Favorite font for reading books? - Nook Touch General

As stated, what is the font that you like most for reading books?
Does your reader app allow (and work correctly) with system fonts (i.e. /system/fonts/Roboto.ttf) or fonts on /sdcard?
Do you even use the stock B&N reader at all and do you find the font choice limiting?
My preference has been Caecilia for a long time.
I find Georgia too light and flourishy.

Yes, I have used Caecilia exclusively on CoolReader for years. Customization of CoolReader was a nightmare but, eventually, I achieved results as good as the stock B&N reader. CoolReader provides 13 fonts and I haven't seen the need to add fonts, like Roboto, to /system/fonts/.
I would never consider using the stock B&N reader because the AORD dictionaries integration with CoolReader is invaluable. I use AORD dozens of times whenever I read. Wiktionary's foreign words, Collaborative Dictionaries quotations, and Wikipedia are also wonderful. It's a shame I can no longer update the AORD dictionaries because we're stuck forever on Android 2.1.

The Glow3 is a reasonable, but not great replacement for the NST.
They both have physical buttons.
The bezel on the G3 is larger than the NST, a step backwards.
The G3 has 4.4.2 vs. NST's 2.1
Still, even for an ereader, KitKat (4.4) is getting pretty old.
I'm just disliked the bezel on both the NST and G3 as they cast shadows and are great for collecting dust.
They both use the same zForce IR touch sensor which is insensitive to screen marks but very sensitive to dust on the bezel edges.
The NST zForce driver for the NST made internal state available so that you could use my Touch.apk to visualize where the stubborn dust/misalignment problem was.
The G3 zForce driver doesn't have that enabled.
Dictionaries can be handy, but selecting text with your finger can be pretty annoying, especially if there are footnote links too.

Renate NST said:
I'm just disliked the bezel on both the NST and G3 as they cast shadows and are great for collecting dust...
Dictionaries can be handy, but selecting text with your finger can be pretty annoying, especially if there are footnote links too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For years, I've eaten mixed nuts as I read without the least problem with the bezel edges of my NST.
Selecting text improves with years of practice, and I select first-up correctly about 80% of the time.
Incidentally, when I read books with foreign language sentences, as I currently am, I copy the text and paste into the desktop version of Google Translate within Opera Mobile. It is reliable and takes about 10 seconds all up. Not bad at all.

Mmm, well that's one point of view. Another point of view is that the reader is there for the words and that the publisher's idea of presentation is immaterial, especially when the publisher is not the author.
I usually go along with the formatting (but not the font) that the publisher has chosen unless it is so intrusive that I need to strip the CSS from the Epub.

Have you found a better font in the last 4 years? I was wondering the same thing. It would also be a pretty cool feature for a reader to incorporate partial word highlight for speed-reading.

I'm still using Caecilia. I can't say that I think about font at all.
You'd need a fairly low-level mod to a reader to make it selectively bold parts of words.
Would that be done at the word level or the sentence level?
I don't speed read. I usually slow read with lapses as my mind goes off into tangents

Related

Requesting an Android reader app (like iBooks)

This may be something that an Android programmer can actually build, but I think there is a real need for a fully functional Android eBook reader app that is equivalent to iBooks on the iPad.
As an author doing ePub conversion, I see two things that an Android reader app really should be able to do:
It would correctly use the stylesheet (.css file) inside the ePub file so that fonts, spacing, layout, etc. display the way the author/publisher created the book. (Only Aldiko appears to get this right...though it won't run on my Nook yet).
Images in the book could be displayed full screen simply by tapping on them, or a long press, etc. (Only the FBreader app for Android does this at the moment).
I think I've tested every Android reader app there is on the Market, and so far none of them have both .css stylesheet adherence -and- the ability to tap a picture to pop it out for a full-screen view. It's being done in different apps, so I guess the developers just aren't aware of how important this really is to both authors and readers alike. Imho, the first app that handles all this correctly is going to beat all the others.
There are some other things that can be considered: Moon+ has a great Table Of Contents display, some of the others give you an easy "<- Back" option or icon so you can easily return to where you were reading when you tapped to view a picture...but those can be worked in.
Anyone want to consider building an app with all this built-in? I'll sure be glad to help test it and if it works out I'll recommend it everywhere.
-JT
+1 for this.

Android app that is as good as the nook application?

This is a question about if there is a library/reading application for android that is as good as the library and epub support of the stock nook color application (i find the android market nook application lacking in a lot of areas). This is the only thing holding me back to stock 1.2 instead of CM7...
numus said:
This is a question about if there is a library/reading application for android that is as good as the library and epub support of the stock nook color application (i find the android market nook application lacking in a lot of areas). This is the only thing holding me back to stock 1.2 instead of CM7...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Search the threads. This has been discussed many times. You can start here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1169284&highlight=reader
I find Aldiko to be even better than the stock app. The library system is easier to manage, it's incredibly easy to import books, and the brightness is controlled by sliding your finger up or down the left side of the screen. Also has a convenient night mode if you're like me and read often in the dark.
I've been holding off installing CM7 on the internal flash of my Nook for just this reason. The stock library/reader apps are quite nice, and none of the apps available on the market really match it. There are several decent ones, but none are as slick and simple as the stock Nook software.
Lately, though, I've been using CM7 on SD card more often, and using FBReader for my reading app. It's a very nice reader, but is a bit lacking in the library management area. But it's got some nice features (can use any TrueType font, brightness adjustment returns to normal when you leave the app, it automatically returns to the place you were in the book like the status bar icon on the stock firmware).
Someone linked above the thread I started about this as I'm in the same boat. I had two problems with Aldiko - it won't "library" in place, leaving two copies of every book on your sd card and I had a book that was cutting off sentences and not displaying right. I know it's only one book, but it was the only reader that had an issue.
For me, I think I've mostly settled on Moon Reader. Nothing's perfect, but this one seems to be the best balance.
Been using Aldiko (the latest version) and seems to be working very well.. Don't like the fact that it wont autoscan and update from my library storied ont he EMMC (that is were calibre likes to put my books it seems)... Otherwise it is a pain to navigate to the emmc library and update from it but it is possible. Only downside is there is no way to create a shelf of books you want to display.. it is either display everything, or recently opened. Also liked in moon+ that it gave the brief book description in list display...
doncaruana said:
Someone linked above the thread I started about this as I'm in the same boat. I had two problems with Aldiko - it won't "library" in place, leaving two copies of every book on your sd card and I had a book that was cutting off sentences and not displaying right. I know it's only one book, but it was the only reader that had an issue.
For me, I think I've mostly settled on Moon Reader. Nothing's perfect, but this one seems to be the best balance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I prefer the Nook app because of the way the text is formatted, but I agree with dc, Moon Reader is a good alternative.

[Q] pdf read experience

Not sure if this is an appropriate forum to post… but here goes.
I am looking to buy Nook Color primarily to read pdfs. I would say part of my work requires spending a lot of time reading (and put comments in) pdfs.
My concern is how is the pdf reading experience on NC with 7" display. I'm especially looking to hear from anyone who uses NC to read pdfs.
Are all kinds of pdfs with different settings comfortabley viewable (that is, you don’t have to constantly zoom in and zoom out a page on a pdf book).
Thanks a lot in advance for your valuable insight.
I've read a few PDFs on my nook and it's mostly good. The thing is, it depends very much on the formatting of the individual PDFs themselves. Since they're fairly static, the ones I've used don't reflow well (ie. you lose formatting or images) if you try to use that option. If they are mostly text, then it shouldn't be as much of a problem. The ones I have read most are formatted in a 4x3 aspect ration, so on the Nook's 16x9 screen, they are very small with a border on the top and bottom in portrait mode (unless you zoom and scroll), but in landscape mode they are very readable aside from some extra scrolling required. All in all, it's really not bad. By the way, I mainly use the ezPDF reader app instead of Acrobat.
I've been using ezpdreader. It works for me, since I'm a grad student I read a lot of pdfs just like you. With this app you can do all sorts of annotations (comments, highlights, etc). It takes a little time loading big pdfs, for now it is the best app I have found for my needs.
It works better if you have your pdfs ocred. I use Acrobat Pro to ocr files before uploading to NC. Once it's ocred you can use the autozoom (full screen view) by double tapping the screen and you can read on landscape or portrait.
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk
Yeah, same here, grad student reading papers as pdfs with ezPDF reader. I've found it works great for new pdf's, where you can auto-zoom to fit columns and figures and use text reflow. For older pdfs (eg. scanned images) it's not that good. But I've not tried to run optical character recognition (ocr) on them either, I'll have to try try that. The best benefit though, is the fact that it keeps a full file cabinet of papers so I can always jump back to my 'favorites' or primary references, and if I'm at a conference I can find and add new ones.
NCKevo said:
Yeah, same here, grad student reading papers as pdfs with ezPDF reader. I've found it works great for new pdf's, where you can auto-zoom to fit columns and figures and use text reflow. For older pdfs (eg. scanned images) it's not that good. But I've not tried to run optical character recognition (ocr) on them either, I'll have to try try that. The best benefit though, is the fact that it keeps a full file cabinet of papers so I can always jump back to my 'favorites' or primary references, and if I'm at a conference I can find and add new ones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I have lots of scanned pdfs and I used, as I said before, Acrobat Pro in my PC to recognize text. As we all know ocr isn't perfect but at least it will let you highlight the words in the pdf (even when it didn't correctly identified the right word). So you might not be able to copy paste a sentence correctly, but you will be able to make annotations on the pdf.
I haven't tried ezPDF so I can't comment but I do strongly recommend you to try out the Mantano PDF Reader.
I mostly use ezPDF too. I've looked at Mantano because people seem so enthusiastic about it, but it doesn't do the fit to the screen or column that ezPDF does.
popsnorkle said:
I mostly use ezPDF too. I've looked at Mantano because people seem so enthusiastic about it, but it doesn't do the fit to the screen or column that ezPDF does.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You meant it auto zoom to fit the page on screen?
popsnorkle said:
I mostly use ezPDF too. I've looked at Mantano because people seem so enthusiastic about it, but it doesn't do the fit to the screen or column that ezPDF does.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mantano allows fit to screen and several varieties of zoom, and can zoom on a column with the appropriate gesture. A number of solid ezpdf users have switched to mantano recently. However, if you want to do a lot of different types of annotations, repligo is still the way to go.
skwalas said:
Mantano allows fit to screen and several varieties of zoom, and can zoom on a column with the appropriate gesture. A number of solid ezpdf users have switched to mantano recently. However, if you want to do a lot of different types of annotations, repligo is still the way to go.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had repligo before ezpdf but it wouldn't let me highlight ocr pdfs. So I switch and ezpdf hasn't failed me yet, it also has all type of annotations even free hand
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk

Looking for advice on root and apps for my new-to-me NST.

I picked up a like new NST without GlowLight and easel cover from an online acquaintance and I'm looking to make it work a little better for me.
I like the stock reader for ebooks. However, I have several PDF files with images and the stock reader just drops them completely. Looking around, it seems that ezPDF is a preferred app, but I haven't seen anything about it's image handling. A couple of them have color images and those aren't terribly important for clear viewing. Two others have black and white images and graphs and those need to be readable.
I'm also interested in a text editor of some sort. Does Google Drive work so I can use it's word processor app? Is there a good simple text editor app?
How about a spreadsheet app? Google Drive would be nice again, but anything basic work?
Calculator app? Doesn't need to be scientific, but extended operations would be nice.
I see a few game options, but not the most important. Anyone running a Spider solitare app on their phone?
Obviously I need to root it, but that's a tad . Does it matter which root I use (NST, N2E, other)? I've rooted 4 different phones, 3 Android and the HD2, so I'm not too worried about the act, just the correct procedure for my non-GlowLight NST.
So what are your suggestions?
MarkofT said:
[...] I like the stock reader for ebooks. However, I have several PDF files with images and the stock reader just drops them completely. Looking around, it seems that ezPDF is a preferred app, but I haven't seen anything about it's image handling. A couple of them have color images and those aren't terribly important for clear viewing. Two others have black and white images and graphs and those need to be readable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check out Mantano Reader. It handles PDFs reasonably well on the NST, at least for my needs. I also like that it will treat B&N books and sideloaded books equally, including covers and metadata display. I've completely replaced the B&N Library and Reader apps with Mantano on my NSTs.
I'm also interested in a text editor of some sort. Does Google Drive work so I can use it's word processor app? Is there a good simple text editor app?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I only did quick testing, but Evernote seems to work well. Documents to Go seems to work, but I never did a lot with it. (My device isn't with me, or otherwise I'd double check for you.)
How about a spreadsheet app? Google Drive would be nice again, but anything basic work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Again, Documents to Go seems to work.
[...] Obviously I need to root it, but that's a tad . Does it matter which root I use (NST, N2E, other)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have always have good luck with TouchNooter (use the latest) so long as I remember to:
1. Confirm that I'm using the appropriate version of TN for the B&N firmware I'm running. The latest TN works on B&N 1.1.2.
2. Read the instructions -- all of them -- carefully. The NST isn't exactly like any other device, and there are some quirks (e.g. 24 hour Market delay) you want to be aware of.
3. Back your device up correctly FIRST. Unlike a lot of other devices, there is some device-specific content on some of the partitions. If you do find yourself considering doing a wipe of any sort that affects partitions, be VERY SURE you have this backed up first!
Good luck! They're nifty little devices.

[Q] Sync last read page, notes, bookmarks between Nook ST and Galaxy S3?

I just purchased and successfully rooted (thank you experts here) my Nook Simple Touch.
I would like to create a streamlined reading experience between my Nook ST (where I will do majority of my reading), and my Galaxy S3 (which I will read while on the bus / in lines / etc). This is in fact why I purchased my own root-able Nook rather than continuing to side-load and use my girlfriend's kindle.
I have searched extensively and not come up with any solutions. The current Moon Reader Pro is not supported by the Nook ST, and reading others' posts it seems it does not work very well anymore even if you can find a place to download the old version apk's (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1687208&highlight=sync+last+read+page)
I have tried PageTurner, which does not allow you to make notes or bookmarks, but at least is supposed to sync last page read, but it's not working for me across devices.
It seems like this really would be a common feature users would desire, has anyone found a good way to accomplish this?
Thanks for the help!
Forgot to say, I have also tried FBreader, but this would require me to root my Galaxy S3, and I have no other reason to want to do that at this point in time, so prefer a different option.
Found some solutions.
1.) Page Turner
This is what I settled on. The sync does in fact work, what I had to do was delete every book off my device first. Then on Calibre, change the settings so it would automatically manage the metadata (on each connect) on my devices. After doing this I re-uploaded the books to my phone and Nook Simple Touch, allowing Calibre to manage these devices. Since doing this, the sync feature has worked well.
Pros:
-best, most crisp display of any of the readers I have found which are capable of syncing
-sync feature works smoothly (after loading as above)
-developer of this software is very active and responsive
-the objective developer states for designing this software is consistent with my purpose - open platform for reading DRM free ebooks smoothly on multiple devices
Cons:
-does not support custom bookmarks or notes (I am told this is planned for the next version, but timeline is not certain)
-control of interface leaves room for improvement (have to navigate through cumbersome menu to adjust font size, can't put in all the cool finger swipe controls that Moon Reader has), however, as my GF put it, the purpose is to read not to have fancy controls, and bottom line is once I get the settings adjusted the way I want, this offers the most crisp, best visual reading experience.
2.) Moon+ Reader Pro (old version, can get the old APK that Nook will accept)
I was able to get this sync feature to work after clearing device content and re-uploading with Calibre managing devices and meta-data, as described above. Not sure what problem the people in the thread I linked to in my original post were having, but I did not have this problem when using the same version on both my phone and nook.
Pros:
-syncs
-amazing control options (adjust font by sliding up and down side, assign swipes across page to various functions - I liked left to right and vice versa for skipping ahead or back by chapters, swipe up to close app, swipe down to return to bookshelf), very feature rich
-allows for notes and bookmarks
Cons:
-display is horrible on Nook! absolutely terrible. This was the deal breaker for me, as even though I loved the ability to customize and control the interface, the fuzziness, lack of contrast and crisp screen was unacceptable for prolonged reading.
-the developer is not currently interested in supporting the Nook, so there will be no updates which will change anything. All the development is going into versions that will not run on the Android 2.1 (which nook uses)
3.) Aldiko using Aldiko sync
I must confess I did not try this very hard. I downloaded the latest version of Aldiko which the Nook would support, and found the control of the interface as well as quality of visual display to be inferior to the other two options.
However, you can make this work I believe. You need the separate app aldiko sync. Unfortunately, in the more recent versions (which are not supported on Nook), you need to have root access to the device (something I was not interested in doing on my phone). I did get it to work by loading the old APK, which did not require root access for aldiko sync, and this did work. But as above, I found this option inferior to both of the others.
Hope that helps anyone else with the same questions I had. I would like it if Page Turner would become more feature rich, the very most important feature needed being support for note taking, and custom book marks.

Categories

Resources