Copying Books to your Android Device
After installing Aldiko Book Reader, copy a few eBooks onto your SD Card (files must be ePub or PDF). Next, launch Aldiko. Once the app launches you will see a wooden bookshelf with all your eBooks. To add eBooks from your SD card into your Library, first select the home icon and then select SD card. Scroll through your SD card and select the checkbox next to the eBook you would like to add. Then select “Import to Aldiko (1)”.
Reading Books
After you have copied the books you want to read onto Aldiko, go back to your Library. To view your newly added books you may have to change the view mode (in this case I have changed it to view “Books by title”). To read a book, simply click on it. You can scroll through the pages by swiping your finger left to go to the next page and swiping right to go to the previous page. You can also simply tap on the right side of the page to move forward and the left side to move back. Alternatively, you can use the volume keys on your device to scroll through the pages. If you select and highlight a word or passage, you can lookup the definition of the word (“Dictionary“), search your phone for the word or passage (“Search”), copy the word or passage (Copy), or share the word or passage over your social network (Share). If you lookup the definition of a word, you will be presented with options to search the word on Google and Wikipedia. Tapping on the centre of the screen will load the options panels. Home: Clicking on the “home” icon will take you back to your main bookshelf. Search: The search icon (magnifying glass) allows you to search for words or phrases in the book you are currently reading. Location Bar: The location bar shows you how many pages into the book you have read. You can move the bar to scroll through the book you are reading. Go To: If you want to jump to a particular point in the book you can select “Go to…” If you select “Go to…” again from the popup menu, you will be able to select the particular location to jump to in the book. Additionally, the “Table of content” is an automatically generated list of chapters in the book you are reading. You can also add and scroll through bookmarks from this list. Day/Night: Day/Night alternates the colour of the text and the colour of the background depending on your preference. Settings: The settings menu allows you to change the size of the text and margins, the brightness of the screen, the orientation of the book (portrait or landscape), and a number of other options to fine-tune how the text is displayed on your screen.
Buying Books
One of the Aldiko’s best features is the ability to buy eBooks directly from within the app. To browse the eBook store, select “Store” from the home screen. Here you can browse through a variety of eBooks in the Aldiko Online Catalog. The selection is not the best, but if you just want to pick up something to read, I am confident you will find something to your liking. You will need to create an Aldiko account before you are able to purchase a book. You will also presumably have to provide credit card details.
Conclusion
Aldiko is a robust eBook reading app for the Android platform. It has a plethora of features, even though some of the best ones (such as the option to look through the contents of a book) are buried deep within menus. The Aldiko Online Catalog is also a nice touch. Considering the app is completely free, it is highly recommended if you like to read on the move.
