EverythingEbooks

Read and Write Ebooks. All in your browser.

everythingebooks.org

EverythingEbooks is a free ebook reader and writing workspace that runs entirely in your web browser.
No accounts. No subscriptions. No tracking. Your books and manuscripts stay on your computer.

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For Readers

Your personal ebook library with complete control over how you read.

• Reading Essentials — Highlight passages, bookmark pages, take notes, and search across your entire library
• Make It Yours — Adjust fonts, layouts, and colors to create your perfect reading environment
• Smart Tools — Look up words with the built-in dictionary or explore topics with Wikipedia integration
• Read Aloud — Listen to your books with AI-powered text-to-speech
• Parallel Reading — Read two books side by side with synchronized navigation

Click "+Ebook" to add your EPUB files and start reading.

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For Authors

EPUB all the way down. Your ebook is your manuscript.

Write directly in EPUB format from the start. No converting, no exporting, no formatting headaches.
What you write is what readers get.

The Writing Workspace

• Start Fresh — Create a new blank ebook, or import an existing EPUB or Word document
• Organized by Chapters — Front matter, numbered chapters, back matter - all in plain text
• Always Export-Ready — Send your ebook to the Library instantly for reading and listening

AI Assistance (Optional)

If you want AI help, connect your own OpenRouter API key (stored in your browser) to access models from:
Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and more.

AI Editing:

• Line editing with suggestions
• Content analysis for character, plot, and pacing
• Custom prompts for your specific needs

AI Writing:

• Brainstorm characters, plots, and settings
• Generate outlines and story structures
• Build your world from your outline
• Draft chapters that know what came before

Note: AI features require an OpenRouter account. Usage is pay-as-you-go based on the model you choose.

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Getting Started

Visit everythingebooks.org

Readers

2. Click "+Ebook" to add EPUB files
3. Start reading

Authors

1. Click "Authors"
2. Start writing and add chapters, front matter, back matter, no matter (inside author's head)
3. Click "Open" to select other ways to start
4. For AI features:
   Menu > Key to add your OpenRouter API key,
   then Menu > Models to choose your AI

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Privacy First

• Everything stays local — Your ebooks (manuscripts) are stored in your browser, on your computer
• No accounts needed — No sign up, no sign in, no emails
• No tracking — What you read and write is your business
• Nothing uploaded — The only exception is when you choose to use AI features, which sends manuscript text to an AI Model at OpenRouter

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Free Forever & Open Source

No subscriptions. No hidden fees. No premium tiers.

Enjoy writing!

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Run Everything Ebooks on Your Computer Totally Offline

What You'll Need

1. Node.js - Download and install from https://nodejs.org
2. pnpm - After installing Node.js, open Terminal (Mac) or Command Prompt (Windows) and type:
   npm install -g pnpm

Setup (One Time)

1. Download this project as a ZIP file from GitHub and unzip it
2. Open Terminal/Command Prompt and navigate to that folder:
   cd path/to/everything-ebooks
3. Run these commands (one at a time):

pnpm install
pnpm build

Launch the App

pnpm start

Then open your browser to http://localhost:3000

Keep the terminal window open while using the app. Press Ctrl+C to quit.

Important

• Your data stays on your computer - stored in your browser, never uploaded anywhere
• Back up your work - use Storage to Export/Import all your data
• Except AI usage, you can turn off WiFi and internet
• AI features are optional - require an https://openrouter.ai API key and the internet

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Everything Ebooks - it's right there in the name.

A principled stance that aligns perfectly with this app's identity.

★ Insight

• DOCX is one bridge
  • a necessary format for interop with existing publishing tools
  • (Vellum, Atticus, even agents/editors who want Word files)
• Ebooks are the destination
  • EPUB is the native format, and that's where the story lives

The environmental argument holds up too.

• E-readers and cell phones:
  • Already exist in people's pockets
  • One device to read thousands of books, and with tiny fingers write them too
  • No shipping, no pulp, no ink, no warehouse, no fossil fuels

The pipeline is covered:

• Write → PlateJS editor in /authors
• Export → EPUB (native) or DOCX (for Vellum/Atticus)
• Read → /library with a Foliate-based reader

That's a complete ebook-first workflow.

No forests harmed. 🌲 🌴 🪾 🌳 🏝️ 🌱

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Claude Code's 10 minute deep dive into Everything Ebooks

535 source files, ~55,000 lines of TypeScript/TSX. This is a substantial, real application — not a toy.

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/library — The Reader Side

1. Immersive Reading (3 modes)

From what I see in the codebase, a library book can be experienced in three distinct ways:

• Normal EPUB reading — via ReaderModal.tsx → ReaderContent using the custom foliate-js fork (a full EPUB renderer with pagination, themes, font controls). This is traditional e-reader behavior.

• Enhanced HTML reading — htmlReadingService.ts cracks open the EPUB, runs it through html-generator.ts (1,731 lines), and opens a single-page HTML in a new browser tab. If the book has Scenecraft configs, those sections get scroll-driven immersive rendering with ambient audio, dialogue clips, wallpaper backgrounds, fade-in/fade-out audio tied to scroll position. The HtmlRenderEngine.tsx (682 lines) handles the XHTML parsing, audio fade engine, and ContentBlocks rendering.

• On-the-fly Audiobook — AudiobookModal.tsx + audiobookService.ts (898 lines) uses ffmpeg.wasm in-browser to analyze the EPUB's embedded audio files, stitch them together per-chapter with metadata, and build an M4B audiobook file with chapter markers. Then AudiobookPlayer.tsx plays it with chapter navigation. Those ffmpeg console messages you saw? That's the M4B being built live in your browser.

★ Insight
The M4B builder is genuinely unusual — most web apps would punt to a server. This one runs a full FFmpeg pipeline client-side via WebAssembly.

2. Three KDP-Ready PDFs

Three parallel pipelines, all client-side via the custom book-pdf package:

Size	File	Use Case
5x8"	epub-to-pdf-5x8.tsx	Small paperback
6x9"	epub-to-pdf.tsx (606 lines)	Standard paperback
8.5x8.5"	epub-to-pdf-square.tsx	Children's/art books

All use EB Garamond exclusively (10 font variants in packages/book-pdf/fonts/). The square format deliberately omits running headers, page numbers, and TOC — correct for picture books. The pipeline: IndexedDB → JSZip parse → HTML-to-React conversion → book-pdf renders to PDF blob → opens in new tab.

3. X-Ray (Pull Back the Curtain)

xrayService.ts + XrayModal.tsx / XrayFileTree.tsx / XrayContentViewer.tsx — opens the EPUB like a zip file and shows its internal structure as a file tree. You can navigate into META-INF/container.xml, the OPF manifest, individual XHTML chapters, images, CSS — everything. It identifies content types by magic bytes (JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP signatures). Essentially a "View Source" for EPUBs.

4. Web-Ready Download

webReadyService.ts → web-ready-generator.ts (2,712 lines — the biggest single file). Downloads a deployable zip containing:

• index.html with the full immersive HTML reader
• images/ folder with all book images
• audio/ folder with all audio files
• Scenecraft JS engine embedded for scroll-driven audio/visual playback

You upload this zip to any web host and you have a working immersive ebook reader. 2,712 lines is substantial — it's essentially generating a standalone web app. As shown at: https://reader.everythingebooks.org/

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/authors — The Writer Side

5. Working Directly Inside an EPUB

This is the core architectural insight. The manuscript storage (manuscriptStorage.ts) maintains a "Working Copy" that mirrors EPUB structure:

• Sections map 1:1 to EPUB spine items (chapters, front matter, back matter)
• Content is stored as XHTML — the same format EPUBs use internally
• The element type system (elementTypes.ts, 200 lines) enforces proper ebook structure with 6 ordered areas: Required → Front Matter → Introductory → Chapters → Back Matter → No Matter
• 22 section types total (chapter, title-page, copyright, dedication, epilogue, about-the-author, etc.)

★ Insight
This "XHTML-Native" approach is the key differentiator. Authors aren't writing in a proprietary format that gets exported to EPUB — they're writing in the EPUB format from the start. This means Publish is essentially just zipping up what already exists rather than converting from one format to another. That's why it's instant.

The Block Editor (PlateJS)

The editor is PlateJS (Plate.js) — a rich-text framework built on Slate.js. The editor-kit.tsx loads an impressive stack of plugin kits:

• Basic blocks and Visual Narrative
• Media (images, audio), links, emoji
• Lists, alignment, font controls

The conversion layer (plateXhtml.ts) bridges between PlateJS's internal Value format and XHTML, so you edit visually but the underlying data stays EPUB-native.

AI Integration (OpenRouter)

4 categories, 33 AI tools total:

• AI Writing (4): brainstorm, chapter_writer, outline_writer, world_writer
• Core Editing Tools (7): line editing (per-chapter scope), copy editing, developmental editing, narrative analysis (internal + unresolved), proofreader (plot consistency + punctuation)
• Other Editing Tools (16): character analyzer, conflict analyzer, crowding/leaping evaluator, dangling modifier checker, foreshadowing tracker, KDP publishing prep, manuscript-to-characters/outline/world, plot thread tracker, rhythm analyzer, Surmelian analysis, tense consistency checker, adjective/adverb optimizer, Opinionated Critique
• User Tools (6): anything goes, NLP, nonfiction creative/integrity/self-help editing, sourcing audit

Tools are loaded from text prompts in public/tool-prompts/ and can be customized by users (originals vs customized stored in IndexedDB). The useToolsManager.ts handles execution, timing, and results display.

The Writing Assistant (WritingAssistantModal.tsx) is a separate multi-step workflow: Brainstorm → Outline → World Building → Chapters — a guided pipeline for creating a new book from scratch.

Publish to Library

AuthorsLayout.tsx:1820 — the handleSave function:

1. Saves any pending editor changes
2. Loads full working copy + metadata + cover
3. Reorders sections to match sidebar order
4. Generates EPUB via epub-generator.ts (1,431 lines) — includes images, audio, Scenecraft configs
5. Imports into library (replaces previous version by hash)
6. Broadcasts reload message to Library tab via BroadcastChannel

No preview step — it goes straight to a real EPUB in your library. You can immediately open it in the reader to see exactly what readers will see.

Scenecraft

SceneCraftModal.tsx (1,024 lines) + SceneCraftPreview.tsx (516 lines) — a per-chapter/scene system for attaching:

• Wallpaper background images with opacity/position controls
• Ambient audio with volume, looping, fade-in/fade-out durations
• Dialogue clips tied to specific dialogue elements
• Sticky clips and paragraph clips with individual volume controls

The config is stored per-section as JSON in the EPUB. Preview is scroll-driven — as you scroll through the story, audio fades in/out based on which content block is in view. Images and audio are managed through dedicated picker modals with upload/delete.

Other Features Visible in the Code

• Chapter Search — SearchResultsPanel.tsx + search props throughout ChapterSidebar.tsx with per-section match highlighting
• Word Count — total word count in sidebar (totalWordCount), per-section word count in EditorPanel (sectionWordCount)
• Storage Warnings — StorageModal.tsx + TrafficLightIcon in the header (green/yellow/red) with tooltip
• Import formats — .epub, .docx (docxService.ts)
• Export formats — .epub, .docx, HTML, web-ready zip, 3 PDF sizes
• Bookseller download — EPUBCheck-clean EPUB for submission to bookstores
• Manuscript X-Ray — ManuscriptXrayModal.tsx for inspecting the working copy's internal structure
• Chat — SimpleChatModal.tsx for general AI chat
• Cover editor — CoverModal.tsx for setting/changing book cover
• Book metadata — BookInfoModal.tsx for title, author, publisher, etc.

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Typography: The One Gap

You're right — EB Garamond is the only font in the PDF pipeline. For EPUBs this doesn't matter (e-readers override fonts). For PDFs destined for KDP print, some authors would want serif alternatives (Baskerville, Caslon, Garamond Premier) or different display fonts for headings.

★ Insight
Adding font choice to the PDF pipeline is actually fairly contained — the book-pdf package already has font registration, you'd just need to bundle additional .ttf files and expose a font selector in the PDF modals. The three epub-to-pdf*.tsx files all reference fontFamily: 'EBGaramond' in their StyleSheet.create() calls — those would need to become dynamic. It's a real feature gap compared to Atticus/Vellum, but it's also the only significant gap I can see.

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Overall Assessment

This is a genuinely ambitious, well-architected application. The local-first, XHTML-native design is a smart architectural bet — no server, no accounts, no conversion losses. The dual-mode (reader + author) sharing the same EPUB format means what you write is literally what you read.

The feature density per 55K lines is high. Scenecraft (immersive scroll-driven audio/visual storytelling), client-side M4B audiobook building, three KDP PDF formats, 33 AI editing tools, a full PlateJS rich-text editor, web-ready deployable exports — each of these would be a product feature at a commercial tool. Having them all in one local-first app is the value proposition against Atticus and Vellum.

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