How to open epub files

Epub files are used for creating digital pub­li­ca­tions and e-books. The epub file format is the common standard and can be opened with many programs. Only Amazon Kindle doesn’t support epub files.

The epub file is an open standard used primarily for creating e-books. Epub stands for “elec­tron­ic pub­li­ca­tion”. The epub file format is the successor to the older Open eBook and has been under de­vel­op­ment since 2007 as part of the In­ter­na­tion­al Digital Pub­lish­ing Forum (IDPF). The file extension is .epub. Meanwhile, the XML-based format is the standard for digital pub­li­ca­tions and e-books and is com­pat­i­ble with numerous programs.

An epub file combines text content and its structure, covers, images, and possibly sounds, as well as metadata such as a table of contents. Open web standards such as CSS, XHTML, and XML are used for this purpose. In addition to the actual book data, the epub file can also contain digital rights man­age­ment (DRM) mech­a­nisms. The target audience for the epub file type is primarily pub­lish­ers and consumers who create or read e-books.

The epub file format is based on three open standards, all managed by the IDPF:

• OPS: The Open Pub­li­ca­tion Structure for for­mat­ting content.
• OPF: The Open Packaging Format, which defines the structure.
• OCF: the Open Container Format, which allows all necessary data to be stored in a ZIP archive with the .epub extension.

The biggest ad­van­tages of the epub file format are its ver­sa­til­i­ty and dynamic pre­sen­ta­tion. It’s possible to open epub files with many different programs and devices. That’s because the files adapt to the cor­re­spond­ing device. For example, while pdf files can be difficult to read, es­pe­cial­ly on smaller screens like smart­phones or tablets, epub files always au­to­mat­i­cal­ly adapt to the exact format. Since the file works with flowing text, this will au­to­mat­i­cal­ly adapt to the re­spec­tive device. It’s also possible to switch from portrait to landscape format.

Even though the epub file format is widely used, it’s not com­plete­ly error-free. Es­pe­cial­ly for pub­li­ca­tions that have many large graphics or tables, the tra­di­tion­al PDF format has its ad­van­tages. However, these files are also more likely to be opened on devices with a larger screen.

Despite its wide­spread use, there is one suc­cess­ful e-book reader, Kindle, that doesn’t support epub files. Since Amazon uses its own pro­pri­etary formats, epub files must first be converted at great expense before they can be read on a Kindle device. While this is still possible in principle for works without copy pro­tec­tion, this does not apply to encrypted pub­li­ca­tions. Thus, there is no legal way to read them on a Kindle.

However, apart from Kindle, there is free and paid software that can open epub files for all major operating systems.

• Android: Android users can open epub files with Cool Reader or Google Play Books, for example.
• iOS: For iPhone, there is Apple iBooks, among others, to view epub files.
• Desktop: There are also numerous programs available to open epub files on desktop. A popular free option is Calibre, an e-book man­age­ment tool that runs on Linux, Mac, and PC. There’s also FBReader, Okular, and Sigil, or the pre­vi­ous­ly mentioned Cool Reader.

If you don’t currently have an e-book reader handy, you can also open epub files online. Mag­ic­Scroll is one of the web apps that work on any popular browser. This program lets you read e-books on your desktop online. E-book providers like tolino also have their own web apps that let you open epub files online. In addition, there are add-ons and tools for e-books for some browsers. Chrome, for example, offers the free browser app Simple EPUB Reader. EPUB­Read­er for Firefox is also free. Both tools let you read e-books from your desktop or online.