Recommend several useful Linux e-book readers (Part 1)

With the increasing number of handheld devices, people are increasingly fond of reading on Kindle, iPad, iPhone or PC, so the demand for e-books is also increasing. When it comes to Linux users, there are also various e-book applications to help us read and organize e-book collections.

In this article, I recommend several useful Linux e-book readers for Linux users. These e-book related applications are suitable for PDF, epubs and other common e-book formats.

Best eBook Readers for Linux

Since I am currently using Ubuntu, I will only provide installation instructions for Ubuntu systems. If you are using another Linux distribution, you can find most of these e-book applications in the distribution's software repositories.

1. Calibre

Calibre is one of the most popular e-book applications among Linux users. In fact, it is not only a simple e-book reader, but a complete e-book solution. You can even use Calibre to make professional e-books yourself.

With a powerful eBook manager and an easy-to-use interface, it has eBook creation and editing capabilities. Calibre supports a variety of eBook formats and can be synchronized with other eBook readers. It can even easily convert one eBook format to another.

Of course, Calibre's biggest drawback is that it has too many functions, which makes it a difficult choice for users who only need an independent e-book reader.

Calibre Features

• Manage eBooks: Calibre can sort and group eBooks by managing metadata. You can download metadata for eBooks from various sources, as well as create and edit existing fields.
• Support for all major e-book formats: Calibre supports all major e-book formats and is compatible with a wide range of e-readers.
• File conversion: You can convert any e-book format to another, change the book style, create a table of contents or improve margins when converting.
• Download magazines from the web: Calibre can deliver stories from a variety of news sources or via RSS feeds.
• Sharing and backup of “library”: It provides the option to host the e-book collection through its servers, which can be shared or accessed with friends anywhere, anytime using any device.

Calibre Installation

You can find it in the software repositories of almost all major Linux distributions. For Ubuntu users, search for it in Software Center or install it using the following command:

 sudo apt install calibre

2. FBReader

FBReader is an open source, lightweight, multi-platform e-book reader that supports various e-book formats such as ePub, fb2, mobi, rtf, html, etc. It can access popular online libraries, download free eBooks or purchase some eBooks.

FBReader supports highly customizable options, and users can customize colors, fonts, page turning animations, bookmarks, dictionaries, etc. according to their preferences.

FBReader Features

• Supports various file formats and devices, such as: Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.
• Sync your book collections, reading positions, and bookmarks.
• Manage your "library" by adding any book from your Linux desktop to all your devices.
• Use a web browser to access your storage collection.
• Supports storing books in Google Drive and organizing books by author, series or other attributes.

FBReader Installation

You can install FBReader e-book reader from the official repository or type the following command in your terminal:

 sudo apt install fbreader

Or get a .deb package from here and install it on Debian-based distributions.

3. Okular

Okular is another open source and cross-platform document viewer developed by KDE and released as a part of KDE Applications Edition.

Okular Features

• Okular supports various document formats including PDF, Postscript, DjVu, CHM, XPS and ePub.
• Supports PDF document commenting, highlighting, and drawing different shapes. (These changes will be saved separately without modifying the original PDF file.)
• It can extract text from e-books into text files and has a built-in text reading service called Jovie.

Okular Installation

Ubuntu users can install it by typing the following command in a terminal:

 sudo apt install okular