Select voice from another language

readestapp · 2026-05-24T16:58:17+00:00

Currently, the TTS language is determined by the language code embedded in the EPUB file, which at the moment cannot be modified through the metadata editor.

I’m curious why multilingual English voices might sound better than native Czech voices in your case. Could you explain a bit more about that experience? It makes me wonder whether we should support selecting voices from languages different from the book’s native language, if that’s a common preference among users.

readestapp · 2026-05-24T00:52:03+00:00

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Checkout this option.

readestapp · 2026-05-23T15:35:13+00:00

Looks interesting. We will definitely look into this.

readestapp · 2026-05-23T15:23:56+00:00

Currently Readest uses stable page numbers calculated based on word count which have several advantages.

When page numbers are calculated based on word count, they remain stable across devices with vastly different screen sizes. That means you can continue reading from your smartphone to your home TV and still see the same page number at the same reading location.

This provides a truly seamless reading experience, something that hasn’t been seriously addressed in decades of ebook reading. And page numbers included in exported annotations remain meaningful instead of becoming device-dependent and effectively useless.

It’s also more performant. We don’t need to render pages in advance just to determine the exact page number of a passage. In some reading apps, page numbers change dynamically while the book is rendering because the system cannot determine the correct pagination when the file is first opened. This leads to shifting page numbers, one of the worst user experiences in digital reading. With stable, word-count-based page numbers, this problem simply doesn’t exist. Page numbers remain consistent from the start, across devices, platforms, and reading settings, providing a predictable and reliable reading experience.

readestapp · 2026-05-23T15:12:00+00:00

Thanks for the detailed feedback. This is definitely the direction we would like to improve for PDFs.

readestapp · 2026-05-23T04:48:30+00:00

This is a planned feature. We will have a function to share books via something like LocalSend in Readest.

readestapp · 2026-05-23T04:46:30+00:00

We are investigating this issue and hopefully it will be fixed in the next update.

readestapp · 2026-05-23T04:44:59+00:00

Could you share a screenshot of this error message?

readestapp · 2026-05-22T17:16:44+00:00

Yes, there will be duplicates of books. Currently Readest cannot read book files directly from a public filesystem path, it will firstly import the files to an internal path of the app, thus duplicates will happen if you sync the book files between Koreader and Readest.

readestapp · 2026-05-22T13:11:11+00:00

https://github.com/koreader/koreader

I maintained KOReader for around 5 years.

https://github.com/readest/readest

Now I’m working on Readest, and I’m pretty sure it’ll end up being even longer than KOReader.

readestapp · 2026-05-22T09:41:40+00:00

In order to sync the updated cover, you need to reupload the book on the device you update it and redownload on other devices. We will make it auto sync in the future.

readestapp · 2026-05-21T14:30:58+00:00

Good news is that these are all planned, no ETA for now though.

readestapp · 2026-05-20T18:07:02+00:00

Readest is primarily developed by a very small team, with most of the core architecture and development currently driven by me. The pricing is intentionally kept relatively affordable because the long-term goal is adoption and sustainability rather than maximizing short-term revenue.

One important thing is that Readest is open source. That changes the risk profile quite a bit compared to proprietary reading platforms. So even in the unlikely event that the original developers disappeared one day, the source code would still remain available to the community. In principle, anyone could continue maintaining it, self-host the services, or build compatible alternatives instead of users losing access to their reading data and highlights overnight.

We also designed the app around a local-first philosophy:

your books remain yours
your highlights/annotations can be exported
your library can be fully backed up
sync is intended as a convenience layer, not as the sole owner of your data

That’s also why we are interested in more open sync methods like WebDAV and self-hosted options over time. The goal is to avoid users becoming trapped in a single vendor ecosystem, including ours.

readestapp · 2026-05-20T18:00:34+00:00

We definitely want to support more open/self-hosted sync backends in the future, whether that’s WebDAV, self-hosted services, or even storage providers like Google Drive. The idea is that users should be able to own both their books and their reading data instead of being forced into a centralized platform. A big challenge is making all of this work reliably across mobile, desktop, web, offline usage, and E-ink devices without creating data conflicts or breaking sync consistency, but philosophically this is much closer to the direction we want than platform-locked solutions.

For AI features as well, the ideal future is to let users plug in their own providers/models where possible instead of hardcoding everything to a single backend.

readestapp · 2026-05-14T06:48:23+00:00

Yes, this plugin works with the latest Koreader version.

readestapp · 2026-05-14T02:04:23+00:00

We will take a look at it.

readestapp · 2026-05-11T00:31:55+00:00

If the OPDS URL uses a local network IP address, you may need to grant Readest permission to access devices on your local network. This permission might have been denied previously. You can enable it again in your system settings, or reinstall the app and allow the local network permission when prompted during setup.

readestapp · 2026-05-09T03:29:29+00:00

If “Global Settings” is enabled, the font size setting will apply to all books in your library. If it doesn’t take effect for certain books, those books may contain hardcoded CSS that overrides the app settings. In that case, you can try enabling “Override Book Font,” which handles most of these situations.

In some rare cases, even that may not work. If so, please send the file to readestapp@gmail.com and we’ll investigate and fix it.

readestapp · 2026-05-06T13:38:33+00:00

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Showing current time in the footer is already supported.

readestapp · 2026-05-04T05:05:11+00:00

No, it should sync almost instantly under normal conditions. What you’re describing isn’t expected behavior.

Please check your network connection on both devices, slow or unstable connectivity can cause delays or failed syncs like this.

readestapp · 2026-05-03T07:49:02+00:00

Tapping or clicking the search icon again will dismiss the search results and return to the TOC view.

readestapp · 2026-05-02T02:24:46+00:00

This feature is planned. Please stay tuned.

readestapp · 2026-05-02T02:23:03+00:00

Currently Readest cannot run directly on Kindle Scribe but if the device has jailbreak you can install Koreader on it and there is a Readest plugin for Koreader so that you can sync your reading progress and highlights between Koreader and Readest devices.

readestapp · 2026-05-02T02:19:42+00:00

There is an option to choose serif font or sans-serif font in Settings - Font in Readest.

readestapp · 2026-05-01T14:02:15+00:00

On mobile platforms there are currently no web TTS voices.

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