe Developer Connection'. Adobe.com. 2007-01-29. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
28. ^'What is Tagged PDF?'. Planet PDF. Archived from the original on 2016-01-18. Retrieved 2015-08-31.Cite uses deprecated parameter |deadurl= (help)
29. ^https://web.archive.org/web/20081205071232/http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10. Archived from the original on December 5, 2008. Retrieved January 10, 2010.Cite uses deprecated parameter |deadurl= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
30. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 2007-01-19. Retrieved 2008-01-10.Cite uses deprecated parameter |deadurl= (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
31. ^ ^ab'tomeraider.com'. tomeraider.com. 2015-06-24. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
32. ^'Standard ECMA-388'. Ecma-international.org. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
33. ^Joshua Tallent (2009-02-25). 'Kindle 2 Review, the Formatting Perspective'. Kindle Formatting. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
34. ^ ^ab'Kindle Editions with Audio-Video: Kindle Store'. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
35. ^'Reflow the contents of Adobe PDF documents: Tutorial'. Adobe.com. 2001-04-02. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
36. ^'iReader'. Ireader.over-blog.com. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
37. ^'vudroid - Android djvu and pdf viewer - Google Project Hosting'. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
38. ^'Rise of the Android by Apps for Nook | 2940147132807 | NOOK App | Barnes & Noble'. Barnesandnoble.com. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
39. ^'Home - SurfTabs, smart phones, MiniPCs, data storage, MP3-Player - TrekStor GmbH'. Trekstor.co.uk. Retrieved 2015-08-31.

External links[edit]

Bluefire Reader For Mac

Read books on your Mac. Sure, tablets and e-ink devices are better ways to read than your computer – and even your phone is nicer than a laptop if you’re on the couch. But sometimes you need to open a book on your Mac.

Maybe you’re using a text as a reference for a project, or maybe you just want to read a few chapters of a novel at your desk. Whatever the reason, choosing which app to open your books for depends on a few factors. Books you buy from a particular service (iBooks, Kindle and so on) can only be opened with their software, for example, while free EPUB files you find at Project Gutenberg can be read with a variety of free software.

There might not be a single program for reading all your books, so it’s good to know your options. Whatever your situation, here are the best options for reading ebooks on your Mac.

If You Love Apple Defaults: iBooks

Mavericks, the latest version of OS X, brought Apple’s iBooks service to the desktop. Long offered on iPads and iPhones, iBooks allows you to read the books you’ve purchased from Apple’s bookstore on your desktop – and also offers support for EPUB files. Your current reading list and bookmarks will sync between your various devices, so if you’re an Apple fan with multiple devices this might be ideal for you.

EPUB files you add on your Mac won’t sync wirelessly to your mobile devices.

The interface is minimalistic and focused on reading – even the toolbar fades away if you’re not using it, leaving you with just your book. You can take notes, tag and highlight information, but you won’t find a lot of customization options (so I hope you like the default font).

iBooks is a solid reader if you like the idea of a book library and mostly want to focus on reading. It’s probably perfect for most users, but only works if you’re using the latest version of OS X. Mavericks is free; here’s how to get itOS X Mavericks is Free: Here's How To Get It & Why You Want ItOS X Mavericks is Free: Here's How To Get It & Why You Want ItApple really outdid itself this time. The words 'software sells hardware' never rung more true, and now that OS X Mavericks is free to all, isn't it about time you got on-board?Read More.

If You Own An E-Reader: Kindle, Kobo Or Nook

If you have a dedicated reading device – a Kindle, Kobo or Nook – you’ve likely purchased books for it. If that’s the case, you’re probably best off using the Mac reading software offered by the company that made your device.

Download Kindle For Mac, Kobo for Mac or Nook for Mac to sync your existing collection right now. None of these services offer the ability to import EPUB books found outside their ecosystem, so you may want to check out another alternative. But if all you want is to read your current books on your Mac, these apps are your best bet.

If You Want A Store-Free Alternative: Kitabu

If you’re not using Mavericks, or would rather avoid software tied to a specific online bookstore, Kitabu is worth looking into. This open source reader sports a minimalist interface, with columns, and allows you to customize the fonts.

Reading itself couldn’t be easier: use the arrow keys to turn the page, or scroll sideways if you prefer to use the touchpad.

There is a library feature; you can choose whether books are moved or copied to it in the preferences. This might be annoying for users who would like to simply open an EPUB without adding it to a library, but others will surely see it as a feature.

Notably missing features include bookmarks and notes, but on the plus side you do have full control of the reading font. You can download Kitabu from the Mac App Store, or from SourceForge if you prefer.

If You Borrow From The Library: Adobe Digital Editions

This is not the best reading software on this list. It doesn’t support columns, so you need to either resize the window or adjust to massively wide paragraphs. It doesn’t offer a lot of customization at all – there isn’t even a Preferences screen.

And yet, you might want to install it. Why? For one thing, many public libraries offer books protected by Adobe’s software, meaning you’re going to need Digital Editions if you want to borrow books from them. The software can also transfer such books to your (non-Kindle) ereader, and is required for offline reading of books purchased from Google and a variety of other online bookstores.

So it’s not the best, but you might be stuck with it sometimes. Go ahead and download Adobe Digital Editions for Mac

If You’re Hardcore/Awesome: Calibre

If you collect a lot of ebooks, and want to convert them from one format to another so you can read them on various devices, Calibre is your program. This ebook managment software can do anything, from converting MOBI files to EPUB to transferring files to a tablet or ereader. It can even download blogs or newspapers for offline readingDownload Entire Newspapers or Blogs To Your eBook Reader With CalibreDownload Entire Newspapers or Blogs To Your eBook Reader With CalibreRead More, which is great before a long trip.

There are some down sides. The app isn’t that great for actually reading files, and its interface feels like a relic. But while Calibre might not be the best reading experience for Mac, it’s a must-have tool for power users looking to organize, convert and transfer their colleciton.

Learn more by reading our Calibre manual, or go ahead and download Calibre.

If You Still Want More Choices

The above options should meet just about anyone’s needs, but more choices are always good, right? Here are a few.

• Firefox users: you can install the EPUBReader for Firefox and open EPUB files in your browser. It’s perfect if you just want to quickly open a file to check something.
• Clearview ($6.99) [No longer available] has gotten positive reviews for its tabbed reading interface. You might like it.
• Murasaki ($7.99, free older version) is worth a look if you prefer scrolling up and down to “turning pages”, and don’t want a library for your books.

Did I miss your favourite ebook reader for Mac? Fill me, and your fellow reader, in using the comments below.

Explore more about: Ebooks, eReader.

1. This article fails to mention that iBooks will only sync books you have purchased from Apple. Anything outside of this and your screwed,

   • It's syncing DRM-free .EPUB and .PDF files between my MacBook Pro running OS X El Capitan and my iPad 2 running iOS 9. Once a book is added on one device, I go to the other and make sure 'Show iCloud Books' is enabled to get them to show up so I can download them.

     • Also, bookmarks and highlights are stored in iCloud and automatically synced with all devices.

2. Thank you for the review. I still have a question: what types of e-book readers are the best for textbooks with *figures*. When reading textbooks, you often need to look at a figure to understand the text, but with e-books, they are always on different pages and its difficult to go back-and-forth between reading and picture, reading and picture... 'wait.. what page was I on?' I currently use Kindle, and I'm about done with it.

   Which e-book readers make pictures and figures easy to see?

3. Murasaki for me is one of the best. It has a lot of nice features I've never seen in any other reader.
   A bit pricey, perhaps, but worth every penny. IMHO.

4. An update as well as some personal opinions here: be careful, vigilant and scrupulous what you load into iBooks as they will permanently remain; you cannot remove or delete them once loaded.

   Also, Nook for Mac has pretty much been abandoned. Besides that it's pretty much worthless and prone to repeatedly crash. And if you've already got Calibre installed on your Mac add 'no reason to even have it in your Applications' folder to Nook for Mac.

5. Although your are technically correct that EPUB items will not synch wirelessly with other devices with iBooks, when an EPUB item is added to iBooks, they will be automatically synched into iTunes, where they can be readily synched with other Apple devices.