The Colibrio Reader is an implementation of the Colibrio Reader Framework, the most advanced development framework for building digital reading systems.
Colibrio Reader supports all of the features in EPUB3, including:
- Talking Books (Media Overlays)
- Interactivity (Scripting)
- Reflowable and Fixed Layout
- Text to Speech
- Bookmarks
- Annotations
…and much more!
We have chosen to make this app free to all to help people that are looking for an accessible e-reader and to help promote EPUB as a format. And, also to promote our framework of course đ
This app will be updated regularly with all our latest features at the time they reach their Beta stage. So you can look forward to a steady stream of fun new features!
A note to screen reader users: the app works best when used with the Google TalkBack service. Also, for accessibility testers, please turn on TalkBack before you start the app.
Now go read a good book đ
We are looking forward to your feedback!
Audio Demonstration
View on Google Play StoreFree or paid:
- Free
Accessibility and User Comments:
Colibrio Reader is an e-book reader with a focus on Accessibility.
Main UI
This is one of those apps that is basic and very simplistic! Free of a cluttered UI, it only has a couple of buttonsâone near the top below the logo, called âApp detail Menu,â and another button found at the bottom-right labeled as: âAdd Book.â
In the middle of the phone is a welcome message, which tells you how to go about adding books to your library. This app is âactions-centric.â In other words, it was developed with TalkBack in mind, thus, you can do just about everything using actions.
After importing a book, you tap on the book, and this pops up the âactions,â and among the items is the âshow Read-aloud Controls.â Tapping on that âRead-Aloud Controlsâ pops up some five buttons at the very bottom, starting from the left and going right in this order: âHide Read-aloud Controls,â âSkip back,â âToggle Read-aloud,â âSkip Forward,â and âRead-aloud Options.â
Tapping on âRead-aloud Optionsâ opens a screen with several settings, including volume control, speech rate, and voice selection. The available voices consist of both local and online options. However, the voice selection menu appears only if Speech Services by Google is set as your system TTS engine. Otherwise, the voice used for reading aloud defaults to the current voice of the system TTS engine. Simply switching the default TTS engine to Speech Services by Google won't immediately enable the voice selection menu. To activate it, you must close and reopen the app.
The app supports EPUB and PDF formats, with content accessible to the screen reader. Among the sample books, audiobooks are available, but the supported audio formats are not specified.
Accessibility
Colibrio is fully accessible and has no accessibility issues when using TalkBack. However, if you are a Jieshuo user, be aware that most accessibility actions are not recognized, leaving double-tapping as the only way to view available options.
I have tested the app on both my Android16 Developer Preview 2 on my Pixel9Pro XL and my Samsung Galaxy S23+.
Last Tested App version and Android version:
App version: 1.5.3, Android 16
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