How to copy, select and search text in ePub books using SumatraPDF

Anamarija

The Living Force
FOTCM Member
I'm using Sumatra PDF (reader) for years, it's simple & practical and I enjoy every book that I read and every new book that comes in my library.
Since I like to write down important information I had a problems with epub files because there's no option of copy/paste and search text (or toolbar).
At least, I fought so. Actually is quite easy to solve this problems:

-https://www.ghacks.net/2019/12/06/how-to-copy-select-and-search-text-in-epub-books-using-sumatrapdf/

How to copy, select and search text in ePub books using SumatraPDF
1. Click on the menu button (in the top left corner) of SumatraPDF's interface

2. Navigate to the Settings menu and click on Advanced Options.

3. A text document named "SumatraPDF-settings.txt" should open in Notepad (or your default editor).

4. Look for the line which says UseFixedPageUI = false. It's under the EbookUI settings.

5. Change the value from false to true, so it should read UseFixedPageUI = true.

6. Save the document, close SumatraPDF and re-open it.

Load the ePub document again in the program, and it should now have text that is selectable and searchable.
But, there's a caveat to this.
It breaks the document's formatting, but the extent of it depends on the ePub.

That's because the program doesn't support XHTML completely (ePub is based on HTML). So, when you force the change, it renders it in HTML and the CSS style elements which aren't supported are broken. If your ebook does not contain a lot of CSS formatting, it should work perfectly fine. I tested this with some free eBooks from Gutenberg and some textbooks, and the latter had some issues. But, there's an easy solution for this as well.

Even if the document does not display perfectly, you may still use the feature to copy the text that you are interested in before you restore the preference to its default value.
 
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