Wilderness Voice supplies ebooks in EPUB format, which can be read on many devices.
This guide covers the following matters:
EPUB is the format used by most ebook readers including major e-readers such as Books (Mac) and Kobo etc. The following list of e-reader apps are our suggestions for getting a good installation and reading experience on each of the different device and software platforms. What about other e-readers? By all means use them. In most cases the procedures we explain below will be the same for those e-readers, too. If they don’t, an online search will produce multiple how-tos for any of these.
1. EPUB on Windows
Sumatra PDF Reader
Reading EPUB ebooks on Windows is easiest by installing Sumatra PDF Reader. Don’t be put off by the “PDF” in the name of this app; it’s also an excellent EPUB reader.
Once you have downloaded Sumatra, right click on your downloaded EPUB book and select “Open with” and choose SumatraPDF from your installed applications.
Adobe Digital Editions
An alternative is to use Adobe Digital Editions.
You can Right click the downloaded EPUB file then “Open with” Adobe Digital Editions (see graphic above, under Sumatra). Alternatively, you can open the app first, then select File > “Add to Library’, and then browse for the downloaded EPUB file.
Adobe Digital Editions is useful because it will maintain a ‘library’ of your digital books and will copy any added books into its folder structure.
Calibre
The most advanced option is Calibre. Among the many features of Calibre is that it provides a comprehensive inventory of all your ebooks and includes the ability to tag or categorise them, which can be very useful for keeping track of all your ebooks in a large library.
Having installed Calibre, you can follow the same instructions as for Sumatra and Adobe Digital Editions (above): Right click on the file, select “Open with”, then select “Calibre”.
2. EPUB on Mac
Books
When you double-clicking on an EPUB file on a Mac, the file will open by default in the built-in “Books” reader.
Alternatively, you can right click on the file and select Open With > Books.
The ebook will then automatically be added to the Books library.
You can then continue reading any time by opening the Books app.
You can also open a new EPUB file from within Books by going to File > Add to Library, then browsing on your drive for your EPUB file.
The Books app is a lovely e-reader and so simple to use. There are, however, alternatives to Books on a Mac as follows.
Adobe Digital Editions
Adobe Digital Editions is also available for the Mac.
Once installed, you can Right click a downloaded EPUB file and “Open With” Adobe Digital Editions.
Or, you can open the Adobe Digital Editions app first and then go to File > “Add to library’, and then browse for the downloaded EPUB file.
Calibre
If you would like an advanced ebook library management system that includes a lot of other functionality, you can install and open the file in Calibre.
Having installed Calibre, you can either open the EPUB file by going to the file, then right clicking on the file, then select Open With > Calibre. Or, you can open from within the Calibre app by clicking on the Add Book button (top left) in the tool bar and then browsing to your EPUB book.
To view the book in the E-book Viewer (Calibre’s reader), you double-click on the name of the book you wish to open from the list in the centre panel. The viewer will open.
3. EPUB on iOS
Transferring EPUB files to iOS
The easiest way to transfer an EPUB book file to iOS if you have downloaded it on a computer, is to email it to an account that is set up on the phone (just email yourself). Alternatively, if you have Dropbox or Google Drive installed on both your computer and your device, you can save the EPUB file to the Dropbox or Google Drive folder on your computer and then access the file from the same folder on your device.
The file that you send to your device you can ‘Share’ or ‘Open in’ a book-reading application.
It is also possible to transfer the file from your PC or Mac via iTunes. Simply drag the EPUB file across to your phone in the left panel of iTunes once you have it plugged in and synced. If you copy into the Books folder on your phone via iTunes, you will be able to read it in the Books app on your iPhone.
The Wilderness Voice website is mobile friendly, so It is possible to purchase and download an EPUB file from the Wilderness Voice website on a mobile device. Once the file is downloaded, a long press on the downloaded file will enable you to “share” the file to other applications.
Applications for reading on iOS
The native ebook reader on iOS is the “Books” app.
Another really useful book-reading app is Google’s “Play Books” that you can download from the App Store.
As well as being a very good e-reader, Play Books has the advantage of being cross-platform compatible, meaning books added on one device will show up on another that uses the same account.
4 EPUB on Android
Transferring EPUB files to Android
The easiest way to transfer an EPUB book file to Android if you have downloaded it on a computer, is to email it to an account that is set up on the phone (just email yourself). Alternatively, if you have Dropbox or Google Drive installed on both your computer and your device, you can save the EPUB file to the Dropbox or Google Drive folder on your computer and then access the file from the same folder on your device.
If you have enabled the setting to treat you phone like a disk drive, you can also plug it in via USB and copy the EPUB file across, typically to your downloads folder.
The file you send to your device will typically open in the default book reading application when you select it
The Wilderness Voice website is mobile friendly, so It is possible to purchase and download an EPUB file from the Wilderness Voice website on a mobile device. Once the file is downloaded, a long press on the downloaded file in file explorer will open it on the default ebook reader.
Applications for reading EPUB books on Android
On many Android systems “open with” will open an EPUB file in the default (Play Books) application, but also allows you to open in alternative applications.
If Play Books is not already installed, you can download it from the Play Store.
There are many other popular ebook readers on Play Store including Pocket Book and eBoox. Both these applications are easy to use. Upon opening them, they allow you to browse to and add a file that is downloaded onto your phone. Pocket Book is exceptionally easy, as it will automatically scan recently downloaded files for EPUB and other formats. You do not need to create an account when opening either of these applications the first time, you can just skip that step and use the book reader on local files.
An additional benefit of Pocket Book is that it will also play m4b audiobook files, the format that Wilderness Voice uses for its audiobooks.
5. What about Kindle?
Kindle e-readers and Kindle software are very good e-readers, but natively only support the MOBI and AZW (Amazon) ebook formats. Wilderness Voice does not supply ebooks formatted to be read on Kindle natively. However, you can convert EPUBs to be read on Kindle devices.
Kindle Previewer
If you wish to use a Kindle to read EPUB files, the simplest solution is to use the Kindle Previewer app to effectively author your own Kindle version by saving the EPUB file in a Kindle format for transferring to your devices or opening in the Kindle software.
Calibre —for conversion and transfer to a Kindle device
An alternative is to use the file conversion capabilities of Calibre, an ebook reader and management tool for a whole library of ebooks. Calibre is not only able to convert your EPUB into a mobi file that can be read in a Kindle, it is also able to transfer the file to your Kindle device.
- Download Calibre
- We have instructions on how to convert an EPUB file into a MOBI file and how to transfer it to your Kindle device.