Navigating CalibReader

Here's the lay of the land: the handful of screens you move between, and how to reach each one.

Library (main screen)

The Library is where you land after setup. Four views sit in the bottom tab bar (Home, Grid, List, and Series), and across the top is the toolbar: a sync icon, search, the filter and sort icons, and a menu. For the full breakdown of each view, plus filtering and sorting, see Library views.

CalibReader library screen showing books with covers, titles, authors, and descriptions — The library: Home, Grid, List, and Series in the bottom tab bar.

Menu (sync source & folder)

The menu in the library toolbar is where the housekeeping lives: switch theme, change your sync source, choose your cloud folder or library folder, and sign out. Tap the sync icon any time to pull the latest from your Calibre library. To pick where CalibReader reads from in the first place, see Set up; for how read status and progress round-trip back to Calibre, see Sync.

CalibReader library menu with theme, sync source, folder, and sign out — The library menu: theme, sync source, folder, and sign out.

Book detail

Tap any book (a grid card, a compact row, or a title inside a series) to open its detail view. You'll see the cover, full metadata (author, published date, series, rating), the description, and two actions: Read now and Open in folder. Read now opens the book in the built-in reader. Open in folder reveals the actual file in your phone's file browser, handy when you want the EPUB or PDF itself, say to email it to someone. The share icon in the top bar generates a card image you can send.

Reader

Read now launches CalibReader's built-in reader for that title: EPUBs and PDFs both open in the same native reader, no external app. Tap the center of the page to toggle the chrome: a top bar with Back, the table of contents, and reader settings, plus a bottom progress slider. Tap the left or right edge to turn pages. Closing the reader drops you back to the book's detail view.

CalibReader reader with the chrome hidden, distraction-free — Tap the center to toggle the chrome: controls shown (left), hidden for distraction-free reading (right).

Scrolling, single page, or two pages

Choose how the book flows: continuous Scrolling, one Single Page at a time, or a Dual Page spread that turns a tablet on its side into a proper open book, two pages at once.

CalibReader dual-page reading mode on an iPad in landscape, two pages side by side like an open book — Dual-page mode on a tablet: two pages at once, like an open book.

Make it yours

The Visual Settings panel covers all of it: layout, theme, font, size, line and paragraph spacing, justification, and margins. Beyond the preset themes you can set any background color you like with a full color picker, not just a handful of swatches.

CalibReader Visual Settings: layout (scrolling, single page, dual page), themes with a custom color picker, fonts, spacing, justification, and margins — Visual Settings: layout, themes (with a custom color picker), fonts, spacing, and margins, all in one place.

CalibReader custom background color picker, choosing any color by swatch, spectrum, or hex value — Pick any background color by swatch, spectrum, or exact hex value, not just presets.

Dial the margins anywhere from edge-to-edge to a generous frame of whitespace:

CalibReader reader with margins set to zero, text running edge to edge — Margins from zero (left) to generous (right).

CalibReader reader with generous wide margins — Margins from zero (left) to generous (right).

A table of contents that actually works

Every chapter is correctly linked and mapped to the right place in the file, so the contents list jumps you exactly where you expect, something a surprising number of ereaders get wrong. Open the contents from the top bar, tap any entry, and you are there.

CalibReader's contents drawer open beside the page, every chapter linked with the current chapter marked — The contents drawer: every chapter linked, tap any entry to jump straight there.