Download ebook reader for mac os x plus#

And the floating toolbars are always in portrait mode, even when you’re reading in landscape mode:Īnother annoyance (bug?) is that the right-hand text margin is narrower than the left-hand margin, and altogether too close to the edge of the screen for my liking (though you can mitigate this by increasing the overall margin size in the settings).ĭespite its drawbacks, eReader does have some plus points over Stanza, such as a better search (you can search the entire book) and the aforementioned colour themes. Sometimes (seemingly at random) a blue pagination bar appears at the bottom of the screen, partially obscuring the text. Minor interface quirks mar the eReader experience slightly. Page turning is somewhat slower than Stanza, with a slight delay between tapping and turning. Overall I prefer Stanza’s approach: tap the left or right side of the screen to turn pages, and tap the centre to bring up the toolbars. This took me a while to figure out (even though it’s explained right below the options!). Personally I prefer tapping to turn pages you can set this in the options, in which case you then swipe (in any direction) to bring up the toolbars. Personally I don’t use autoscroll much as I find it’s either too fast or too slow – never just right!īy default, you swipe the screen to turn pages, and tap to bring up the toolbars. However it’s a bit jerky at certain speeds. (It would be cool if it used the iPhone’s brightness sensor and/or the current time to identify “night-time”.)ĮReader has an autoscroll feature, and you can vary the scroll speed by tapping and holding the book text. A nice touch is the ability to choose different themes for day and night reading you can then activate the night theme by tapping the “I” icon in the toolbar. You can change font, text size and line spacing – though it doesn’t have as many options as Stanza – and also choose from predefined colour themes (or create your own). You can get your own content into eReader, although the process is somewhat fiddly.Īs with Stanza, book text is clear and easy to read.

Download ebook reader for mac os x download#

You can download books from different sources including the eReader/Fictionwise store, the free ebooks on, or any site that serves up books in eReader format. This is similar to Stanza in terms of its look and feature set. The main competitor to Stanza in the App Store is Fictionwise’s eReader. Overall Stanza is an excellent ebook reader: intuitive, looks great, and has access to a wide variety of ebooks. Another minor irritation is that there’s no way to tell exactly how far you are through the book you’re reading. It only lets you search within the current chapter, and merely highlights the search terms within the text – there’s no “Find Again” feature. Flipping pages is as simple as tapping on the left or right side of the screen, while tapping in the centre brings up translucent toolbars for returning to the book list, displaying book info, and accessing bookmarks, Stanza settings, and the search function. You can read text in portrait or landscape mode by rotating the phone, and lock the screen rotation if desired. You can also choose from over 20 font faces. You get a lot of control over text appearance, including text and background colours, font size, text alignment, line spacing and margin width. The text looks crisp and is easy on the eye (even after reading 115 chapters of Moby Dick!). Reading ebooks with Stanza is a pleasure.

The app allows you to share opened ebooks with the iPhone via wi-fi, which means you can load any existing ebooks you own onto the iPhone. You can also use the Stanza desktop app to convert various ebook formats so they work on the iPhone app. In addition, Stanza provides access to a wide variety of paid and free ebook archives, such as Feedbooks, SmashWords, Project Gutenberg and various newspaper and magazine feeds. You can also purchase commercial ebooks from the Fictionwise book store right from within the app. Lexcycle’s Stanza lets you read DRM-free ebooks and other documents in a variety of formats, including eReader, Open eBook, Kindle, PalmDoc, HTML, PDF, and plain text. This post compares 4 free iPhone ebook readers: Stanza, eReader, dBelement Reader, and Clickwheel Comic Reader. In fact some say it’s currently the most popular ebook reader device out there. With its crystal-clear screen and touch-screen interface, the iPhone (and iPod touch) can serve as a very capable ebook reader.