Advanced
Power-user features and reference material.
Gestures
Quick reference for touch and mouse interactions in the reader. For keyboard users, see Keyboard shortcuts below.
| Gesture | Action |
|---|---|
| Tap / click center of page | Toggle the top and bottom toolbars |
| Tap / click left edge | Previous page |
| Tap / click right edge | Next page |
| Swipe left / right | Turn page (mobile) |
| Long-press / double-click | Start text selection and open the popup toolbar |
| Pinch | Zoom in / out (PDF and image-based books) |
Selection-popup actions (Copy, Highlight, Translate, etc.) are listed under Reading → Gestures & shortcuts.
Keyboard shortcuts
Complete reference. On macOS, Cmd replaces Ctrl.
General
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
S | Toggle sidebar |
N | Toggle notebook |
Ctrl+F | Search in book |
Ctrl+B | Toggle bookmark |
Shift+J | Toggle scroll mode |
Shift+S | Toggle select mode |
Shift+P | Toggle paragraph mode |
Ctrl+, / Shift+F | Open settings |
Ctrl+Shift+P | Command palette |
? | Show keyboard shortcuts |
Ctrl+O | Open books |
Shift+R | Reload page |
Navigation
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
← / H | Previous page |
→ / L / Space | Next page |
↑ / K | Scroll up |
↓ / J | Scroll down |
PgUp / PgDn | Previous / next page |
D | Scroll half page down |
U | Scroll half page up |
Alt+← | Previous chapter |
Alt+→ | Next chapter |
Shift+← | Go back (history) |
Shift+→ | Go forward (history) |
Text-to-speech
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
T | Toggle TTS |
Space (while playing) | Play / Pause |
Ctrl+] | Next sentence |
Ctrl+[ | Previous sentence |
Ctrl+Shift+} | Next paragraph |
Ctrl+Shift+{ | Previous paragraph |
Selection actions
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
Ctrl+C | Copy |
Ctrl+H | Highlight |
Ctrl+U | Underline |
Ctrl+N | Annotate |
Ctrl+T | Translate |
Ctrl+D | Dictionary |
Ctrl+W | Wikipedia |
Ctrl+R | Read aloud |
Ctrl+P | Proofread |
Zoom
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
Ctrl+= | Zoom in |
Ctrl+- | Zoom out |
Ctrl+0 | Reset zoom |
Window
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
F11 | Toggle fullscreen |
Ctrl+Q | Quit app |
Also see the Keyboard Shortcuts wiki page.
Proofread rules
Proofread rules are user-defined find-and-replace patterns. They're useful for:
- Fixing OCR artifacts in older scanned EPUBs
- Expanding abbreviations so TTS reads them correctly (e.g., "LLM" → "large language model" for audio only)
- Applying a consistent typographic pass (dumb quotes → smart quotes)
Open Book Menu → Proofread. Each rule has:
- Pattern — plain text or a regular expression
- Replacement — what to substitute
- Match options — case-sensitive, whole word only
- Scope — Selection, Book, or Library
- Apply to — Display, TTS-only, or both
Rules run in priority order (lower number first). TTS-only rules are the right choice when you want the audio to read "LLM" as "large language model" while keeping "LLM" in the visible text.
Test a rule on a selection first (scope = Selection) before promoting it to the whole library.
File associations
Setting Readest as the default app for EPUB/PDF/etc. lets you double-click a book from your file manager to open it in Readest.
- macOS — right-click a book → Get Info → Open with → pick Readest → Change All.
- Windows — right-click a book → Open with → Choose another app → pick Readest → check Always use this app.
- Linux — depends on desktop environment. GNOME: right-click → Properties → Open With → set Readest as default. KDE: similar.
On mobile, the OS handles file associations through the share sheet — "Open in Readest" appears wherever a book file can be shared.
Verify release files
Desktop releases are signed with minisign. Verifying confirms the installer came from the Readest maintainers and wasn't tampered with in transit. Each download on the Releases page has a matching .sig file.
Full platform-specific examples and key-extraction steps are on the Verifying Readest Release Files wiki page.