About prose-reader

Reading engine - Render epubs in the browser or mobile

m

Published by

README.md

prose

The open-source engine for building reading apps in the browser.
Render EPUB3, comics, and PDF with a single, framework-agnostic SDK — and ship your own reader, your way.

license

🚀 Live demo · 📖 Documentation · Website · Report a bug · Request a feature

What is prose?

prose is a free, open-source Reading System Engine — the hard part of an ebook reader, packaged as a modern SDK. It takes care of parsing, layout, pagination, navigation, and rendering so you can focus on building your own reading experience.

It strictly follows the EPUB 3.3 specification and, in theory, can render anything: its enhancer system lets you teach the engine new media types and behaviors. Comics (CBZ/CBR), PDF, and plain text already ship as enhancers — and you can write your own for any format you need.

Who is it for?

Developers and teams building reading apps, ebook stores, document viewers, or comic readers for the web (and, via a WebView bridge, React Native). If you'd otherwise glue together a parser, a paginator, and a renderer by hand, prose gives you that foundation out of the box.

Try it now

No install required — open the live demo and load your own EPUB, CBZ, or PDF.

Ready to build? Follow the Getting started guide to create your first reader in a few minutes.

Contributing

This is a Lerna monorepo.

npm install
npm run build:lib   # build all packages
npm run start:demo  # run the demo app locally
npm test            # run the test suites

Issues and pull requests are welcome — see the issues page to get started.

License

Built with prose: oboku, a modern and free reading app. Come take a look!

prose-reader