simPl Reader
A native offline reader for PDF, EPUB, HTML, text and Markdown. It is written in Rust for Windows x64, and an Android app uses the same core.
- Role
- Software developer
- Built with
- Rust, Iced, tiny-skia, PDFium, Android
- Status
- v0.1.5 released for Windows x64, Android MVP
What it does
It keeps a local library, remembers where you stopped, and has a minimal interface with light and dark themes. It saves highlights, notes and bookmarks with your books, and everything works offline.
- Two ways to read PDFs: the original page (Document view) or reconstructed prose with extracted illustrations (Book view).
- Stable page numbers: zooming changes the page size, never its number or the total.
- Read aloud with Windows' installed voices, following the spoken line across pages and chapters.
- Offline word lookup with 13 optional dictionary directions, downloaded only when you need them.
- Verified library backup and restore; export of bookmarks, quotes and notes as Markdown, text or JSON.
Engineering notes
The interface is native. It uses Iced with a CPU renderer and no embedded browser or WebView. PDF Book view rebuilds prose from the PDF's existing text layer (no OCR) and caches each conversion, so switching views and reopening a book are fast.
The app stores reading data in the user's profile, separate from the executable. Restore verifies the archive first, shows a review, and keeps the previous profile in a recovery folder. The app verifies dictionary packages, which total under 20 MB, and decompresses only the active direction.