E-Readers are so cool! This article will be preaching to the choir so I’ll skip the details about why they are. KOReader is essentially another operading system for your E-Reader device (it also is useable on desktop and Android but people typically have better setup for these). It’s like breathing new life in your device and unlocking its potential. As you can probably tell from the description this is of course very “tinkery” and not for the faint of heart. Of course the average Japanese learner stumbling on this will probably fit the personality traits required.

Pros/cons

Let’s have a rundown of the pros and cons of such a tool, that way you’ll know if it might be for you:

  • Support of more formats (epub for Kindle for instance)
  • Stardict Dictionaries Support (Kindle dictionaries are generally good, but kobo dictionaries are a hassle to make work and need a lot of tinkering)
  • Custom fonts support
  • Better manga/scanned novels support, notably with margin cropping (so more real estate gets used naturally) or niceties like better scrolling
  • Syncing between devices
  • Book servers to get your books wirelessly or even from anywhere in the world (OPDS - see more later, Dropbox/Google Drive, Wikipedia…)
  • Plugins to extend the functionality even more
  • Powerful gesture system
  • And many, many more things… (neither this link nor this list are remotely close to being exhaustive, besides, this article will go in more depth about some of these pros and more that are unlisted here)

As you can probably tell, the pros depend on what your base device is capable of, as the capabilities of the default OS are different for each device ; for instance, for me, I love the file based hierarchy (like on a computer) compared to the default kobo system (which had a tendency to forget to scan new books half the time then not realize it needed scanning unless I added more books, which was extremely infuriating). This is also why on android based e-readers it is not as big of an improvement, since most of these things can often be done better on android naturally. Now in the interest of fairness here are some reasons why you might not want to use KOReader:

  • Possibility to render your device useless (bricking) or in need of a factory reset - realistically minimal but not for the faint of heart
  • Possible voidness of warranty
  • (Unsure) Depending on the device, may overwrite the default os and render access to the official stores impossible? I know this is not a problem on Kobo but unsure about Kindle/Pocketbook/etc
  • The amount of tinkering needed can be a deterrant
  • Some devices flat out can’t install it (for instance it gets harder and harder on modern/up to date kindles)
  • Vertical writing is a hack (it used to be flat out absent until very recently 1)

I will not cover how to install KOReader here (because the process is different for everyone) or make a tutorial on how to use it, so from now on I’ll assume you’ve decided to install it (aware of the risks) and that it is set up. As a whole this article is more of an index of what to look at instead of a step-by-step guide. You can look here for instructions on installing (I recommend reading well, ahead and thoroughly before attempting anything) and here for the user guide.

And now, without further ado, I’ll be sharing my top tips for the best experience in japanese in no particular order (mostly, when logical I’ll introduce things one by one) but tagged as IMPORTANT, OPTIONAL or ADVANCED, so feel free to skip things that don’t interest you and are optional or advanced. This will also not be remotely exhaustive (again, the user guide and exploration are your friends) because it’d be a silly thing to aim for (imagine for instance compiling all tips for windows users in one). The screenshots will be taken on a brand new version on linux and I’ll be guiding you starting from a blank state towards a similar setup to mine as the steps go on.

[IMPORTANT]: An extremely useful feature: Menu Search

New in a pretty recent of KOReader, this feature will become your new bestie, it allows you to search anything in the top menu, and either teleport to it or, even better, WALK you there. In other words it’ll one by one press the buttons needed to reach your destination. This is UX goodness to drill into you things you keep forgetting the location of. I put this first because this’ll be essential if you get lost or don’t know where one of the options I name are.

[IMPORTANT]: Folder breakdown

After installing KOReader, you’ll find a koreader folder with contents looking like the ones below. The location is dependent on your device. You can find it thanks to the dictionary wiki page. Just remove everything after data and you’ll get it. For instance for me on Kobo, it’s at the root of the Kobo sd, in the .adds folder then koreader. From now on I’ll be refering to this as the KOReader Root folder, this is the root of where we’ll be putting our fonts, dictionaries, plugins, etc, so it is very important to all be on the same page (no pun intended).

[IMPORTANT]: Custom fonts

Relevant wiki page / Relevant guide page

One of the first things you’ll want to be changing, KOReader supports the most widely used font types so you should not have issue finding something you’d like. Some examples include:

These are some of my personal favorites, so let’s see how we can add them to KOReader !

After downloading and extracting if needed, you’ll be in possession of a couple files. Copy and paste these as needed (make one folder for the font name and all these font files related to that font type go in the same folder - you may need to create the fonts folder), then restart KOReader. Afterwards, in the top menu, press the second header item -> Font (or use menu search!) to browse through the available fonts, yours should appear.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tXjcwJLHb0dax0ysbXubNza9Gf6iSPkx

  • Opds
  • Stardict
  • mogrify/cropping/page splitting
  • To the futurel

Wikipedia

  1. When I started drafting this article a year ago this was definitely the biggest drawback, but procrastination bought me enough time for it to become somewhat possible ! ↩︎