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EBOOK READER
Foliate
Version: 1.5.0 Web: https://github.com/johnfactotum/foliate
According to J.K. Rowling, “If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book”. But it’s important to add that your attitude to reading in electronic form is greatly impacted by the software we use for it. There is a whole slew of ebook readers for Linux that have existed for ages. Still, there is a room for another even better ebook reader, and we think we have found the one.
Foliate is a sleek GTK3-based and JavaScript-powered desktop application that was limited to the ePub format, but the latest release adds Mobi and Amazon Kindle formats (MOBI, AZW and AZW3). While that means that you’ll need other software to handle PDF or DjVu files, Foliate is perhaps the most polished and comfortable to use application when it comes to ePub. The secret is in the details, in those little things that you mostly notice when you start reading.
A good example is the built-in word look-up. Many applications have this feature, but few deliver word definitions right inside the book-reading view, instead of taking you away to a web browser window. When you select a word in Foliate, a compact dialogue pops up and instantly loads the word definition from Wiktionary. Below it are the buttons for switching to Wikipedia and Google Translate views. When reading ePubs that contain some words you may not know, Foliate makes it very easy to get definitions and to keep on reading.
The header bar in Foliate has buttons for searching and accessing the main menu, and setting a custom font, theme or layout. It is possible to adjust font size and type (or stick to the publisher’s font), change brightness and adjust margins and hyphenation for a perfect reading session. Use the lower slider to navigate inside the book, and also the top-left button at the header bar to switch between chapters.
If you close and run it again, it will ask if you want to open another file, or continue reading the previous book. on Flathub, or grab the DEB package from the GitHub page’s Releases section.
