I'm (genuinely) curious about why you want a command line ebook reader?
this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
49 points (100.0% liked)
Linux
12268 readers
399 users here now
A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)
Also, check out:
Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Why not?
I'm all on board with "just to see if it can be done", but it feels unlikely you will come up with something as easy to use or enjoyable to read on as a graphical solution.
I just got a kobo bw and oh my have I been missing out on e-paper, this thing is damn near perfect..
I have a project with a raspberry pi 2 and small screen that works with the command line very well. I want to stay in there.
The issue with just using other txt options is that bookmarks, dictionaries, and just knowing where I left off would be difficult. Plus I only have a couple of mapped keys.
i mean... less?
the main thing you'd want out of a good e-reader is font customization. which you can't do on an application basis in the terminal.
On the top of my head: bookmarks, highlights and notes, vocabulary builder… (I’ve been looking for one too some time ago)
less actually has most of that, weirdly.
Well, – you know – less is more.
Technically correct since the less command was an improvement on the more command.
Heh, that was part of the joke I was aiming for; I liked that it worked on both levels.
are you looking for an epub/pdf to txt conveter?
I've only used epy in the past it was fine but looks abandoned now. It seems now there is lue looks like it has a lot more features.
Wow - lue looks pretty cool.
That looks interesting! If I want something like txt to speech ill keep this in mind.
What do you even expect from the "command line ebook reader"? Are more/less or even cat good enough?
This is getting out of hand
It looks like you already got some good suggestions that don't require an additional application but I was going to mention, if you use Emacs any, nov.el is a really great ereader; I've read much more, since discovering it.
Interesting! This is what I was looking for thanks. Ill give them both a shot.
I was also searching for one a couple of months back. I went through these ones : termpdf.py, tdf ,fancy-cat, meowpdf
Most of these support pdfs only though from what i can recall. I ended up with Sioyek (not a terminal reader)
Do you want to read books with ragged margins? Ew.