wxReadBook

Text documents can be found under quite the variety of formats and encoding settings. Chances are you simply want to read, without the risk of accidentally messing up content. Sure enough this can be done with Windows basic text editors, but applications like wxReadBook come with a comfortable environment dedicated to reading.

Since you’re not taken through a setup process to make the application work, it can be launched right after download. You can also store it on a USB flash drive in case you want to use it on other computers besides your own. It runs in a lightweight environment which doesn’t affect the stability of the target PC, keeping registry entries intact.

As far as the visual design is concerned, the application is pretty similar to Notepad in terms of style. Most of the space is the preview area, while the upper menu bar holds a variety of functions to make reading more comfortable. Sadly, loading a file needs to be done through the browse dialog because drag and drop is not a supported operation.

There’s the possibility to load plain, rich text files, as well as HTML documents. The preferred encoding can be selected, with options for UTF7, UTF8, and several variations of Unicode. HTML files can either be viewed as source code or text content.

You can enlarge the reading screen by switching to a fullscreen mode. Since editing is not a supported operation, there’s no caret present in the preview area either, which can make it a bit difficult to track text. However, there’s the option to add and manage bookmarks, and configure font options, such as style, font type, color, size, and background color.

All things considered, we can state that wxReadBook comes with good intentions, but without at least basic editing options, overall practicality has to suffer. On the other hand, reading is pretty comfortable, with easy navigation through content, built-in bookmarks manager, and option to configure how text is displayed.