r/ePub

Hey people,

If anyone saw my other post about converting scanned PDFs to EPUB, welcome back. I implemented a lot of features based on the feedback I got from the users, so check it out if you want. Anyways,

After building that, my friends said to me that they read a lot of stuff online[articles, newsletters, blogs] and bookmark them. They wanted a tool to read them offline, just the way they read their book, with a clean structure.

So I built a Chrome extension.

https://www.convert2epub.com/extension/

FEATURES

• Add the current page from the toolbar popup or the right-click menu
• Keep a running reading list; pages stay queued until you're ready to save
• Drag to reorder chapters before you export
• Give the book a custom title, or let it use the first page's title
• Cover image and in-article images are pulled in automatically
• Everything runs locally in your browser, no account, no external server
• Works great with long-form articles, blog posts, and documentation pages

HOW IT WORKS

1. Browse to a page you want to save and click "Add this page"
2. Repeat for every page you want in the book
3. Click "Save as EPUB"; your browser downloads a ready-to-read .epub file

Please try and tell me if you like it.

Hello everyone, I have been trying to fix a small problem I’m experiencing with my (onyx boox page 7) regarding the percentage of reading, it’s work fine with (pdf) extensions, but not with (epub), can anyone please help me fix this. Thanks in advance

Hi everyone!

I spent almost two years building Andrea Reader, originally because I just wanted a better way to read and organize my own books on iPad.

Apparently, simply opening an EPUB wasn’t complicated enough, so somewhere along the way it turned into an entire personal library system. 😅

The core idea is freedom. Instead of forcing every library into the same structure, Andrea Reader lets you build yours however you want. Create collections, put sections inside them, drag books and sections around, build reading lists, organize huge series, and give every collection its own layout and personality.

Bring your own books, build your library your way, customize how the app and each collection looks, organize everything exactly as you want, read with your own settings, and track your progress along the way.

Some of what ended up inside:

• EPUB, PDF, comics, manga, CBZ, CBR and other formats
• Custom collections with sections inside them
• Drag & drop organization and custom layouts
• Different settings, sorting and appearance for every collection
• Reading profiles for creating unique reading settings and applying them to books, sections and hole collections
• Tons of reading customization: typography, margins, spacing, gestures, transitions, backgrounds, etc.
• Real time customizable reading widgets, for example for controlling brightness, creating chapters, adding favorites pages, bookmarks, custom progress, etc...
• OPDS server connections
• iCloud, WebDAV, SMB and SFTP
• Local downloads and completely offline reading
• Detailed reading statistics for books, sections and collections. The stat
• Dedicated view for managing the storage for every collection and the books inside it
• Andrea next for experimental features
• A built-in Open Library for downloading public-domain books for free
• and much much more...

It’s also local-first. No account, no ads, and no tracking of what you import, download or read. Your library, progress and reading statistics stay on your device.

Andrea Reader is FREE TO DOWNLOAD AND USE. The normal workflow of the app, importing your own books, reading them, creating collections, organizing your library, and getting started, is all available for free. Just download the app and you can be reading within seconds.

Premium is optional and mainly unlocks deeper customization, more advanced library organization, additional reading settings, and other power-user features.

• Monthly Premium: €2.49/month
• Yearly Premium: €17.99/year
• Lifetime Premium: €34.99 €27.99 (20% discount)
• Launch offer: an extra 20% off Lifetime, bringing it down from €27.99 to €22.39 until the end of August.

There are still approximately 47,000 things I want to improve, because apparently shipping an app only unlocks the larger development skill tree.

If you’re an iOS developer, reader on iPhone or iPad, or just enjoy poking at indie apps, I’d genuinely love to hear what you think.

App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/es/app/andrea-comics-manga-books/id6760780154

Website:
https://andreareader.com/

Tech Stack

Built natively with Swift + UIKit. Most of Andrea Reader is custom-built from scratch, including the file system, library structure and reading UI. External dependencies are mainly for specific file handling, such as PDFKit, WebKit, ZIPFoundation and Unrar.swift.

Development Challenge

The hardest part has been combining a very flexible library system with a UI that still feels simple and performs well with large collections.

AI Disclosure

Most of the app was built manually. I increasingly use AI for debugging, code review and faster iteration because the productivity difference is simply too big to ignore. Final architecture, product, UI/UX and implementation decisions remain mine.