Cool Reader

CoolReader is a program for reading e-books in EPUB, FB2, DOC, TXT, RTF, MOBI, CHM, PDB, TCR and HTML formats. The Windows version is distributed as a ZIP archive, so it does not even require installation on a computer. Since the program is portable, it can be launched from external media. CoolReader is free and open source software released under the GNU GPL and developed by Vadim Lopatin. It is built on its own CREngine library, which lays out books with XML and CSS, so documents keep their headings, styles and embedded images. The program automatically remembers the place where the user has finished reading, keeps a list of recent books for quick access, and shows the table of contents and the properties of the open file.

The application does not offer the user any particularly exotic extras, but it does an excellent job with the usual functions of a "reader". Among them: page scaling, selection of background color and font, hyphenation, font kerning and anti-aliasing options, creation and convenient bookmark management, search for text in the book, switching between page and scroll views, screen rotation and work in full-screen mode. Quite solid functionality for a free program. CoolReader works quite fast, without performance problems on low-power systems. The same engine also powers the Android and Linux versions, while the Windows build is updated much less often.

Cool Reader provides an easy-to-use platform that supports multiple e-book formats and offers robust functionality like bookmark management and text search.