TOP 10 Windows Apps for E-book

The Windows education E-books offer tools to help you read, organize, and manage your electronic library or E-Readers such as the Amazon Kindle or the Barnes & Nobel Nook.

Kindle for PC

Get the best reading experience available on your PC. No Kindle required. Access your Kindle books even if you don't have your Kindle with you. Automatically synchronizes your last page read and annotations between devices with Whispersync. Create new highlights, notes, and bookmarks and manage those created on your Kindle. Full-screen reading view, color modes, and brightness controls offer an immersive reading experience. Shop for books in the Kindle store.

Electronic books have changed the public's reading habits, and millions worldwide now read books, magazines, and other content on handheld readers like Amazon's Kindle. A lot of work went into making Kindle as book-like as possible while still preserving the advantages of an electronic device, such as a customizable interface, variable type size, notes, data storage, and more. Kindle for PC is freeware that lets you access your Kindle titles without a Kindle device. Its Whispersync feature automatically syncs your last page read, bookmarks, notes, and settings between a wide range of compatible devices.

Installing and setting up Kindle for PC is a snap if you already own a Kindle or have an Amazon.com account: just enter your ID and password, and Kindle for PC opens with your account in place. Clicking Archived Items accesses your saved titles. Kindle for PC works much like the handheld device, with a basic but quite user-friendly interface, simple controls, and PC-specific features, such as an outlined graphic that pops up with helpful instructions for using the mouse to do what you do with your fingers on the handheld device. We clicked Shop in the Kindle Store to add some titles; you can buy e-books, but there are literally millions of free titles available to download through Amazon.com directly to your Kindle or, as we discovered, to Kindle for PC, from sites like the Open Library, Internet Archive, and Gutenberg Project. We didn't need to look past the first page to select "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A few clicks, and the e-book was in our Archive. We opened it and immediately began to read a facsimile of the first story, "A Scandal in Bohemia." Navigation was easy with the scroll wheel or by clicking either of the Back and Forward arrows that appeared to the left and right of the text when we hovered our mouse there. Clicking the Font icon on the toolbar let us quickly and easily change font size, words per line, color mode, and brightness, which is welcome since e-books vary in text quality, layout, and contrast. Kindle's bookmarks never fall out, unlike magazine coupons and other improvised paper bookmarks.

Amazon.com is pushing Kindle as nothing less than the future of reading, and it's got a good start on that ambitious goal. Kindle for PC brings your home PC, laptop, and other non-Kindle devices into the loop, and without losing your place.

FBReader

FBReader is an e-book reader. FBReader supports several free e-book formats: html, chm, plucker, palmdoc, oeb, rtf, and fb2. It also supports direct reading from tar, zip, gzip, and bzip2 archives. FBReader keeps the last open book and the last read positions for all opened books between runs. Other features are automatic language and encoding detection, automatic hyphenations, full-screen mode, and screen rotation.

Google Books Downloader

Google has announced the launch of its new service, Google Books. Currently, you can purchase books (U.S. only) or download more than three million free books from anywhere in the world using this service. As announced by Google, the aim of this project is to provide users with their own bookshelf on hand, no matter where they are. Purchased or downloaded books can be read using a desktop browser, as well as through mobile devices based on the Android operating system or iOS. Additionally, the books can be read on any e-reader with Adobe Digital Editions software. As opposed to the Picasa service which provides an access to photos, the Google Books service does not allow users to download free electronic editions without digital copy protection and use them on other devices. Google Books Downloader is a little software that allows you to save these books in PDF or JPEG format.

As its name implies, Google Books Downloader converts Google Books into PDFs or images available for offline viewing. This very basic software comes with just a handful of options and requires the URL of the book you'd like to download; there is no in-app Google Book store.

Pros:

Easy to use: With its main window featuring just a few options, Google Books Downloader is very easy to use. The hardest part is getting the correct book URL from Google Books.

Fast: We tested the app with a 220-page book. Once we pressed Start, it took 3 minutes and 33 seconds for the book to be downloaded, converted, and saved to our desktop.

Features handy options: Despite its basic nature, the app does come with a handful of useful options, namely image resolution, output format, and output directory. The software can generate PDF books as well as JPEG/PNG images with a resolution of up to 1280 pixels.

Cons:

Shaky legal ground: Unlike most of its other services, Google ships its books with DRM, meaning that you have to use software approved by Google in order to read its books. This app circumvents this limitation and may be considered unlawful by some.

If you enjoy Google Books but don't like the idea of reading a book in your Web browser, you may appreciate the convenience of the Google Books Downloader. This freeware is extremely easy to use and will save your book for offline reading in minutes.

ePub Reader for Windows

ePub Reader for Windows is a windows utility that view or convert epub e-books. With ePub Reader for Windows users can read epub e-books and convert epub file to a single pdf document more easily. EPUB (short for electronic publication; alternatively capitalized as ePub, ePUB, EPub, or epub, with "EPUB" preferred by the vendor) is a free and open e-book standard by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). Files have the extension .epub. EPUB is designed for reflowable content, meaning that an EPUB reader can optimize text for a particular display device. EPUB also supports fixed-layout content. The format is intended as a single format that publishers and conversion houses can use in-house, as well as for distribution and sale. It supersedes the Open e-book standard. Features: Epub reader in windows OS; Support for epub to pdf conversion; Support for Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10; Advanced interface; Support for English, French, German, Chinese, Japanese.

ePub Reader for Windows can open any ePub file you have on your computer, and it provides an adjustable window for you to view the document. With this app, you don't have to have a special device for reading these types of files and publications.

Pros:

Quick conversions: In addition to opening and displaying ePub files, this app also gives you the ability to convert them to PDF or JPG format. This is handy, especially if you want to send the file in an email or download it to another device.

Nice interface: The main window for this app displays all controls you need to access the program's main features. Buttons are clearly labeled, and when you open a file, navigation tools appear in the left-hand column, while the content of each page shows up in a larger window on the right. You can also adjust the size of this window to display the pages however you prefer.

Cons:

Document navigation: It would be nice if the controls for paging through the document, itself, were a little smoother. The only real options are to click on each page separately on the left-hand column when you want to change what's displayed or to use the mouse scroll button. The scroll button can be a little too sensitive, though, and cause the display to jump back several pages at once.

Overall, this app is functional but doesn't feel much like reading a book. It's also not free. You can try it out for 15 days, but to continue using it beyond that period, you'll have to purchase a license for $29.95.

EpubReader for Windows 8

EpubReader is an offline reader for books in the Epub format. Books can be downloaded from the device the app is running on (NEW), from a number of preconfigured online libraries, from any available Calibre library, from a user's Dropbox or Skydrive space, or from any accessible website.

Calibre

Calibre is a program to manage your eBook collection. It acts as an e-library and also allows for format conversion, news feeds to eBook conversion, as well as e-book reader sync features and an integrated e-book viewer. It features library management, format conversion (all major eBook formats), syncing to e-book reader devices, fetching news from the Web and converting it into eBook form, viewing many different e-book formats, and giving you access to your book collection over the internet using just a browser.

An all-in-one solution for handling your e-books, Calibre does for electronic books just what iTunes does for music, allowing you to manage your digital book collection through an intuitive albeit overcrowded interface while offering excellent support for converting books to different formats and editing their metadata. The only area where the software is lacking is its e-book reader; it doesn't allow you to highlight or add notes to your books.

Pros:

E-book converter: With Calibre you can take an e-book in one file format and convert it to another that is supported by your e-book reading device and, if you're not happy with the result, you can tweak the conversion settings and even manually edit the book's contents and formatting. It took us four seconds to convert a 40-page e-book from PDF to ePub.

E-book reader: The software comes with a basic e-book reader that supports fullscreen mode for distraction-free reading and that lets you choose your preferred method of pagination and gives you the ability to bookmark pages. Unfortunately, there is no way to annotate, highlight, or augment the book's contents short of editing the book itself.

E-book organizer: Similar to iTunes, the app is much more than an e-book reader: it acts also as your e-book library, providing a central place where you can organize and sort your collection and allowing you to edit the book's metadata and even pull information automatically from places like Google and Amazon. On the back-end, each author gets his or her own folder and each e-book gets its own subfolder, which contains all versions of the given book along with its metadata.

Cons:

Crowded interface: There is a lot going on when you start using the app; just on the main screen there are three search fields and 15 buttons, many of which come with drop-down menus. Fortunately, primary functions are thoughtfully placed where you would expect them to be, so the learning curve is not too steep.

If you're a serious e-book fan and read on more than one device, you should definitely give Calibre a try. Using this open-source software, you can have all the different versions of your books together in one library while keeping the actual files neatly organized in intelligently named folders.

Cool Reader

CoolReader is fast and small cross-platform XML/CSS based E-Book reader for desktops and handheld devices. Supported formats: FB2, TXT, RTF, DOC, TCR, HTML, EPUB, CHM, PDB, MOBI. Platforms: Win32, Linux, Android. Ported on some eInk based devices. It has stylesheet support and lot of customizations for better reading performance.

Icecream Ebook Reader

Icecream Ebook Reader is a great application that lets you organize, store and read e-books on your computer. It deals with books in common e-book formats (EPUB, FB2, PDF, CBR, CBZ and MOBI) and gives you the best reading experience. Icecream Ebook Reader offer organizing your e-books into libraries and thus optimizing your reading experience. You can view books in Book Shelf or Table View modes and check the recently read books, favorites and all books and also filter them by formats. You can also create custom categories for the most convenient books sorting. Search in the Library for books is supported by this e-book reader. Users can copy, translate and search the selected text of e-books. Also, it's possible to add notes and highlight text of e-books. Search in the notes along with search within the book by text or page number is offered by the program. The annotated and highlighted text can be saved as HTML file. The Library can be exported and imported as well.

The program makes the reading process comfortable due to special features. Ability to read in full screen or window modes; Quick access to the table of contents and list of bookmarks; Bookmarking tool for easy search; Font size control; Page view modes: columns and regular layout; Quick access to the profiles (Day - for reading in good lighting, Night - for reading in low or no light, Sepia - for reading in average or below-the-average lighting conditions); Background and workground colors can be customized; Navigation scrollbar. All these options help you read comfortably and never get lost in a mess of e-books chaotically saved on your hard drive. The program is available in over 45 languages, has user-friendly interface and is very simple in use.

Adobe Digital Editions

Adobe Digital Editions software offers an engaging way to view and manage eBooks and other digital publications. Use it to download and purchase digital content, which can be read both online and offline. Transfer copy-protected eBooks from your PC to other computers or devices. Organize your eBooks into a custom library and annotate pages. Digital Editions also supports industry-standard eBook formats, including PDF/A and EPUB.

Nook

Get an incredible reading experience with NOOK for Windows 8. Choose from over 3 million NOOK books--including 1 million FREE books--as well as magazines, newspapers, and comics on your Windows 8 tablet and PC.
Sample any NOOK Book for FREE, and try and newspaper or magazine FREE for 14 days.
With the new NOOK for Windows 8 app you are now able to sign in using your Microsoft account--dramatically simplifying your reading and shopping experience. You can also customize your reading experience to view books with different fonts, line spacing and themes, turn pages with the flick of a finger or jump to any page. The app even comes loaded with free book samples. And so you never lose your place, NOOK for Windows 8 syncs the last page you've read across your tablet and PC. No matter which device you use, always pick up right where you left off. With NOOK for Windows 8, you can read what you love anywhere you like.