The Reader
A distraction-free page to read your own files in.
About this page
The reading counterpart of the blank page: bring a plain text or Markdown file, a PDF, an EPUB or a Word document from your device, with rain to read inside and a light that follows the sky. Text, Markdown, EPUB and Word are set in Garamond in one continuous column. PDFs keep their original pages, type and images, with page navigation and zoom. The file is opened in the browser, and the page keeps only your place in it—close the tab, come back, open the same file, and you are where you stopped.
Questions
Is my file uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is read in the browser and never leaves your device—there is no server on the other end of this page, no account, and nothing is sent anywhere.
Does the page keep my file?
No. The text itself is never stored; when you leave, it is gone from the page. The only thing remembered is where you stopped—a bookmark, kept on your device, so that opening the same file again returns you to your place—and any passage you choose to keep.
Can I keep a passage?
Yes. Select a sentence or two and a small prompt offers to keep it, to write a note about it, or to highlight it. What you keep goes into your drawer in The House, in this browser, under the file’s name. A highlight is found again by its words, so it is there when you open the same file another day. Only the passages you choose are kept; the rest of the file never is.
Which formats can it read?
Plain text, Markdown, PDF, EPUB and Word. PDFs retain their original layout, including scanned pages. Text can be selected when the PDF contains a text layer; scanned images have no selectable text. Password-protected PDFs need to be unlocked before opening here. A .txt file arrives in UTF-8 or the older Turkish encoding, which the page tells apart on its own so no character arrives broken; an EPUB or a Word .docx is unpacked and set in the page’s own type in the browser—no reader app, no library. Markdown (.md or .markdown) keeps headings, emphasis, quotations, lists, tables and code in the same quiet column, with headings in the contents menu. Raw HTML appears as text; images appear as their descriptions.
Why won’t a book I bought open?
Files bought from most stores carry the seller’s lock, and a locked copy cannot be opened here—the page says so plainly rather than showing broken text. A book you own as a plain EPUB opens fine.
What is on the shelf?
A few small things, kept behind the lines button in the corner: the table of contents when the file carries one, rain and brown noise to read inside, four sizes of type for flowing text, and the light—light, dark, or following the sky. PDF page navigation and zoom appear above the page. Close the panel and return to reading.
More instruments: a desk for two instruments, ambient noise and rain and today’s twilight—or see all of them. Or search the site.