Ebook Reader
Read the epubs in your Audiobookshelf library, search inside a book, and jump to the page your narrator is on
Plenty of Audiobookshelf libraries hold the epub next to the audio. SoundLeaf reads it, and reading costs nothing: this sits outside Pro entirely.
Opening a Book
If a library item has an epub alongside its audio, a Read button appears on the item screen and in the player. Tap it and the reader opens.
Audiobookshelf serves the epub from the same library item, so nothing needs setting up on the server as long as the file is there. In Audiobookshelf a book can carry both an audio file and an ebook file in the same folder, and that’s what SoundLeaf looks for.
Reading Settings
Tap the screen to bring up the reader controls. Font, text size, line spacing, page margins and theme are all yours to set.
These are the reader’s own settings, separate from the app-wide theme, so you can read on a dark page while the rest of the app stays light.
Offline
After the first open, the reader works with no connection. The epub is on your device.
When you download a book’s audio, its epub comes along with it. Books you downloaded before v2.1 existed, and books where the epub was added to your server later, get picked up on a later pass rather than being stuck without one. Epubs count toward the numbers on the Storage screen.
Your Position Syncs Both Ways
Your place in the book syncs with the Audiobookshelf web reader in both directions. Read on your laptop at lunch, pick up your phone on the train, and you’re on the right page. The reverse works the same way.
This is separate from your audio progress. A book can have you at chapter 12 in the audio and page 40 in the text, and neither one disturbs the other.
Search Inside a Book
Tap search in the reader to search the open book. Results show:
- The chapter name each hit is in
- How far into that chapter it sits
There’s a button to get you back to where you were reading, so a search never loses your place.
Go to Position
While a book is playing, tap Go to Position in the reader and it opens the page the narrator is currently reading out loud.
How It Works
Your phone does the recognition itself. No audio is uploaded and no transcription service is involved. If the track isn’t downloaded, SoundLeaf pulls just that slice of it from your own server.
- SoundLeaf takes about ten seconds of audio from your listening position
- It turns that speech into words, on device
- It searches the epub for those words, scoring every candidate stretch of text
- It scrolls to the best match, shifted slightly forward so you land where the voice is now
When It Misses
It can land a page or two off. The matching step is the weak part, and books that reuse a turn of phrase are the hard case: a short clip of narration does not always point at one place in the text and nowhere else.
If it misses, use reader search. Search a distinctive phrase you just heard and it will take you straight there.
Requirements
- The library item needs an epub. No epub, no jump.
- A book needs to be playing, or recently played, so there’s audio to sample.
Troubleshooting
No Read button on a book I know has an epub
Check the item in the Audiobookshelf web UI and confirm the epub is attached to that library item. If the book was downloaded before v2.1, its epub is fetched on a later pass rather than immediately.
The reader opens but the position is wrong
Audio progress and reading position are tracked separately. Use Go to Position or reader search to line them up.
Position isn’t syncing with the web reader
Reading position syncs through your Audiobookshelf server, so the app needs to have reached the server at least once since you read. Open the app with a connection and it catches up.