A man is said to have two best friends: – A pet dog and A good book. We all have been reading different types of books in all walks of our life, be it in school, college, or at work. Books not only provide entertainment but knowledge as well. However, with the year 2020 approaches, the world has become almost paperless. Digitalization has been sweeping through all walks of our life and everything we could touch and feel, is now somewhere on the internet or stored on your hard drive. Our paperback and hardcovers have not escaped digitalization making way for eBooks or Electronic Books which can be read on a computer, e-reader, smartphones or any other compatible electronic device. There are many file formats of Electronic Books such as EPUB, PDF, Doc and Amazon’s own Kindle File Format.
What is EPUB?
EPUB stands for Electronic Publication and it is one of the most commonly used eBook formats which uses “.EPUB” extension. EPUB is compatible with almost all e-readers, smartphones and computers. This format was accepted as an official technical standard for eBooks by the International Digital Publishing Forum in 2007.
What is the difference between EPUB and PDF?
One of the first and most popular formats for any digital document was PDF which stands for Portable Document Format. It was developed by Adobe in the 1990’s and it still widely used in official paperwork. The digital copies of many books were released in PDF format. However, eBooks in PDF format has declined after the invent of EPUB. The reason for this decline is the difference between the two formats:
- PDF files are static and once set they appear alike in all devices and can be printed in the exact same way from any printer. However, EPUB was designed to be more dynamic and adjust the content according to the device it is opened on especially mobile phones and tablets.
- A PDF file maintains static images, tables, and other elements but EPUB supports re-flowable content which allows all the content to be optimized to provide a better reading experience to the readers.
- PDF files are more secure with the users to have options to place a password to prevent others from opening the document without authorization. That is the reason why it is used in Official documents across Banks, Educational Institutions and even the Government. EPUB does feature digital Rights Management but not as requisite and efficient.
- PDF files can be edited and used for taking notes and annotate an important part of the document with Adobe Acrobat. EPUB, on the other hand, does not support any form of editing.
Here Are the Best Free EPUB Readers for Windows 10
1. Icecream eBook Reader
Icecream EPUB reader for windows 10 is one of the best EPUB viewer for windows operating system. It allows the user to enable full-screen mode and book mode which makes the user feel that there is an actual book in their hands. Other features include high-end search capabilities, easy to turn pages, track reading progress and support multilingual EPUB documents. Icecream eBook reader also has a night mode that enables low light and makes it easy on the eyes of the reader. Apart from all the advanced features it also has an advanced search by author or title, and it supports normal functions of Copy, Translates and Search.
2. Adobe Digital Editions
Adobe Digital Editions rightly makes it to the top of the Best EPUB Readers for Windows 10 list as Adobe was among the first software companies to initiate digitalization of paperwork by introducing the PDF format. Although EPUB format was not developed by Adobe, it still has a great application to view them. Adobe Digital Editions support right to left reading, image resizing, formulas and equations, search capabilities and much more. It also has a unique feature where the users can rent or borrow EPUB version of books from the local libraries which support this facility. It also has all the other major and minor features like bookmarking, highlighting, making notes and others.
3. Freda Ebook Reader
Freda eBook Reader is an EPUB viewer for windows 10 which is available free to download from the Microsoft Store. It allows the users to customize and set themes to the app which makes it very exciting. Suppose you are reading a scary novel then you can set a dark theme to your software to give you the extra feel. Besides EPUB it supports MOBI, FB2, HTML and TXT formats and converts these documents into eBooks for the convenience of reading. You can read over 50,000 free books from Feedbooks, Gutenberg, and other on-line catalogs. Freda is compatible with cloud storage services like OneDrive and Dropbox and can import eBooks from them. It is truly one of the best EPUB readers for PC but has a small limitation of displaying advertisements which can be removed by paying a small fee of $2.
4. Bibliovore
Bibliovore is another one on the list of best free eBook readers for pc. It is a trusted app as it is available for free on the Windows Store. It allows you to manage a large collection of books with ease and allows the users to customize the themes, font size, font color and change the background colors. Bibliovore can sync all your books across all the devices using OneDrive. It also creates links through the table of content provided in the eBook and can provide direct access to a chapter or section. users can switch between displaying one or two images at once and download books directly inside Bibliovore from online libraries. Bibliovore is one of the few EPUB viewers for windows 10 which has the fastest eBook loading facility along with opening the last page read.
5. Bookviser
Bookviser is an EPUB reader for pc which open the eBooks in a real book theme. The user interface allows the user to turn pages as if in a real book. Just like Freda eBook reader Bookviser also enables the user to download and read free classics from public catalogs including Smash words, Feed books and Project Gutenberg. It also provides an opportunity to highlight in different colors. The simple and clean interface has attracted over 4 million people to use this application across the globe. Users can customize many features of Bookviser like setting color and genre themes, adjusting line and margin spacing, switching from landscape and portrait modes. In addition to this, adding/removing on-page indicators like the battery, time, page number and sharing snippet from the eBook truly make it the best EPUB reader for windows 10
Best Free Portable EPUB Reader for Windows 10
A portable EPUB Reader is a program that does not require installation and can run from a simple executable file. It may not have many of the sophisticated and fancy features like the above-mentioned programs but can fulfill the simple purpose of reading an eBook while traveling. Instead of carrying your eBook Reader or Laptop with you all times, you can carry a copy of these portable EPUB Viewers for PC along with the eBook in a flash disk and connect it wherever you get a chance to access a computer. A list of five best Portable EPUB readers for Windows 10 is:
1. Calibre EPUB Reader
Calibre EPUB Reader is a portable EPUB viewer for windows 10 which offers all features an EPUB reader for pc can offer. It can manage your library of eBooks, convert the eBooks into various formats and even can help you find the cheapest price for eBooks. Calibre EPUB Reader also has a unique feature of fetching news from across the globe and display them to the user as an eBook.
It is also an excellent choice for reading magazines and comics apart from simple novels. The portability feature is also the reason for including this application in the list of the best free eBook reader for pc.
2. Sumatra
Sumatra is not exactly one of the apps having a beautiful user interface, but it is free, simple to use and supports almost all formats of digital documents like CBZ, CBR, XPS, EPUB, PDF and many more. The extraordinary feature of this application is that it is one of the few EPUB readers for pc that does not require installation and can be carried out in any Flash disk.
3. Cool Reader
Cool Reader is another one of the best EPUB readers for windows 10 and apart from its portable feature it allows the user to reformat the text in an EPUB document and customize it as per user discretion. It uses advanced AI features to recognize borders, headlines, and quotes. Other than EPUB, it also supports HTML, RTF, DOC. TXT and Fiction Book 2 files. It also supports a built-in dictionary.
4. FBReader
FB Reader is an EPUB viewer for Windows which is open-source and that provides a limitation as it cannot open any eBooks protected under Digital Rights Management. It can, however, open all the free eBooks and support all major formats,
5. SeaMonkey Portable
SeaMonkey Portable is an EPUB reader for pc that does not require to be installed. It can run from an executable file stored on cloud storage like OneDrive, External Drive (Flask Disk or Hard Disk) or even from any folder on your PC. it is available currently in over 15 languages including French, Spanish, and German. Best Portable EPUB readers for Windows 10.
Final thoughts on Best Free EPUB Readers for Windows 10
Well that concludes the list of 10 best EPUB Readers for Windows 10 including the ones which support the portability feature. Personally. I would encourage the use of eBooks as it helps to save paper, trees and the environment. It is also much cheaper than the actual physical book and does not occupy space. Do check out these free EPUB readers and let me know if I have missed an important one in the comments section below.