KOREADER USER GUIDE

22.06
 This guide is suitable for larger, color screens and contains links to relevant websites. We recommend
reading this document on a computer or tablet. Suggested method is opening this manual on a computer
and trying the explained actions on your e-reader. You can also use the search function of your PDF
reader to find a specific topic.

KOReader is developed and supported by volunteers all around the world.

There are many ways you can be a part of the project.

You can:
- Fix bugs and implement new features
- Translate the program into your language or improve an existing translation
- Document lesser-known features on the wiki
- Help others with your knowledge in the forum

Check MORE INFO section at the end for links.

KOReader · 2
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
USER INTERFACE
User interface tips
Interface is too big / small. How can I change the scale ?
Can I disable black flashing of items in the interface ?
Explanations of general menu items

GENERAL READING INFO

How can I personalize my text ?
How can I add my own fonts ?
How can I configure the status bar ?
Highlighting text
Exporting your highlights
Keyboard usage and tips
Auto Warmth and Night Mode

MOVING THROUGH YOUR BOOK

Skim widget
Book map
Page browser

READING PDFS
How can I read a big PDF document ?
Explanations of PDF specific menu items
OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
Panel Zoom (manga/comic)

DEVICE
How can I transfer books, articles to my device ?
How can I control the backlight / frontlight of my screen ?
How can I change the screen displayed while sleeping ?
How can I see my battery consumption details ?
How can I see my system statistics ?

GESTURES
Predefined gestures

PLUGINS

KOReader · 3
TIPS AND TROUBLESHOOTING
TIPS
Updating KOReader
Optimizing EPUB/PDF documents for your mobile reader device
Optimizing manga for your mobile reader device
Previewing the fonts on your device
Switching between documents quickly
Applying current defaults to an already opened book
Installing new dictionaries
Avoiding clicking links accidentally
Optimizing your battery life
Keeping an eye on your memory usage

TROUBLESHOOTING
My status bar disappeared
KOReader can't write to the SD card
My PDF/DJVU files are slow
Ghosting and residue when turning pages
Sleep cover problems
Backing up your KOReader settings

MORE INFO

KOReader · 4
 USER INTERFACE
Let’s first get familiar with the interface because we will be referring to these interface items through the guide. KOReader
has 2 main interfaces: READING SCREEN and FILE BROWSER.

READING SCREEN has two toolbars. TOP BAR includes menu

items related to general usage of KOReader. You will access your
books, KOReader preferences, plugins etc. here.

BOTTOM BAR is focused on options for document formatting like

font weight/size, line spacing etc. While adjusting your text, you will
probably interact mostly with the BOTTOM BAR.

To show the TOP BAR or BOTTOM BAR you can tap the indicated
zones.
You can tap or swipe down the upper zone to show the TOP
MENU.
You can also set TOP MENU zone to show both TOP and BOTTOM
BARs at the same time via this menu:

TOP BAR > > Taps and Gestures > Activate Menu

CORNER TAP ZONES can be used for many different type of

gestures including TAP, DOUBLE TAP, TWO FINGER TAP and TAP
and HOLD.
PREVIOUS PAGE and NEXT PAGE zones can be used for DOUBLE
TAP gestures at the same time.
STATUS BAR zone can be tapped to cycle between STATUS BAR
items if one item is visible. If all items are visible, it will show and hide
the STATUS BAR. Check How can I configure status bar ? section
for more info.

KOReader · 5
 FILE BROWSER is the first screen you will see when you open
KOReader. It is also accessible from the reading screen via:

TOP BAR >

By default, it shows your main books folder (which you can change
by tapping and holding on any folder).
You can change many options like how books are displayed or
sorted via the TOP MENU by swiping down from the top part of the
screen as shown in the image on the left.
When you tap and hold a document, a dialog with many options is
shown. Most items are self-explanatory. Circled items are explained
below:
PURGE .SDR: This option basically resets your book by deleting its
configuration/highlights file. Use with caution !
IGNORE COVER: If for some reason you want to disable the cover
for this book (wrong cover or invisible on e-ink screen) you can select
this.
IGNORE METADATA: If your book metadata is not correct, name
field may show useless information. Select this option to show the file
name instead of metadata.

Following methods are available for accessing your books and articles:
- File Browser
- Favorites
- History
You can assign gestures for each of these dialogs. For example while reading a book, you can open your History or
Favorites with a gesture to open another book without going through File Browser.
You can also set KOReader to open with any of these dialogs on startup via:

TOP BAR (in File Browser) > > Start with

KOReader · 6
 USER INTERFACE TIPS
- You can change the interface language via:

TOP BAR > > Language

- Be aware that KOReader has different support and interface for fixed layout documents (PDF, DJVU, images...) and
reflowable documents (EPUB, HTML, DOCX, RTF, TXT…).
- If you tap and hold an option or menu item (font weight, line spacing etc.), you can set its value as DEFAULT. The new
value will only be applied to documents opened from now on. Previously opened documents will keep their settings. You can
identify default values as a STAR in menu or as a black border around indicators as seen below:

- You can see explanations for all items on the BOTTOM BAR by tapping and holding the option’s name
- You can CLOSE full screen dialogs (History, Table of Contents, Bookmarks, Reading Statistics etc.) by swiping down
- Screenshots can be taken by making a long diagonal swipe

- In dialogs containing adjustment arrow buttons like the one on the right, you can tap
and hold on arrow buttons to increase / decrease the value in bigger increments
- You can CLOSE this type of dialog (non-full screen) by tapping outside of the
window
- You can MOVE this type of dialog by holding the window title and dragging
- You can make this type of dialog SEMI-TRANSPARENT (to see the text under it while
adjusting a value) by tapping and holding the window title

- KOReader supports dictionary lookup in EPUB and even in scanned PDF/DJVU documents. To see the dictionary
definition or translation, tap and hold a word.
- Tapping and holding a word brings up a dialog where you can also search the selection in the document for more
occurrences or look it up on Wikipedia

Interface is too big / small. How can I change the scale ?

There is a DPI setting that controls the size of interface:
TOP BAR > > Screen > Screen DPI

You can choose a value from the menu or select CUSTOM DPI to enter a number yourself for fine tuning.
Higher DPI = Bigger Interface
Note that there is also a Zoom (dpi) setting in the bottom bar. That one is related to documents only. You can find the
explanation below.

Can I disable black flashing of items in the interface ?

Yes you can adjust flashing via this menu:
TOP BAR > > Screen > E-ink Settings

KOReader · 7
 EXPLANATIONS OF GENERAL MENU ITEMS

BOTTOM BAR > VIEW MODE: In continuous mode you can scroll the
document like a web page. This mode is more suitable for
non e-ink screen types (LCD, OLED). In continuous mode
you lose TOP - BOTTOM MARGINS so text may be cut on
first and last line of screen. To solve this problem you can
enable PAGE OVERLAP

TOP BAR > > Page Overlap

RENDER MODE: This determines how your document is ZOOM (dpi): This setting can be thought of as a general
rendered by KOReader, default is WEB and generally you zoom factor for the document (except font size). At 96 dpi
don’t need to change this setting. When a book (or saved (which is the default setting), images in the document are
web page) is complicated (specified widths or margins, rendered at their original dimensions. You can use this
negative margins, floats) and things look bad or overflowing setting if you want to make images bigger without making
the screen, other rendering modes may give better results. text bigger.

BOTTOM BAR > WORD EXPANSION: If you have too much white space in
a line, how much of that can be distributed into the words by
expanding them. This setting affects the appearance of
words. If you don’t want your words to expand, set this to
NONE.
You can experiment with different settings until the text
looks pleasing to you, then set them as defaults via their
respective dialogs.

WORD SPACING and WORD EXPANSION: These two WORD SPACING: How much the SPACE characters in a
settings are related and they determine how your text will line of text can be compressed to fit more words. This
look when it is justified (left and right side of the text is flush setting doesn’t affect words, it only changes the space
to the margins). Since word counts of lines are not equal, in between them.
justified alignment text has to be compressed or expanded
to fill the line.

KOReader · 8
 FONT HINTING adjusts text for maximum readability
BOTTOM BAR > according to screen’s pixel grid. NATIVE uses font’s internal
hinting instructions, AUTO uses FreeType’s hinting
algorithm. AUTO is a safer choice because font files that you
installed may have problematic hinting instructions. It also
handles CJK text better. You can try different settings to see
which one looks better on your device.

FONT KERNING adjusts the spacing between letters to

achieve a visually pleasing result. Default is BEST, which
might be slower when opening files (depending on your
device) but has better support for ligatures (see picture on
the left for an example), joined Arabic glyphs and some
other scripts. If your device is slow, you can try GOOD
which is faster and may still look correct with western latin-
script text.

CONTRAST and FONT WEIGHT are two options that you can use to make your text bolder (or lighter). You can achieve the
same appearance with either of these options but they use different methods to achieve it. Of course you can use them both
at the same time.
The differences between them can be summarized as:
CONTRAST FONT WEIGHT
+ Doesn’t change font width, book length stays the same + Will use proper weighted fonts if you have them installed
+ Doesn’t need to re-render document, faster + Looks better on LCD or low DPI screens
- Might look bad on LCD or low DPI screens. - Has to re-render fonts, slower

BOTTOM BAR > ALT STATUS BAR enables or disables an alternative

status bar which is available only in reflowable documents
(EPUB, HTML, DOCX, RTF, TXT…). After enabling it here you
can configure ALT STATUS BAR via:

TOP BAR > > Status Bar > Alt status bar

EMBEDDED STYLE and EMBEDDED FONTS determine if

publisher styles and fonts embedded in the document will
IMAGE SCALING determines how images in your be used to render the document. These are general on/off
document are rendered. BEST looks more pleasing but it is switches. You can achieve more fine tuned tweaks for your
slower. document via:

TOP BAR > > Style Tweaks

KOReader · 9
 GENERAL READING INFO
How can I personalize my text ?
- You can change the font*
TOP BAR > > Font
- Make font bigger
BOTTOM BAR >
- Make font bolder
BOTTOM BAR >
- Invert the colors on screen (white on black)
TOP BAR > > Night Mode
- Change many other formatting options*
TOP BAR > > Style Tweaks

*Font selection and style tweaks are available only on reflowable documents (EPUB, HTML, DOCX, RTF, TXT…). Fixed-layout
documents like PDF/DJVU are not supported.
You can also change other formatting options from BOTTOM BAR to fine tune the appearance of your text.

You can see your reading statistics via: TOP BAR > > Reading Statistics

How can I add my own fonts ?

KOReader supports fonts in most widely used TrueType (.ttf) and OpenType formats (.otf). Font files with these extensions
can be directly copied to /koreader/fonts/ folder on your device. Check the wiki for more info:
https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Fonts
When starting up, KOReader compiles the available fonts from the font metadata/info and classifies them according to
family and weights. This means you can add different weights and variants of a font and KOReader will try to use the most
suitable one. Since it is taking font family information from metadata, font names are not important when copying to your
device. Installed fonts will be available after restarting KOReader. Refer to the previous question for how to change the font.
You can check the Google Fonts website for more fonts: https://fonts.google.com

How can I configure the status bar ?

You can configure bottom status bar from this menu:

TOP BAR > > Status Bar

There are many items you can show on the status bar. But by default, only one is shown at a time and you have to click on
the status bar to cycle between them. If you want to show all items at once, enable this menu item:

TOP BAR > > Status Bar > Settings > Show all at once

You can sort the items via:

TOP BAR > > Status Bar > Settings > Sort items

Feel free to explore the SETTINGS sub-menu mentioned above to customize your status bar as you like.

There is also an ALT STATUS BAR which is available in reflowable documents (epub, html, docx, rtf, txt…). If you prefer to
use this, you can enable via:

BOTTOM BAR > > Alt Status Bar

KOReader · 10
 HIGHLIGHTING TEXT
KOReader provides two methods for highlighting text:
1. Normal highlight mode:
This mode is similar to selecting a text with your finger on a phone/tablet.
Usage:
- Long-press on the starting word
- Move your finger to the end of the passage
- Release finger
If you reach page boundaries, KOReader will turn the page for you to continue highlighting (only in EPUB/HTML
documents).
2. Select and highlight mode:
This mode is more suitable for highlighting longer passages which cross page boundaries. It might also be more suitable if
you have touch screen sensitivity problems or motor control issues with your hands because you don’t need to drag your
finger along the screen.

NOTE: If you have dictionary lookup enabled when long pressing a word, you have to drag your finger to initiate this mode.

TOP BAR > > Taps and gestures > Long-press on text > Dictionary on single word selection

Usage:
- Long-press (or drag if dictionary lookup is enabled as
described above) on the starting word, popup menu will show
up
- Tap on Select, now you are in highlighting mode. You can
turn pages with taps/swipes and freely navigate the document
(TOC, skim etc).
- Long-press (or drag if dictionary lookup is enabled as
described above) on the ending word for your highlight, menu
will show up again
- Tap Highlight this time to finish highlighting the passage

TIP: There is a faster method for this mode if you don’t need long-press menu items shown above. You can disable the
popup menu completely so when you long-press on a word you will immediately enter the Select and highlight mode. This
method is much faster and you can highlight any length of text with just two taps. To use this method enable this option:

TOP BAR > > Taps and gestures > Long-press on text > Select and highlight

TIP: KOReader can highlight a passage in different styles. If you use Lighten option, text background will be gray. Due to e-
ink limitations, screens can’t change from white to gray directly so highlighted part first has to turn black and then gray. If you
want to avoid this flashing, you can choose Inverted as your highlight style. In this mode text background will be black so it
can be set without flashing.
You can adjust these highlighting options via:

TOP BAR > > Highlight style

KOReader · 11
 When you click on an already highlighted text without a note, you will see this popup menu. Delete and Add note items
are clear. Bottom row menu items are used to extend or shrink the highlight.

When you click on an already highlighted text with a note

added, you will see this popup menu instead

Tap on Edit highlight to open the menu above where you

can edit both the highlight and the contained note:

Exporting your highlights

There are different ways of exporting your highlights from your reader:
1. You can use the Export Highlights plugin to export your notes as local .txt, .html or .json files on your device or export
them directly into Joplin over a network (a note taking application, you can find help under Joplin menu in Export Highlights
plugin - https://joplinapp.org/):

TOP BAR > > Export Highlights

2. You can use an external program named KoHighlights. It can access your book notes and highlights when you plug your
reader to your computer: https://github.com/noembryo/KoHighlights

3. If you are using Calibre, you can import highlights into your database with KOReader Sync plugin. You can install
mentioned plugin within Calibre.

NOTE: When you open a document in KOReader, it creates a directory alongside the document with same name as the
document. This directory contains a .LUA file which includes all the highlights and user options (formatting properties etc.)
related to that document. You can manually backup/restore these directories.

KOReader · 12
 KEYBOARD USAGE AND TIPS
- Tap outside the input field to close the keyboard, tap the input field to show the keyboard again
- Swipe up keys to enter uppercase version of that letter (or lowercase if you are already in shift mode)
- You can change the appearance of the keyboard:

TOP BAR > > Device > Keyboard > Keyboard settings

- You can select more than one layout:

TOP BAR > > Device > Keyboard > Keyboard layout

- You can change between your selected layouts by tapping icon on the keyboard

Entering extra characters

Koreader keyboard allows entering extra characters when you tap and hold a key. Most frequently used extra characters
are shown below. You can tap and hold the key in the gray box to get the surrounding characters:

Additionally there are some shortcuts for easier text manipulation. You can tap and hold these keys for the actions:
Backspace - Deletes all characters from the cursor to the beginning of the line.
Left Arrow - Moves the cursor to the beginning of the line.
Right Arrow→- Moves the cursor to the end of the line.

For more information you can check the related wiki page:
https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Virtual-keyboard

KOReader · 13
 AUTO WARMTH AND NIGHT MODE
This plugin allows you to adjust frontlight warmth in devices with natural (yellow/orange) light and set Night Mode (inverted
screen colors – white text on black background) automatically according to a schedule.
This plugin comes enabled as default. If it is not, you can enable it via:

TOP BAR > > More tools > Auto Warmth and Night Mode

You can adjust the warmth of your screen frontlight automatically in two different ways:
- FIXED SCHEDULE: In this mode your frontlight warmth changes according to the daily schedule you entered. This mode
is STATIC, it doesn’t account for daylight length. The schedule stays the same all around the year.

- SUN’S POSITION: This option calculates Sun’s position in your location according to COORDINATES and ALTITUDE
information you entered. Frontlight warmth is adjusted gradually according to this calculated Sun position data. This mode is
DYNAMIC. As the length of daylight changes around the year, plugin adjusts the schedule accordingly.

USAGE
First have a look at this image to familiarize yourself with the terms used in the plugin:

FIXED SCHEDULE MODE

1. Go to the plugin menu:

TOP BAR > > Screen > Auto Warmth and Night Mode

2. Tap Activate menu item and then ACCORDING TO THE FIXED SCHEDULE
3. Go back to previous menu and tap FIXED SCHEDULE SETTINGS menu item
4. Set your warmth transition schedule by setting times for various items here. Refer to the image above for an explanation
of items.

KOReader · 14
 SUN’S POSITION MODE
1. Go to the plugin menu:

TOP BAR > > Screen > Auto Warmth and Night Mode

2. Tap ACTIVATE menu item and then ACCORDING TO THE SUN’S POSITION
3. Go back to previous menu and tap LOCATION SETTINGS menu item. Set your coordinates (necessary) and altitude
(optional) correctly and give a name to your location.
4. Go back to previous menu and tap WARMTH AND NIGHT MODE SETTINGS menu item
5. Set your warmth transition schedule by setting times for various items here. Refer to the image above for an explanation
of items.
You can see your current schedule via CURRENTLY ACTIVE PARAMETERS menu option.

Night Mode
While setting the warm light percentages for different
intervals, you can also set that interval to Night Mode, which
inverts the screen colors when that interval starts.
If your minimum light is still too much or if you prefer dark
page background, you can activate this feature. To enable this,
in the dialog on the right, you can tap Use night mode.
When you do this, warm light percentage will increase to
110% indicating that this interval has Night Mode activated. You
will see a moon icon in the menu next to this interval.
To disable Night Mode you can decrease the percentage to
any value under 110.

KOReader · 15
 MOVING THROUGH YOUR BOOK
There are many different ways of moving through your document in KOReader. You can use the SKIM WIDGET, BOOK
MAP or PAGE BROWSER features.

SKIM WIDGET
You can open this widget via:

TOP BAR > > Skim document

CHAPTER MARKS

KOReader can show chapter boundaries from your

documents on the SKIM WIDGET and PROGRESS BAR.
If your document has too many heading levels, your chapter
marks can look crowded like the example on the left. You can
change the depth of visible ToC mark levels via:

TOP BAR > > Settings > Progress Bars

You can also use this reduced ToC for chapter titles (if it is
shown on Status Bar), chapter navigation and reading time
left estimates. These options are in the same menu.

If your document doesn’t have a Table of Contents, you can

enable ALTERNATIVE TABLE OF CONTENTS. When this
setting is enabled, KOReader will build a ToC from document
headings (if available) or from individual HTML files in the EPUB.
Long-tap the menu item for extra info:

TOP BAR > > Settings > Alternative table of contents

KOReader · 16
 BOOK MAP
Book map is a powerful and unique feature of KOReader which can be very useful for getting an overview of a book. For
example if you are reading a book non-linearly by skipping some parts to read them later, it would be hard to track your
progress. Book Map can show you which parts of the book you have already read, at a glance. Additionally you can:
- See how much time you have spent on each page (if Reading Statistics plugin is enabled)
- Check which pages have bookmark, highlights and notes
- Navigate directly to any part of the book like the SKIM WIDGET
You can access Book Map via menu and you can also assign a gesture for quicker access:

TOP BAR > > Book map

USER INTERFACE AND CONTROLS

When you open the Book Map first time while reading a book, it will be in Grid View mode, fitting all chapters on a single
screen to give the best initial overview of the book’s content. To get a detailed information about usage, tap the info icon at
the upper left corner. You can close the Book Map by clicking X on the upper right corner or with any multiswipe gesture (UP-
DOWN, LEFT-RIGHT etc.).

KOReader · 17
 You can customize Book Map by changing these options:
- First try swiping LEFT and RIGHT along the bottom edge of the screen to change width of columns indicating pages and
observe how it changes the scale of map
- Then try swiping UP and DOWN along the left edge of the screen to change chapter title depth and switch to the Flat
View. See examples below.

In addition to default Grid View above, here you can see the Flat View on the left and Grid View without chapter titles on
the right. Note the changing left vertical scrollbar between views. If you want to switch back to the default view, you can long-
press the info icon at the upper left corner.

KOReader · 18
 PAGE BROWSER
Page Browser can be used to navigate between pages like in a photo album by showing thumbnails of the pages as a grid.
You can open Page Browser by tapping on the Book Map or from the menu. You can also assign a gesture for quick access.

TOP BAR > > Page browser

You can change the number of pages shown by swiping along the TOP and LEFT sides of screen. Icons on the bottom are
the same as Book Map. Actually the bottom part is a linear version of the Book Map.

KOReader · 19
 READING PDFS
My PDF/DJVU document’s page size is bigger than my screen.
How can I read a document like this on my smaller screen ?
There are many ways to read a PDF/DJVU document optimized for bigger (generally A4 or Letter) page sizes:
1. You can enable REFLOW from

BOTTOM BAR > > Reflow

Reflow tries to extract the text portion from your document (if it is available) and format it as a single column. Results are
generally satisfactory. You can also set this as DEFAULT by tapping and holding on it.

2. You can enable ZOOM TO CONTENT via this menu item you can see in the image above:

BOTTOM BAR > >

With this option KOReader tries to crop margins from your document so text may look bigger on your screen. You can set
FIT to WIDTH in the same menu which will try to fit only page width instead of whole page, so your text will look bigger.

3. Also you can try to use your device in LANDSCAPE orientation. This will make your screen wider so your document may
look big enough to read comfortably:

BOTTOM BAR >

4. If you wish you can see your document at full size and scroll to read different parts. This is especially helpful with comic
books.
First enable COLUMN MODE from this menu item:

BOTTOM BAR > >

Then select an appropriate flow direction for your document from the same menu:
- For example if you are reading an article which has two columns, you will scroll down until the end of page reading left

column then go to right upper side to continue reading right column:

- Or if you are reading a comic book, you will go right>left down>right in a zigzag pattern:

- For a Japanese comic book (right-to-left panel order) this might be the reverse:

In this mode you can also adjust Horizontal / Vertical Overlap and Number of Columns from the same menu to fit text on
your screen better. Feel free to experiment with settings.

KOReader · 20
 EXPLANATIONS OF PDF SPECIFIC MENU ITEMS
CONTRAST This setting adjusts black levels in your
BOTTOM BAR > document. Be aware that same contrast value applies to both
text and images in your document. If you set it very high, your
images may become too dark to be readable.

DEWATERMARK Removes watermarks from the rendered

document. It can also be used to remove gray backgrounds.
This feature can convert a grayscale or color document to
black & white to produce more contrast for easier reading.

RENDER QUALITY (REFLOW MODE) Sets the quality of

text and image extraction processing and output. HIGH is
more pleasing but it can be much slower (several seconds for
page turn) than DEFAULT depending on your document. If
your PDF/DJVU files are slow, this is the first setting you should
check.

DOCUMENT LANGUAGE Sets the language to be used by

BOTTOM BAR > the OCR engine.
FORCED OCR Force the use of OCR even if the document
has a text layer
WRITING DIRECTION (REFLOW MODE) Text direction of
original document. Set to RTL for languages like Arabic and
Hebrew.
DOCUMENT COLUMNS (REFLOW MODE) Number of text
columns in the original document.

AUTO STRAIGHTEN feature can straighten the pages of a

BOTTOM BAR > problematic document, for example pages of a PDF which are
scanned with an angle. It is available in PDF, DJVU, CBZ/CBT
documents and image files.
To enable, choose the maximum tilt angle which KOReader
will try to correct. If it doesn’t correct you might have to
choose a bigger angle.
Note that this feature might slow down your reader
depending on several factors.

KOReader · 21
 OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is the process of extracting text from images into machine readable format. In
KOReader context, it is generally used for extracting text from scanned book pages in PDF files. KOReader relies on Tesseract
Open Source OCR Engine for this task (https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tessdoc).

In order to use this feature you need to:

1. Install Tesseract language data to your KOReader
2. Add newly installed languages to koreader/defaults.lua configuration file
(necessary only if your language is other than English or Chinese)
NOTE: Buttons on OCR menu has no function until you install the necessary Tesseract files.

Details of this process can be read in the related wiki page:

https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Dictionary-support#dictionary-lookups-in-scanned-pages

Panel Zoom (manga/comic)

This feature makes reading comic books easier on smaller screens. You can enable it while you are reading a PDF, DJVU,
CBZ or CBT document via:

TOP BAR > > Panel Zoom (manga/comic)

When this option is enabled, KOReader tries to find the boundaries of rectangular panels on the screen. If you long-tap on a
panel, KOReader zooms in to that panel. As you can guess, this feature works best with comics that has clean panel
boundaries. Procedure can be seen below:

If you want to use this feature with other file types like EPUB, FB2, HTML or image files, you should open the file with a
different engine: In the File Browser long-tap on the file name, tap Open with… and select MuPDF.

KOReader · 22
 DEVICE
How can I transfer books, articles to my device ?
KOReader supports PDF, EPUB, DJVU, MOBI, CBZ, CBT, DOCX, RTF, HTML, TXT, XPS, FB2, PDB, CHM and ZIP files.
KOReader can reflow PDF documents (this option can be found in the bottom menu while reading a fixed-layout document
like PDF) to make them suitable for the small screens of e-readers. But for best results, you may want to convert your
documents into more flexible EPUB format. You can use Calibre (https://calibre-ebook.com/) for all kinds of conversion
between formats.
There are many ways to transfer your documents to your device. Note that you may need to restart KOReader to index the
transferred documents (or refresh directory if you have Pocketbook/Android).
In addition to transferring files the same way you would with the built-in reader application, other options are available
depending on your device:
1. USB Mass Storage mode within KOReader: This mode is available for KOBO and some CERVANTES devices.
2. Cloud storage (Dropbox/FTP/Webdav): To use this function you have to add accounts for a cloud storage server via
menu shown below. Process is explained via INFO buttons while adding accounts:

TOP BAR (in File Browser) > > Cloud storage

3. SSH/SFTP access: KOReader can act like an SSH server, which you can access from a computer to transfer files. You can
use an SFTP application (like Filezilla) or access via your file manager if your operating system supports. Check wiki for how-to:
https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/SSH
4. Calibre transfer: With the Calibre plugin you can send documents from your Calibre Library directly to your KOReader
devices via a wifi connection. Check wiki for how-to: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Calibre-wireless-connection
5. News downloader: With this plugin you can download RSS and Atom news entries as HTML files. Check wiki for how-to:
https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/News-downloader
6. Wallabag: With this plugin you can retrieve articles from WALLABAG, a server based read-it-later service like Pocket.
Check wiki page for more info: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Wallabag

How can I control the backlight / frontlight of my screen ?

You can control your screen light via this menu. If you have warm lighting (normal white LEDs+orange ones) you can control
them separately from this dialog. You can also define a gesture for this dialog:

TOP BAR > > Frontlight

How can I change the screen displayed while sleeping ?

You can choose a book cover or a custom image as screensaver via this menu:

TOP BAR > > Screen > Screensaver

You can use JPG/PNG files as screensaver (properly dithered grayscale images look best). Transfer the files from your
computer into any folder on your device. And choose this folder as your screensaver folder via this menu:

TOP BAR > > Screen > Screensaver > Settings

Refer to this forum post for advanced information about screensaver images:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3728291&postcount=17

KOReader · 23
How can I see my battery consumption details ?
You can see your detailed battery usage statistics via this menu item:

TOP BAR > > More Tools > Battery Statistics

How can I see my system statistics ?

You can see your system information like CPU / DISK SPACE / RAM usage via this menu item:

TOP BAR > > Help > System statistics

KOReader · 24
 GESTURES
These are the types of gestures you can use to control KOReader. Some gestures have limitations regarding where they
can be used on the screen and which directions are supported. These limitations are indicated below.
Note that some devices support only single touch. So multi-finger gestures are not available on them.

Cardinal directions Diagonal directions

Single or double tap with ONE finger

TAP / DOUBLE TAP
- Anywhere on the screen

Single tap and hold with ONE finger

TAP AND HOLD
- Only on four corners

Single tap with TWO fingers at the same time

TWO FINGER TAP
- Only on four corners

Swiping motion with ONE finger

ONE FINGER SWIPE - Screen edges

- Anywhere except edges

Swiping motion with TWO fingers at the same time

TWO FINGER SWIPE
- Anywhere on the screen

More than one swipe done after each other without lifting your
MULTISWIPE finger. For example like drawing the letter U=DOWN-RIGHT-UP
- Anywhere on the screen

Same gesture as zooming in and out on a mobile phone, tablet

etc.
- Anywhere on the screen
SPREAD AND PINCH

NOTE: This gesture may work less reliably depending on your

device. If that’s the case please choose another gesture type.

Icons by Econceptive from the Noun Project

KOReader · 25
 PREDEFINED GESTURES
This table shows the available gestures when you install KOReader for the first time. You can change these gestures
according to your preferences via:

TOP BAR > > Gesture Manager

Also at the end of this guide, you can find an empty version of the full gestures table for printing as a reference sheet for
your modified gestures.

TAP CORNER MULTISWIPE

Top Left Corner Toggle page flipping Back to previous location

Top Right Corner Toggle bookmark Go to latest bookmark

DOUBLE TAP Skim document

Left Side Go -10 pages Bookmarks

Right Side Go +10 pages Table of contents

ONE FINGER SWIPE Show frontlight dialog

Short diagonal swipe Full screen refresh Toggle reflow

History

Book status

Go to page

Back

Previous chapter

Next chapter

Open previous document

Favorites

KOReader · 26
 PLUGINS
Plugins are small applets that add various functions to your KOReader. You can enable/disable them via:

TOP BAR > > More tools > Plugin management

Auto frontlight Automatically toggles the frontlight according to ambient light level (Only available on Kindle Voyage and Oasis)

Auto warmth and Allows you to adjust frontlight warmth in devices with natural (yellow/orange) light and set Night Mode automatically
night mode according to a schedule

Auto power save Puts the device into standby, suspend or power off after specified periods of inactivity

Autosuspend Suspend device after chosen period of inactivity (available on all e-ink devices except android os)

Autoturn Automatically turns the page after a set period of time

Background runner Service to other plugins: Allows tasks to run regularly in the background.

Battery statistics Collects and displays battery usage statistics of your device

Book shortcuts Allows adding a book shortcut to a gesture

You can send documents from your Calibre Library directly to your KOReader devices via Wifi connection.
Calibre
Check the wiki for how-to: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Calibre-wireless-connection

Cover browser Allows cover display modes for file browser and history

Cover image Saves the cover image of the current book as a file (available on Android/PocketBook/reMarkable devices)

Export highlights Export highlights and notes to local files or to Joplin (a note taking application)

Flashcard trainer Show flashcards using spaced repetition (SM2) of highlight from your library

Gestures Provide gesture support for KOReader

Japanese support Japanese language support for KOReader that extends built-in dictionary and selection system

Keep alive Keeps the device awake to prevent automatic Wi-Fi disconnects

Move to archive Moves current document to archive folder

Retrieves RSS and Atom news entries and saves them as HTML files. Check the wiki for how-to:
News Downloader
https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/News-downloader

OPDS Allows you to download books from online catalogs

Based on the idea of using peripheral vision to read more quickly. Check this YouTube video to see how it works: How to
Perception expander
Triple Your Reading Speed in 20 Minutes (Tim Ferriss)

Profiles Allows combining multiple settings to make switchable profiles

Synchronize your reading progress across different KOReader devices.

Progress sync
Check the wiki for how-to: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Progress-sync

QR from clipboard Generates a QR code from clipboard content

Read timer A countdown timer to display a message after a user defined time

Reading statistics Calculates reading sessions statistics and reading speed for use in chapter/book remaining time estimations

Allows access to your device over SSH protocol. You can access via FTP applications or even your file manager if it supports.
SSH
Check the wiki page for how-to: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/SSH

You can see your system information like CPU / DISK SPACE / RAM usage via this plugin
System statistics
TOP BAR > > Help > System statistics
Terminal emulator Starts a shell (command prompt) on your device that can run full terminal apps

Text editor A basic text editor to create and edit plain text files

Time sync Synchronizes the device time with NTP servers

Tweak document settings Allows tweaking settings of a document before it is loaded based on external factors

Downloads the latest articles from a Wallabag server as individual EPUB files.
Wallabag
Check the wiki page for more info: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Wallabag

KOReader · 27
 TIPS AND TROUBLESHOOTING
TIPS
Updating KOReader
KOReader can update itself over Wi-Fi. Trigger the check via this menu item:

TOP BAR > > Update > Check for update

If there is an update available, a dialog will be shown. After confirming the update, KOReader will download the necessary
files and restart itself.

Optimizing EPUB/PDF documents for your mobile reader device

Most widely used applications for converting or optimizing your document for your mobile reading device are Calibre
(EPUB, Kindle focused) and K2pdfopt (PDF focused).
Calibre can convert your documents between many formats. It also has a built-in editor that allows you to edit e-books
(and fix problems) in the most popular e-book formats, EPUB and Kindle. https://calibre-ebook.com/
K2pdfopt optimizes PDF/DJVU files for mobile e-readers and smartphones. It works well on multi-column PDF/DJVU files
and can re-flow text even on scanned PDF files. It can also be used as a general PDF copying/cropping/re-sizing/OCR-ing
manipulation tool. https://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/
SingleFile is a browser extension for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. This extension allows saving a
web page as a single .html file with all resources (images, stylesheets, scripts) embedded.
https://github.com/gildas-lormeau/SingleFile#install

Optimizing manga for your mobile reader device

If you like reading manga books on your e-ink device there are some tips that can make your experience better. Preparing your
own manga files is the best solution if you're not satisfied with how comics look on your device.
- File type
File types like MOBI and EPUB are not suitable for handling primarily image content (e.g., manga/comics). MOBI support in
KOReader is minimal to nonexistent, and EPUB’s text rendering priorities can cause problems when showing full-page images
(for further technical details: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/issues/9163#issuecomment-1146637205).
Your best option is building a CBZ file which works better in KOReader. A file with .cbz extension is a comic book archive
file that is a collection of zipped images. It saves multiple images, commonly .png or .jpeg files, organized into pages of the
comic. KOReader can also open CBT files, which are similar to CBZ files but use TAR compression.
Easiest way to convert a manga to CBZ is to get the manga as images from various websites, then convert them using
Kindle Comic Converter (https://github.com/ciromattia/kcc). There are some useful settings like auto-rotating two-page
splits to landscape and applying dithering so that eink-rendered gradients are smoothly dithered without jagged layers.
- Resolution
The best results can be achieved by resizing your images to exactly your e-reader screen size. A screen-specific CBZ
which targets the exact screen size of the device, prevents rescaling during reading. KOReader downscales your images to
your screen size while reading but this is not recommended because KOReader adds a dithering pass before scaling and this
causes loss of quality.
But if you want to use your hand made CBZ on more than one device or you want to preserve high resolution for future
proofing, your best option might be to make the CBZ for your highest resolution device. Or pick an arbitrary "high" resolution,
KOReader · 28
possibly one that matches the source. 300 PPI or better (up to 450 or even 600), unless the source is lower of course. If we
assume a screen size of 8", 1500 × 2000 is a good target resolution. For bigger images, you should try it on your device and
see whether it can deal with it. Especially old Kindles with low memory can struggle with sizes like 3000 × 4000 for example.
If you're automating the process, it might be worth considering creating both a lower and higher quality version (e.g., at
200/400 or 300/600 DPI).
Note: KOReader doesn't parse <spine page-progression-direction="rtl"> attribute of the books. So it doesn’t change page
turning direction even though the file was created with right-to-left reading. Users can switch this via:

TOP BAR > > Taps and gestures > Page turns > Invert page turn tap and swipes / buttons

Previewing the fonts on your device

KOReader can generate a document with sample text rendered with all the fonts installed on your device. This allows you to
quickly compare the look and features of the fonts like ligatures and character sets in non-Latin scripts like Greek, Hebrew or
Chinese. You can access this feature via:

TOP BAR > > Font > Font settings > Generate font test document

Switching between documents quickly

If you need to switch between two documents (when comparing them for example), there is a quicker way than going

through the File Browser. KOReader can open the last document with a gesture ( multiswipe). If you define a gesture’s
action as Open previous document, you can switch between two documents quickly similar to Alt+Tab feature on the
desktop computers. You can find this feature under:

TOP BAR > > Taps and gestures > Gesture manager > “ANY GESTURE” > General > Open Previous Document

Also you can use the History dialog to switch between documents quickly. The history screen can be opened with the

multiswipe gesture. You can also define any other gesture for this too of course.

Applying current defaults to an already opened book

When you adjust your document defaults like default line spacing or default contrast, this new value will only be used for
the new documents you open after the change. Your already opened books will look the same. For example, if you change your
default FONT, you will probably adjust FONT WEIGHT and LINE SPACING to more suitable values for this new font. Then
probably you will want to apply these changes to all your opened books. With this feature you don’t need to change these
values manually in all your opened books.
You can easily apply these changes to your already opened books by choosing:

TOP BAR > > Reset document settings to default

When you click this option, your current book will reset to latest defaults you set. Don’t worry, this will only change the
appearance of the book. Your reading position, highlights, notes and bookmarks will be preserved.

Installing new dictionaries

To use the dictionary lookup function, first you need to install one or more dictionaries in the StarDict format. KOReader has
an inbuilt dictionary installation system:

TOP BAR > > Dictionary Settings > Download dictionaries

KOReader · 29
 Your downloaded dictionary will be available when you tap and hold a word in your document.
A list of freely available dictionaries can be found on the Firedict site:
https://tuxor1337.frama.io/firedict/dictionaries.html
For details about install procedure you can check the related GitHub wiki page:
https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Dictionary-support

Avoiding clicking links accidentally

If your document has links and you are accidentally clicking them while turning the page or using other gestures, you can
turn off following links by tapping via this menu item:

TOP BAR > > Taps and Gestures > Links > Tap to follow links

After disabling this setting, to follow a link you have to long-tap on it and select Follow link from the popup menu. If you
have the opposite problem and you want to make tapping links easier, you can enable Allow larger tap area around links
from the same menu.

Optimizing your battery life

Li-ion batteries experience more degradation at the extreme ends of their charge levels. To minimize this degradation and
extend your battery life, you can limit your minimum discharge level to 20% and maximum charge level to 80% (as in electric
vehicles and some newer phones). Which means you start charging your device when the battery goes down to 20% and
unplug when it reaches 80% (or 25%-75% if you are extra cautious).
KOReader can warn you by showing an alert when charge level reaches your defined limits:

TOP BAR > > Device Status Alerts > Battery Level

Keeping an eye on your memory usage

In older Kindle devices some of our users reported crashes due to limited memory. KOReader memory usage can go up if
you open many files in one session. Especially PDF’s increase this amount. You can add a memory indicator to your STATUS
BAR and restart KOReader if this value gets high, to avoid crashes or reboots.

TOP BAR > > Status Bar > KOReader memory usage

Also you can configure KOReader to restart automatically if memory usage reaches a threshold via:

TOP BAR > > Device > Device Status Alerts

KOReader · 30
 TROUBLESHOOTING
My status bar disappeared
Probably you tapped on STATUS BAR touch zone (check USER INTERFACE section to see an overview of touch zones) and
hid your status bar. You can bring it back by tapping the same zone. Check “How can I configure status bar ?” section to see
details.

KOReader can't write to the SD card

In Android devices KOReader can’t write to the external storage due to Android system restrictions. If you want to change
your screenshot saving location, be careful to choose your device’s internal storage.

My PDF/DJVU files are slow

If you set your RENDER QUALITY to HIGH text will be more pleasing but it can be much slower (several seconds for page
turn) than DEFAULT depending on your document. If your PDF/DJVU files are slow, this is the first setting you should check.

BOTTOM BAR > > Render Quality

Ghosting and residue when turning pages

Even if KOReader is set to full refresh after every page, you may still see some ghosting/residue after turning pages. This
is a limitation of e-ink screen technology and can be observed on the latest generation devices, especially while reading mixed
content (text+images) documents. As a workaround, you can refresh one more time manually after turning the page to get rid
of these artifacts if they bother you (short diagonal swipe gesture by default).

Sleep cover problems

Sleep covers generally use a magnet embedded in the cover which enables wake up and sleep events via triggering a
sensor in your device. In some cases like misaligned magnets, weak magnets etc. this triggering can be problematic. If you are
having problems with waking up your device with your cover, you can disable this feature via this menu:

TOP BAR > > Device > Ignore all sleep cover events

Backing up your KOReader settings

In rare cases that you want to backup and restore your KOReader with all your settings, you can backup these folders and
files under the KOReader installation directory. Then you can overwrite them after a clean installation to restore your settings:

Folders: Files:
settings data/cr3.ini
styletweaks defaults.persistent.lua
history.lua
settings.reader.lua
Files under data/dict/ and /data/tessdata/ directories (if they exist)

Note that your individual book settings and highlights are kept in the same directory as your books. You can back them up
separately if you wish.

KOReader · 31
 MORE INFO

You can find other KOReader users on MobileRead forums

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=276

You can report problems by opening an issue on our GitHub page

https://github.com/koreader/koreader

You can find us at Gitter chat

https://gitter.im/koreader/koreader

You can support the project via Liberapay

https://liberapay.com/KOReader

KOReader · 32
 GESTURES REFERENCE SHEET
Gesture Manager doesn’t have an overall view for all defined gestures. Especially if you have many gestures defined,
situation can become confusing. You can print this page and write down your personal gestures as a reference.

Spread Pinch

TAP CORNER HOLD CORNER

Top Left Corner Top Left Corner

Top Right Corner Top Right Corner

Bottom Left Corner Bottom Left Corner

Bottom Right Corner Bottom Right Corner

TWO FINGER TAP CORNER

Top Left Corner Top Right Corner

Bottom Left Corner Bottom Right Corner

DOUBLE TAP
Left Side Right Side

Top Left Top Right

Bottom Left Bottom Right

ONE FINGER SWIPE

Top Edge Top Edge

Left Edge Right Edge

Left Edge Right Edge

Bottom Edge Bottom Edge

TWO FINGER SWIPE

MULTISWIPE

KOReader · 33