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Reading Ebooks Using Emacs!

elpa-nov

I assume the 'nov' stands for 'novel', but I'm not sure.

I found a plugin for Emacs, that gives it the ability to read e-books! Well, epubs at least. I haven't tried other formats. I installed it both on my Librem Mini and my Pinephone with 'sudo apt install elpa-nov'. The easiest way to bring up the ebook is to type 'emacs MYDOC.epub' at the Terminal, and it pops right up (or 'emacs -nw MYDOC.epub' for those of us who want to *stay* in Terminal).

To access 'nov' commands, use Meta-x nov, and hit tab once or twice and you will get the list of commands available. For those newer to Emacs, the Meta key is usually the Alt key (though you can reset it, and I think it is different on Mac). So - Alt-x and type 'nov' and press Tab key a couple of times.

A section (usually a chapter, depends on the epub file) shows up as a document in Emacs. Up/Down arrows will go through the file. To go to the next section (usually a chapter) press ] . To go to the previous section, press [ . To page down use the space bar. To page up use the Backspace key, or DEL depending on your system.

In my adventures trying to stay in Terminal as much as possible, another choice to read ebooks is great! I've used the epy reader in the past, and that works much of the time. But with certain ebooks, epy gets to a point that it doesn't like, and it just starts crashing. I'm not sure of the cause. It might have something to do with ebook graphics or something, that you can't see in Terminal. Hopefully Emacs works better!

Links

Lantashi Files, main section