EPUB reader testing

[swepub]

Hi all
In which EPUB readers would you normally test your EPUB?
I guess some of the readers are more commonly used.
So far I have tested Apple Books, Kindle previewer and Thorium.
Thanks!

[Quoth]

Bluefire or Aldiko Basic on Android 4.1.x phone with 4.3″ screen.
Lithium or Pocket book on later Androids.
A 4.7″ skinny aspect eink
A Sony PRS350 5″
Kobo Sage 8″

More people use the Kindle app on iOS than Apple Books. Also Apple Books is really only for ebooks downloaded from Apple, who change the epub a bit. Third party epubs are better read on a real iOS epub app.

We only extensively test if a new style is used or different sized images.

Apple Books, Kindle previewer and Thorium

Not representative of common use.The Kindle previewer is pointless. I test on real eink Kindles, a K3 and PW3 with a dual mobi (mobi/KF7 + azw3/KF8) made by Calibre. The Kindle Previewer only has a tenuous connection to reality. If doing a new style we would also download a published mobi, azw3 and KFX by buying it.
About 95% of English Language bought ebooks are now Kindle format.
Kobo uses kepub for direct to device sales and epub for sales downloaded to PC. If it passes epub checks and works on a kobo eink direct from Calibre as epub2 then kepub will be fine. The kepub renderer can do epubs by rename of the file. The kepub is only extra spans.

There are many kinds of epub3. A reflowable epub3 with epub2 TOC and no interactive content works for the most platforms/apps. Some kinds of epub3 won't distribute via ebook retailers and only work on a few apps.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by swepub

Hi all
In which EPUB readers would you normally test your EPUB?
I guess some of the readers are more commonly used.
So far I have tested Apple Books, Kindle previewer and Thorium.
Thanks!

Adobe Digital Edition 2.0.1. Adobe Digital Editions 4.5.12, Kobo Reader both as ePub and KePub, calibre viewer, Pocketbook Reader.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Adobe Digital Edition 2.0.1. Adobe Digital Editions 4.5.12, Kobo Reader both as ePub and KePub, calibre viewer, Pocketbook Reader.

Yes, I check TOC, headings and links first on the Calibre Viewer before wasting time copying.

Pocketbook reader? As in Android app (which I use) or the Pocketbook eink models (unusually a Swiss company founded by Ukrainians?).

[RbnJrg]

If you want to test the code to maintain joined images and captions, then take for sure that that code won't work on ADE Legacy (2.x) and apps and devices based on it. In that case, you need also to write a fallback code, in case of your epub is being opened by an epub2 ereader.

On epub3, besides the apps and devices named in the previous posts, I also use Reasily, Infinity Reader, Cantook, BookFusion and Kobo for Android. On Linux I use Foliate. On Windows, Thorium, Koodo Reader and IceCream Reader.

To test the fallback epub2 code included in my epub3, I use ADE 2.x/3.x and Koreader. And don't use CoolReader, Readera, FBReader to test your epubs because they don't support well the epub protocol.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by RbnJrg

I And don't use CoolReader, Readera, FBReader to test your epubs because they don't support well the epub protocol.

100% true.
Also avoid ereader apps with a lot of tricky to cancel over-rides such as KOReader (handy for fixing slightly broken epubs, needs to be not over-riding anything) or Moon+

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Yes, I check TOC, headings and links first on the Calibre Viewer before wasting time copying.

Pocketbook reader? As in Android app (which I use) or the Pocketbook eink models (unusually a Swiss company founded by Ukrainians?).

The other app that's not ADE on a Pocketbook.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by RbnJrg

If you want to test the code to maintain joined images and captions, then take for sure that that code won't work on ADE Legacy (2.x) and apps and devices based on it. In that case, you need also to write a fallback code, in case of your epub is being opened by an epub2 ereader.

On epub3, besides the apps and devices named in the previous posts, I also use Reasily, Infinity Reader, Cantook, BookFusion and Kobo for Android. On Linux I use Foliate. On Windows, Thorium, Koodo Reader and IceCream Reader.

To test the fallback epub2 code included in my epub3, I use ADE 2.x/3.x and Koreader. And don't use CoolReader, Readera, FBReader to test your epubs because they don't support well the epub protocol.

That reminds me. I did forget BookFusion on iOS.

[JSWolf]

ADE 2.0.1 is excellent for testing if your ePub 3 works well enough as ePub 2.

The thing is, Kobo uses an older RMSDK (I think it's equivalent to ADE 3.x). So it's quite likely that ePub could be read with a program that does not do ePub 3 all that well.

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

ADE 2.0.1 is excellent for testing if your ePub 3 works well enough as ePub 2.

Yes, I do that to test how looks the epub2 fallback code included in my epubs3.

The thing is, Kobo uses an older RMSDK (I think it's equivalent to ADE 3.x). So it's quite likely that ePub could be read with a program that does not do ePub 3 all that well.

Kobo for Android and iOS have the last version of the Readium rendering engine (they support very well the epub3 protocol, except for MathML). I don't know (I should have to ask in the Kobo forum) if all Kobo eink devices have been updated with the same engine. Kobo for Desktop so far only supports epub2.

[Quoth]

In general the Android and iOS apps from same companies as sell eink ereaders are not the same. I doubt Kobo eink models do readium for kepub and they use an older RMSDK (ADE 3.x?) for epubs. If renamed to use the kepub renderer there is more epub3 support. An actual kepub has extra kobo spans and annotation/highlights fail on a simply renamed epub.

Amazon Android and K4PC (and Fire which is basically Android) will let you have Amazon Kindle ebooks with features that don't work on eink Kindles and can't be bought for them.

[DNSB]

For what it's worth the WebKit based renderer used by Kobo for .kepub.epub is based on Readium. Back in the distant past, Kobo used the ACCESS NetFront™ BookReader EPUB Edition engine to render ePub3 files. After ACCESS contributed to Readium development by supplying its NetFront™ BookReader EPUB Edition engine to the Readium project, Kobo switched to using a customized Readium renderer.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

For what it's worth the WebKit based renderer used by Kobo for .kepub.epub is based on Readium. Back in the distant past, Kobo used the ACCESS NetFront™ BookReader EPUB Edition engine to render ePub3 files. After ACCESS contributed to Readium development by supplying its NetFront™ BookReader EPUB Edition engine to the Readium project, Kobo switched to using a customized Readium renderer.

Given that Kobo switched to a customized Readium, why didn't Kobo fix the rendering problems with KePub? It renders are badly as it did before the switch.

[DNSB]

Perhaps you could contact Kobo's developers and ask them why they made the decisions they did?

As for rendering as badly as before? I tried a sample of 7 people with an epub and kepub (kepub synced from Kobo, epub downloaded from Kobo and sideloaded). The only person who read part of the ebook and noticed any differences between the two versions was myself. The rest either didn't notice or were not bothered by any differences between the two books.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Perhaps you could contact Kobo's developers and ask them why they made the decisions they did?

As for rendering as badly as before? I tried a sample of 7 people with an epub and kepub (kepub synced from Kobo, epub downloaded from Kobo and sideloaded). The only person who read part of the ebook and noticed any differences between the two versions was myself. The rest either didn't notice or were not bothered by any differences between the two books.

I would also notice. Especially lack of hyphens, kerning, the wider space between words, and the partial first line of the next page.