Description of cool reader program. Overview of the application "Cool reader

Cool reader is relatively new program(year of issue - 2012), which was created specifically for lovers of reading. Thanks to this application, you can turn reading e-books in a fairly convenient and simple process. The program supports a large number of formats, among which are the following: epub (non-DRM), doc, pdb, fb2, fb2.zip, txt, rtf, html, chm, tcr.

The presented program is intended for those users Google Play , whose smartphones are based on Android OS.

Cool reader installation

So, the installation process of this application is quite simple. To do this, you will need an internet or network connection. WIFI. Enter in search Google Play and go to the site.

Then type in the name of the application and go to its link. Now click on the button " Install and accept all terms.

Cool reader settings

Now that the application is already installed on your smartphone, you can start using it. When you enter the program, you will see a list of the books you have downloaded.

If you follow the arrow in the upper left corner of the screen, you will find yourself in a menu with only two sections: " Latest books" and " SD card».

In chapter " Latest books» will store the latest fiction you have read.

If you go to the " SD card”, then you will go to the list of all files that are present on your memory card. This item is designed to add new books to the program for reading.

To go to the menu Settings", click on the button" Menu» on your phone. Now go directly to yourself " Settings».

A menu will appear in front of you in which you can configure the following items: Styles», « Page», « Program», « Control».

"Styles"

Here you can set the font style that is convenient for you, set its size, turn the boldness on and off depending on how you can better see the text, turn it on if necessary. Night mode”, as well as adjust the line spacing as a percentage.

"Font"

This sub-item has four different font styles for the user to choose from.

"Font size"

Here even the name speaks for itself. Font sizes are available from 16 to 56. Set the size according to your eyesight.

"Fat" and "Night mode"

You can enable these modes as needed. The first, respectively, highlights the text in "bold" font. The second is suitable for those who like to read at night.

"Line spacing"

This function allows you to set the spacing between lines yourself so that they do not merge with each other. Line spacing is set as a percentage: from 80% to 150%.

"Page"

There are five sub-items here: "Header", which can be turned on or off, "Footnotes at the bottom of the page" that are available in the book you are reading, as well as customizable "Left indent", "Right indent" and "Top indent" (from 0 to 25 ).

"Program"

In this section, you can enable / disable "Full screen", which translates from English as "Full screen".

"Control"

Here you can turn on / off the "Sample option" function, which allows you to read the book in its original form, that is, with the original design.

"Bookmarks"

Perhaps the most popular and important function in this program, because what kind of book reader can do without a bookmark. So you can skip the whole chapter, or, conversely, you will have to read a new one.

Click on "Bookmarks" while in the book itself to mark the place where you finished reading, or simply highlight the quote / passage / paragraph that interests you.

"Find"

With this function, you will be able to find the desired line of text or a piece of a phrase.

Enter the character's first or last name in the search bar, and matches will be highlighted both on the current page and in the entire text. And you can scroll through and see where this or that hero appeared before.

"Jump"

These footprints will help you quickly navigate to certain number page, per position as a percentage, as well as in the contents of an open book.

"Open file"

If you click on this item, you will find yourself in the list of downloaded books in the program, where you can open another work.

Cool Reader- free program for reading e-books. The program is very convenient and will be especially useful for those who have to read a lot from the screen.

Cool Reader allows you to open FB2, TXT, RTF, DOC, TCR, HTML, EPUB, CHM, PDB, MOBI files. With the help of the program, you can also view and unpack RAR archives, ZIP, HA, ARJ, LHA, LZH.

You can view the text either as a continuous scroll or as a regular book. You can also customize the background, choose a font, text styles, arrange hyphenation. You can read the book in full screen or windowed mode. Using the SpeechAPI 4.0 and 5.1 voice engine will ensure that the book is read aloud. There is also a text search, a night mode and a bookmark function.

Download the archive with the program from Yandex.Disk using the link below.

Cool Reader does not require installation - just extract the files from the archive and run the file with the .exe extension.

The main program window opens. To change the language, click on the arrow in the right upper corner and select "Settings" from the list.

Then click on the "Interface language" field and select "Russian". To return to the previous window, click on the arrow in the upper left corner - "Back".

Now, in the usual language, again click on the arrow in the upper right corner. Here you can enable / disable night mode, read the user manual and exit the program. Select the item "Settings".

These are the main settings of the program. Here you can change the interface theme, select a language, enable/disable full-screen mode, set the screen backlight time and set its brightness. Just click on the item you want to change, and in the next window, mark the desired parameter with a marker.

We return to the previous menu - the arrow "Back" on the top left. To open a book or file stored on a computer, in the "Open file" window, select the disk partition on which it is saved. Looking further desired folder The in which the document or workbook is stored. Then click on it with the mouse and it will open in the program.

In book reading mode, the menu is located on top. Here you can go to the settings, turn on / off the night mode, view the content, go to the page, open bookmarks, find a word in the text, turn on reading the book aloud, scroll through the pages. By clicking on the small arrow at the bottom right, the same menu will open, where you can still go to the desired position in%.

In reading mode, go to "Settings".

First point "Fonts and Colors"- click on it. Here you can select the font type and size, enable anti-aliasing for text, select the color of the text, background, background texture, adjust the color of the cover. Press "Back".

Now let's go to "Interface Settings". Here you can choose which side the toolbar will be located on, and enable/disable the scrollbar.

To set a parameter "Voice to read aloud", need to voice engine and the voice were set in system settings default. For example, I only read English text. To read Russian-language texts, you need to download from the Internet and install an additional speech engine, and then in the settings select this engine and voice to use by default.

We return "Back".

The "Control" item is only suitable for touch screens. Conventionally, the screen is divided into 9 zones, each responds to a single and double tap of the fingers. Here you can configure what action will be performed when a certain finger is pressed on a specific zone.

In step "Page settings" You can set the book view mode, set the line spacing and page indents. Paging animation is a way of flipping through the pages of a book.

Paragraph "Text formatting" will enable/disable hanging punctuation and kerning. You can also select a dictionary for hyphenation in the text.

Download the Cool Reader program and customize it for yourself - so that it is convenient for you to turn pages, the background is pleasant, the text is easy to read, then the load on the eyes will be minimal. I think now you will be happy to read books and documents.

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For Android OS. This time we will talk about readers (reader) or, as they are also called, “readers”, and we will start with the most popular applications for e-books.

As you know, the popularity of "readers", and other programs, due to several factors. First of all, it's free, stable, omnivorous formats and user-friendly interface. It is also encouraging that such programs are needed and are popular. Our people love to read, and not necessarily for work.

The hero of this review will be one of the most famous programs for reading - Cool Reader. This application is known to many and has been around for a long time, but this does not mean that it has not changed over time. Some users liked the innovations, while others were quick to abandon them, returning to the previous version.

We will try to figure out whether Cool Reader is so good or whether it is installed more often because of popularity and recommendations. What are the pitfalls of this multifunctional reader?

Cool Reader

Acquaintance

This is one of the most "ancient" readers, which is known to many. Interestingly, the program is thought out to the smallest detail and has undergone many updates. It is distinguished by a minimalistic interface, omnivorous formats, the ability to read books aloud and direct work with zip archives. At the same time, Cool Reader is absolutely free, but for those who want to support the project, there is a special offer that does not obligate you to anything. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, but let's start with dry facts, which are reported by the developer Vadim Lopatin (Vadim Lopatin).

Key features:

  • Full FB2 support: css styles, tables, footnotes at the bottom of the page;
  • Setting fonts, colors, line spacing, indents, hyphens;
  • Animation of turning pages;
  • Dictionary support (ColorDict, GoldenDict, Fora Dictionary, Aard Dictionary);
  • Customizable actions for buttons and zones touch screen;
  • Day and night profiles (two sets of settings for colors, background, backlight brightness);
  • Bookmarks, table of contents, text search;
  • Bookmarks for a text fragment (quotes, comments, corrections);
  • Export bookmarks to a text file;
  • Advanced styling with CSS;
  • Built-in file browser;
  • Convenient list of recent books;
  • Support for online book catalogs (OPDS), e.g. flibusta, lib.ololo.cc;
  • Access to the LitRes e-book store;
  • Reading books from a zip archive.

Beginning of work

After opening Cool Reader, the first thing we see is the question of whether we need on-screen buttons when reading (that is, the “Menu” button is not available, and you can call it while viewing a document by short pressing on the center of the screen).

For some, such information will seem superfluous (“otherwise we don’t know without you”), while those who do not know will torment the screen for a long time without it in search of a “menu”. Both of them will be satisfied, since the window about choosing a buttonless mode appears only when you first start the program, and there, as they say, "we warned you." We really liked this kind of care for users. However, when testing, the toolbar is needed like air, so let's leave it.

So we are on home screen. Everything is very clear here. On the "parquet" background is a list where you can see the latest open files, as well as open books from file system or network sources (you can add one or use the LitRes Internet portal). It also implements a search for a book by author, title, series and rating.

There is also the possibility to search by labels made by the user earlier. There are three points for this: “to read”, “read”, “read”.

By the way, in the upper right corner there is an inconspicuous button that opens an additional menu. The first item is the traditional "About the program", where in addition to indicating its version, links to the official website and the license agreement, there is a tab in the form of a smiley, after clicking which opens charitable foundation. Here you can buy various regalia (coins), that is, support the developers financially.

This does not mean that the Gold version will have more features. You will simply be assigned the appropriate status in the program. In other words, you will buy something like a gift in Odnoklassniki, rejoice, the developers will get their jackpot, and Cool Reader will still remain free for everyone.

A rather noble approach, which, by the way, motivates honest people. We will not rewrite prices - everything is shown in the screenshot above.

We return to the beginning, again we click the inconspicuous button and we see five more items: “Open Book”, “Recent Books”, “User's Guide”, “Settings” and “Exit”.

With the first two, everything is clear, but the user manual pleasantly surprised us. Set out on 25 sheets detailed instructions"what, where, why and why" in this reader. If we suddenly missed something in this article, then it can always be found there. Therefore, we will not go into details, but go straight to the settings.

basic settings

We have a typical list. At its beginning, we are offered to choose the main sorting of books: by author, by file name (descending), by author (descending), by title (descending), by file time (descending).

Next, you can check the box if you want a simple list of files or check the box responsible for displaying / not displaying the cover in the book list. If necessary, select the cover size. It is medium by default. In general, sorting for every color and taste.

In addition, you can enable or disable scanning properties of books in a directory. This is necessary if you do not need the program to sort the books, but display everything as it is. A great solution for those who love "creative mess". If you need to see only text files, feel free to check the box next to “hide directories without books”.

Skip the choice of interface language and go to plugins. Initially, the plugin of the LitRes Internet portal is used, which, in principle, is sufficient, but if it is not enough for you, then you can always load the necessary one. A little lower, you can enable full-screen and night mode, which allows you to adapt the screen for comfortable reading in the dark. The backing takes on a grainy brownish tint and the screen itself fades out, making for a pleasing viewing experience. However, not everyone is satisfied with this, but this will be discussed below, in the "Disadvantages and bugs" section.

We figured out the basic settings, but the most interesting thing lies in the depths of the program when we open the treasured book.

Book reading

For the main test, we will use a Google Nexus 10 tablet and a randomly selected book with a funny title and deep meaning in fb2 format. In order for the reader, and ourselves, to be able to understand whether the program is capable of opening all the declared formats, as well as adequately displaying them, various works were downloaded in the formats epub, doc, rtf, html, mobi, cbr (comics), pdf and djvu.

Opened the book (fb2), swiped the screen with your finger from right to left. You can just short tap anywhere on the screen to scroll forward. To go back, just tap the upper left corner.

The page started moving and slowed down, although the next ones went like clockwork. Waited five minutes and same thing. It seems that the "reader" goes into sleep mode when idle and is in no hurry to wake up immediately, although Google Nexus 10 cannot be called a "weak" device. Maybe it's in the file? So it weighs a ridiculous 881 KB.

Well, let's try to "play" with other formats, and for clarity, let's draw a pivot table.

Test.fb2.epub.doc.rtf.pdf.djvu.mobi.cbr.html
Speed
book downloads
Norm.Norm.Norm.Norm.NotNotNorm.NotNorm.
Quality
display
Norm.Norm.Norm.Norm.NotNotNorm.NotNorm.
Reading/
flipping
AverageAverageNorm.Norm.NotNotNorm.NotSlowly
77/0 78/0 84/0 88/0 NotNot 83/0 Not 98/0.6
Scaling
pictures
YesYesYesYesNotNotYesNotYes

So what do we get? Books and magazines in pdf formats, djvu and cbr not only didn't open or crashed - the file manager simply didn't see them.

As for the rest of the formats, you can put a solid "four" for their support. The program does not crash, opens files almost instantly and does not slow down when paging. A little thoughtfulness is observed when opening the first few pages, but then everything is fine, as is the case with the base fb2. Peak load random access memory was noted only when loading .rtf and .html, which is not surprising.

In principle, for two gigabytes of RAM in our device, this factor is nothing, however, on weaker smartphones and tablets (especially older ones, where RAM is no more than 512 MB), the application grabs a significant “piece of the pie” performance. And the whole point is a heap of many settings and add-ons that most users do not need. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, because soon you will understand everything yourself.

Let's pay attention to the left side of the screen, where the "hot keys" are waiting for us. So, from top to bottom in order: “Go back”, “Contents”, “Search” (possible case-sensitive and search backwards), “Reading settings” (we will return to them a little later), “Bookmarks”, “Home”, “ Night mode”, “Text selection” (so that scrolling through, do not select it by accident), “Page transition”, “Percentage text transition”, “Open file” and “Read aloud”.

The last parameter, as you might guess, allows you to listen to a book. A female voice monotonously read the text, and at that time, a spoken fragment was displayed in highlight, by the way, in Russian. In principle, such a decision is tolerable, but, as they say, an amateur. The settings of "Matilda" (the voice is painfully similar to a robot from the OSA) are standard: play, stop, pause, fast forward / rewind, volume, playback speed.

Since we are talking about highlighting the test, then everything is simple. Click on the “hands” icon and move your finger, like a mouse in Word, across the screen (the selection scheme, by the way, is similar to office program). At the same time, a small “menu” appears below, where two “sliders” immediately attract the eye. This is nothing more than “exact text selection”, that is, you can gradually select either words or from the end of a paragraph.

Well, quite convenient, especially if you want to copy a single phrase or application.

Above the "sliders" are six function keys. The first copies the selection, the second allows you to translate the fragment, but for this you need to install the Fora dictionary. This can be done in advanced settings, but be patient, as these options will be covered in a separate discussion.

Next comes the "Favorites" key, after pressing which a new window appears. Here you can make a bookmark, comment on the selected text, or completely change it (your choice). We did not become wiser, but simply multiplied the letter "s" in place of the efforts of the English writer, and also wrote a no less stupid commentary.

Now, to see a separately selected fragment and our work on the text, just click on the checkmark in the upper right corner. The window will close, the text will be highlighted in green, go to the "bookmarks" and see our creation. Convenient and understandable.

We click on the highlighted one, and a menu opens at the top, where there are all the above keys with a description of their meaning. The exception is "Auto Scroll", the meaning of which should be clear to you. The page change speed can be adjusted by tapping in the lower left and right corners. By the way, to call the extended menu, you do not need to select and save a fragment as bookmarks. In the left "quick menu" under the icons at the very bottom there is a special "arrow" for this.

To understand why the rest of the keys are above the “sliders”, select the text, find the letter icon with the plus sign and press. A small window pops up that allows you to send the selected fragment to the "quick notepad" (it is installed separately), via Bluetooth, SMS / MMS-message or using Google services: Gmail, Google+. And if you have the Facebook service installed, the corresponding icon will appear.

As you can see, the application uses all available communication tools installed on the device. This is very convenient and you do not need to invent a status in in social networks. Next comes the "search" in the fragment and the exit button from the selection.

Advanced settings (text and reading settings)

Font settings

Go to the "Settings" key (or double-tap the center of the screen). So, before us is the first tab: "Font".

Here you can change the font itself (a total of eight pre-installed fonts), its size (from 39 to 170) and check the box next to "bold". If necessary, it is possible to smooth the text or select the line spacing. Here we also select a hyphenation dictionary according to the rules of the required language (17 countries in total) and enable / disable “hanging punctuation”.

Hanging punctuation (protrusion) is hanging some punctuation characters (hyphens, quotation marks, brackets, commas, etc.) outside the text boundary. Designed for optical alignment of text borders: punctuation marks have less visual weight, so if they hang down, the text border will appear smoother. We believe that the text is much more readable with this setting, although it's up to you (below are two examples with hanging punctuation enabled and disabled).

We think that everything is clear here, but just in case, we will make two screenshots: with and without kerning. As you can see, there is almost no difference, but Cool Reader is aimed not only at the general public, but also at picky fans of journalism, and true fans of reading will only appreciate these settings.

Let's move on to image scaling. There is nothing complicated here either. Ordinary pictures and inline pictures (that is, those that are in the body of an online book) can be scaled automatically, or enlarged by an integer number of times. Font gamma correction and minimum space width are designed for a more comfortable display of the page, namely, if you are not satisfied with the sharpness and spacing between words.

Font hinting is used to provide a clearer form of letters on devices with a low screen resolution or when displaying text in small size. Well, the tab is completed by additional fonts, of which, like the main ones, there are eight pieces. They serve to replace the missing character in the main fonts.

In general, the set of tools for working with fonts is more than impressive and should suit the most demanding user. It's all right, let's move on.

Style Settings

Tap tab number two - CSS (design styles). Leave the checkbox next to “Allow inline document styles” or uncheck it. This option is configured for each document separately. And then the flooded sea begins for everyone who wants to make the text purely individual.

It makes no sense to talk about each tab. For example, only the "Default Paragraph Format" section contains text alignment, first line indentation and typeface, size, weight, font style, as well as line spacing, underlining, superscripts and subscripts. There is also a text color and indent before, after, left and right. To be honest, we see no reason to turn the reader into a layout tool, but there are those who want to argue with us.

The same can be done with the title and subtitle, preformatted text, links, citations, epigraphs, verses, names of authors of the text, footnotes, links and footnote headings, and annotations. In general, these CSS / style settings for the "reader" are more than enough.

Settings appearance

But the next tab contains completely different settings - the appearance of the document as a whole. The "Full screen" option, according to the developers, does not work on the third and fourth Android versions, in this case everything is full screen anyway. Although after experimenting with this button, we noticed that the screen enlarged a little, and the top information field disappeared in Android 4.3 (charging, network, etc.).

Next comes the choice of the location of the toolbar (aka “hot keys”), that is, it can be installed along the short / long edge, placed on top, bottom, left, right, or completely removed (the last option for those who did not do this at the first program start). We chose the location below. You can also check the box next to "Hide the toolbar in full screen mode."

If necessary, you can select the page display mode: as is and a “scroll” (scroll not from right to left, but from top to bottom). Next, set the page orientation: portrait, landscape, portrait (180 degrees), landscape (270 degrees) and depending on the location of the sensor. By the way, having tried to turn the book upside down, nothing has changed, that is, the book position remained book, and the landscape landscape. Maybe this has something to do with our gadget, although in any case these functions are rarely used, so if this is a bug, then it is insignificant.

But choosing a two-page view mode is worth it, as it looks more like a book. We talked about the night mode, but we will talk about how it works, or rather it doesn’t quite work, below.

We turn to the color of the text and background, where we are offered to try ourselves as a colorist, since the shade of the color that we chose earlier can be changed up to its marking (which, by the way, is indicated). Again, a solution for aesthetes. However, this is not all. You can also change the background texture to wood, parchment, factory, metal, and the like.

Next, change the footer. You can change the font size and the font itself, as well as choose the color of the text. If necessary, turn on / off the book title, page number, number of pages, percentage of read, chapter marks, make the battery charge as a percentage, or disable the header and footer altogether. If footnotes on the pages interfere, then we remove them too.

Let's move on to the paging animation. You can turn it off completely, select a shift by one or two pages, and also turn on the flipping effect (paging). The latter does not look very realistic, but tolerable.

You can choose to highlight bookmarks: by background color and underline. We don't need bookmarks, so we turned them off. And finish the tab for choosing the design of the book, choosing the color of the highlight, comment and correction, as well as adjusting the left, right, top and bottom indents. In theory, everything is clear here.

Control settings

So buttons. You can customize them however you like. For example, the standard action of the Menu key (reading menu) can be changed to lock the screen, turn on the text selection mode, switch the screen orientation, and generally assign everything that is only controlled in the program to it.

That is, the Cool Reader interface can be changed beyond recognition, and only you and no one else will be able to use the program later, because the usual keys will work in a completely different way. A sort of ego version of the application. It makes no sense to describe what can be bet on a particular key in general, since almost everything can be bet. Move on.

The same happens with the touch screen, which is divided into nine active zones, each of which is customizable. For example, select the upper left corner, where the default action is "Previous page / back". Click on it and choose: forward/back 10 pages, first/last page, next/previous chapter, and so on.

It turns out that all the above described types of management are only ephemeral. standard settings, which can be changed, and then write to us that we incorrectly described the control .

If necessary, you can change the additional action from a long press to two short ones. This action is precisely the call of the menu directly from the book, which is carried out by a long tap in the center of the screen. In addition, you can safely put “daws” in front of: highlighting text by double-clicking, scrolling pages with the volume buttons on the gadget, highlighting the screen area when pressed, or completely turn off the trackball.

If you are not satisfied with the left swipe brightness control, please change to the right edge or disable this feature altogether. Don't like scrolling with gestures? We remove the daw and scroll through only the mechanical buttons of the device. Even the selection action can be changed to activate the control panel, copy, search in the dictionary, add a bookmark and simple text search.

Almost all of the same is configured for highlighting several words, and if you wish, you can enable the option “Do not reset selection after closing the dictionary”.

basic settings

We will not repeat and describe all the points of this tab, as it was done earlier. We note only those that are not there, namely the "dictionary". As we mentioned earlier when talking about function keys, which appear when text is selected, the Fora dictionary needs to be loaded independently, and this is done right here.

As you can see from the screenshot, this is not the only reference available in this program. But how to install it? Unfortunately, it is impossible to do this directly from the program, but you need to find the dictionary yourself, download and copy it to the root of the program in the .dict folder. And if you want to return the default settings, then you need to go into the .cr3 folder and delete all the .ini files. The most interesting thing is that support is carried out only through e-mail, and the project page itself is located on, where everything is in English.

It was not difficult for us to figure it out, but it is rather unpleasant to waste time. But what about the average user? In our opinion, product support, the simplest reset and loading of dictionaries is not so difficult to implement. But the Cool Reader GL beta project has been implemented (we'll talk about it a little later), which, apparently, will replace all the previous ones, but hands don't reach this version. Otherwise, this tab no longer contains anything new, except perhaps the ability to turn off the backlight of the buttons and remove the icons in the settings.

Drawbacks and bugs

When testing on a Google Nexus 10 tablet, we found a bug: in the process of experimenting with the settings on the main screen, the directories of our file system disappeared, that is, it was not possible to open a book from an SD card. Manipulations with the checkboxes that are responsible for working with directories did not lead to anything. After restarting the application, everything returned to its place.

However, we noticed that when checking the night mode checkbox, our flash drive magically disappears. We uncheck the box and nothing is returned. There is also a comment on Google Play that literally says the following: “…very unstable application. After turning off the tablet and turning it on, my settings and bookmarks disappear, I have to configure them again. Please remove if you can. And so a great application, I really like it, but for now I put 4 ". By the way, similar reviews can be read further, but this bug concerns not only tablets. An unfortunate drawback, given the rich functionality of Cool Reader. True, we did not observe any problems with saving the settings - only with directories.

About the night mode, we can agree with the comment: “ …invert the background to black: the black background is not completely black. I don’t know where you got this substrate, but it is not uniform, spotty, this is especially noticeable on the screen of laptop 3, in which black is black. ”. In principle, a soft brownish tint quite suited us, with the exception of graininess. For those who want the perfect black color, we have found a solution: choose a dark design, turn on the night mode and you will be happy. Apparently, developers and users see the background differently for comfortable reading at night.

  • Fixed support for .mobi format;
  • Additional font sizes included;
  • Improved support for OPDS online directories - https, username and password, ORobot TOR proxy can be used for .onion sites;
  • Optimized toolbar and menu sizes;
  • Improved performance.

Conclusions on Cool Reader

Cool Reader is a rather versatile and controversial project that occupies a leading position in Google Play. On the one hand, this is a convenient multifunctional "reader", on the other - a damp (yes, dampish) product that constantly has to be corrected. As a result, by pleasing some, the developer upsets others. It is clear that it is impossible to please everyone, however, by implementing almost complete self-configuration, both the book being read and the program interface itself, the developer posted a dry tutorial on working with it, forgetting to build in the option to reset the default settings.

However, you should not judge this popular program too harshly, because it is absolutely free and copes with its main function as a "reader" on a professional level. Getting used to it is actually not so difficult, and once you set everything up for yourself, you will not want to part with Cool Reader.

So, let's go through the points: the "reader" should be free (yes), support a bunch of formats (alas, not all), be easy to use and manage (at a stretch) and stable (alas). Let's try to consider another program by Vadim Lopatin - Cool Reader GL, which is also free. Maybe this time the creator of the app has outdone himself?

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Name: Cool Reader 3
Analog: All commercial book readers
The size: 1200 Kb.
Website: http://coolreader.org

“How good it is to be able to read! No need to pester your mother ... ”, - everyone remembers this simple, enthusiastically childish recitation. However, in recent years, in addition to the desire and ability to read, more and more often we lack the opportunity. Prices for good books “bite”, and getting them is becoming more and more difficult. Therefore, literature in in electronic format takes up more and more space in our lives. And to put the bytes of information in an understandable form, easy to use and not tiring the eyes, is easiest with the help of Cool Reader 3 (CR-3), is a program optimized for reading fiction in electronic format. It installs quickly, does not take up much disk space and will immediately become indispensable for those who, on duty or “pleasure for”, have to study large amounts of text from the screen. And you can put such a “reader” as on standard Windows and Linux on a computer, as well as in an e-book (our program also supports versions that work on electronic ink (e-Ink) - Jinke/LBook V3/V5/V3+/V60, Azbooka N516). Cell phones also not deprived of attention - Cool Reader-3 will go to both Android and Symbian.


Installed, "reader" is a classic black monogram "CR" in a white rim on the desktop. Opens with a standard double click of the left mouse button, reads almost all known formats (.txt, .doc, .html, .fb2, .rtf, .pdb, .chm, .tcr, .mobi, .epub, .pml, .chm) , automatically recognizing encodings. Unpacks itself ZIP archives, RAR, ARJ, HA, LZH. “Understands” tables and illustrations. And with all this wonderful feature set Cool Reader 3 can be downloaded for free, and using it is as easy as shelling pears - open, select "File" - "Open" and, - enjoy your favorite work! By using Cool Reader 3 you can also format and convert texts. There are flexible styling options using css files, bookmarks, text search and hyphenation dictionaries. You can read the downloaded file as a scroll or as normal book pages. To switch between these two modes, use the “Toggle Pages” button on the toolbar. Next to it is the power button. full screen mode. After pressing it, the toolbar of our reader and the Windows taskbar will disappear, leaving you alone with the text. Working in this mode, you will have to use hot keys, but you can also simply right-click anywhere on the screen - a list of commands will be displayed, from which it will be easy to select the one you need.
The Android version includes page-turning animation (by sliding or as in a paper book), a built-in file browser, brightness adjustment by moving a finger along the edge of the screen, support for dictionaries (Fora Dictionary, Aard Dictionary, Golden Dict, Color Dict) and searching for a selection in them. the words,

the ability to select text and copy the selected to the clipboard. also in Cool Reader3 for Android there are night and day profiles (two sets of backlight brightness and texture / background and text colors). You can independently customize the actions for the buttons and tap zones of the touch screen (3x3). And it is very convenient to sort books in the file browser by title, author, and even by the time the file was created. Flipping through an open book will turn out as a sensor or joystick, as well as volume keys. By the way, the rotation of the image on the sensor also does not disappear anywhere.
In addition to basic skills, Cool Reader 3 also reduces eye strain by reformatting text to any font size, with a customizable palette, textured backgrounds, smooth scrolling, and the ability to smooth screen fonts. And she also “remembers” the page on which you stopped - you don’t have to flip through everything from the beginning. However, you can disable this feature if you wish. The only thing missing from Cool Reader-3 is the ability to compile a library. But the clever program remembers the last books opened in it. And in order to quickly go to desired text, it is enough to display this list on the screen.

Thanks to its undeniable set of advantages, Cool Reader 3 has long acquired a solid circle of fans, expanding every day. Try it too!
Cool Reader 3 free download can be found on the official website of the program

Supported formats: EPUB, PDF.

Due to the extremely small number of supported formats and the minimum set of settings, it is unlikely this application fits the role of a full-fledged "reader".

There are no font and padding settings other than "more-less", CSS styles are not supported. Third-party fonts are not installed, although you can download a package with additional ones from the Internet. True, many of them did not make friends with the Russian language, so the benefit of changing the font is minimal.

In general, the Aldiko Book Reader application received a pretty nice interface and high speed, but there are too few appearance and control settings.

In fact, the main advantage of this program is that it is a PDF reader for Android. Pretty simple and fast.

iReader

Supported formats: EPUB, MOBI, TXT.

An app with a promising name turned out to be useless for users unfamiliar with Chinese characters. The menu is almost completely translated into English language. Judging by the need for Internet access, the application opens up access to Chinese bookstores.

However, iReader practically cannot cope with Russian text, so we consider it completely inappropriate to install the application as a regular "reader".

iReader offline

Supported formats: TXT, CHM, MOBI, PDB, UMD, HTML, images.

The iReader offline application from the same developer behaves quite differently. There is no Russian interface language here, however, there are no Chinese characters either, everything is translated into English.

The number of supported formats is small, but this application was the only one of them that effortlessly coped with the complex help file of the CHM format created in Help & Manual 6.

The developer approached the design of the settings in an original way. At first glance, there are not enough of them here, and everything is dumped and mixed on one page. However, they are quite enough to carefully customize the appearance of the text and controls.

Another thing is that for CHM, most of the settings are useless, and for reading fiction, there are applications that support a larger number of currently popular formats.

This review considers several applications for reading e-books on a smartphone under Android control. As the main criterion for selection, we used not the support of certain formats, but the popularity of applications in the Google Play store and search query by the word "reader". It is from there that you can download readers for Android, which for the most part are also distributed free of charge. As a result, the list of tested applications turned out to be rather motley. Some programs are able to work with large quantity formats, while others are "sharpened" only for EPUB and PDF. Including all readers can work not only in Android 4, 4.1 and older, but even Android 2.3, or even 2.2!

Nevertheless, it is the EPUB (Electronic Publication) format, created by the international organization IDPF, that is the most common, and its support is the main task of any application. Unlike it, the FB2 format was developed by Russian specialists, so its popularity, as a rule, does not go beyond the boundaries of the Runet. However, for Russian-speaking users, support for the "native" format can be the main factor when choosing an application.

In terms of universality, both formats are approximately the same: they allow you to include information about the structure of the book, the author and annotation in the file, as well as graphic images, style descriptions, fonts, and other information.

Supported formats: EPUB, FB2, TXT. Partially - EPUB 3, HTML, MOBI (without DRM protection), RTF, DOC. In the future - PDF, DJVU.

This is one of the most popular applications, equipped with a good set of settings. In addition to changing the main parameters, FBReader allows you to set your own background and font, look up the meaning of a word in a dictionary, use network libraries and connect your own OPDS catalogs.

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