react-native-readium

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Overview

A react-native wrapper for https://readium.org/. At a high level this package allows you to do things like:

• Render an ebook view.
• Register for location changes (as the user pages through the book).
• Access publication metadata including table of contents, positions, and more via the onPublicationReady callback
• Control settings of the Reader. Things like:
  • Dark Mode, Light Mode, Sepia Mode
  • Font Size
  • Page Margins
  • More (see the Settings documentation in the API section)
• Etc. (read on for more details. 📖)

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Usage
• Supported Formats & DRM
• API
• Contributing
• Release
• License

Dark Mode	Light Mode

Installation

Prerequisites

1. iOS: Requires an iOS target >= 13.0 (see the iOS section for more details).
2. Android: Requires compileSdkVersion >= 31 (see the Android section for more details).

This library uses Nitro Modules and supports both the old and new React Native architectures.

Install Module

NPM

npm install react-native-readium react-native-nitro-modules

Yarn

yarn add react-native-readium react-native-nitro-modules

iOS

Requirements:

• Minimum iOS deployment target: iOS 13.4
• Swift compiler: Swift 6.0
• Xcode: Xcode 16.2 (or newer)

The Readium pods live in a custom spec repo, so you need to add the Readium source to your Podfile (see more on that here).

Breaking change when upgrading from v4 to v5!

If you are migrating from v4 to v5, please note that you must update your iOS Podfile to add the Readium spec repo source and the readium_pods / readium_post_install helpers shown below.

# ./ios/Podfile
source 'https://github.com/readium/podspecs'
source 'https://cdn.cocoapods.org/'

...

platform :ios, '13.4'

...

target 'ExampleApp' do
  config = use_native_modules!
  ...
  readium_pods
  ...
  post_install do |installer|
    react_native_post_install(installer, ...)
    readium_post_install(installer)
  end
end

Finally, install the pods:

pod install

Android

Breaking change when upgrading from v4 to v5!

This release upgrades the Android native implementation to a newer Readium Kotlin Toolkit. Most apps won’t need code changes, but your Android build configuration might.

Requirements:

• JDK 17 is required to build the Android app (the library targets Java/Kotlin 17).
• compileSdkVersion must be >= 31.

If you're not using compileSdkVersion >= 31 you'll need to update that:

// android/build.gradle
...
buildscript {
    ...
    ext {
        ...
        compileSdkVersion = 31
...

Core library desugaring (may be required)

If you see build errors related to missing Java 8+ APIs (commonly java.time.*), enable core library desugaring in your app:

// android/app/build.gradle
android {
  ...
  compileOptions {
    coreLibraryDesugaringEnabled true
  }
}

dependencies {
  coreLibraryDesugaring "com.android.tools:desugar_jdk_libs:2.1.2"
}

Expo managed workflow

If your app uses Expo managed workflow (native android/ is generated via prebuild / EAS), apply the desugaring settings through an Expo config plugin (or expo-build-properties) so they persist across builds.

Usage

Basic Example

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import { ReadiumView } from 'react-native-readium';
import type { File } from 'react-native-readium';

const MyComponent: React.FC = () => {
  const [file] = useState<File>({
    url: SOME_LOCAL_FILE_URL,
  });

  return <ReadiumView file={file} />;
};

Using Publication Metadata

Access the table of contents, positions, and metadata when the publication is ready:

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import { ReadiumView } from 'react-native-readium';
import type { File, PublicationReadyEvent } from 'react-native-readium';

const MyComponent: React.FC = () => {
  const [file] = useState<File>({
    url: SOME_LOCAL_FILE_URL,
  });

  const [toc, setToc] = useState([]);

  const handlePublicationReady = (event: PublicationReadyEvent) => {
    console.log('Title:', event.metadata.title);
    console.log('Author:', event.metadata.author);
    console.log('Table of Contents:', event.tableOfContents);
    console.log('Positions:', event.positions);

    setToc(event.tableOfContents);
  };

  return (
    <ReadiumView file={file} onPublicationReady={handlePublicationReady} />
  );
};

Highlights & Note Taking

The selectionActions, decorations, onSelectionAction, and onDecorationActivated props work together to build highlighting and note-taking features. Here's how the flow works:

1. Define selection actions to add custom items to the text selection context menu.
2. Handle onSelectionAction to capture what the user selected and which action they chose.
3. Create a Decoration from the selection's locator and add it to your decorations state.
4. Handle onDecorationActivated to let users tap existing highlights to edit or delete them.

import React, { useState, useCallback } from 'react';
import { ReadiumView } from 'react-native-readium';
import type {
  File,
  Decoration,
  DecorationGroup,
  SelectionAction,
  SelectionActionEvent,
  DecorationActivatedEvent,
} from 'react-native-readium';

// Register a "Highlight" action in the text selection context menu
const selectionActions: SelectionAction[] = [
  { id: 'highlight', label: 'Highlight' },
];

const MyReader: React.FC<{ file: File }> = ({ file }) => {
  const [decorations, setDecorations] = useState<DecorationGroup[]>([
    { name: 'highlights', decorations: [] },
  ]);

  // User tapped "Highlight" in the selection menu
  const handleSelectionAction = useCallback((event: SelectionActionEvent) => {
    if (event.actionId === 'highlight') {
      const newHighlight: Decoration = {
        id: `highlight-${Date.now()}`,
        locator: event.locator,
        style: {
          type: 'highlight',
          tint: '#FFFF00',
        },
        extras: {
          note: '',
          selectedText: event.selectedText,
        },
      };

      setDecorations((prev) =>
        prev.map((g) =>
          g.name === 'highlights'
            ? { ...g, decorations: [...g.decorations, newHighlight] }
            : g
        )
      );
    }
  }, []);

  // User tapped on an existing highlight
  const handleDecorationActivated = useCallback(
    (event: DecorationActivatedEvent) => {
      const { decoration } = event;
      // Show an edit/delete dialog for this highlight
      console.log('Tapped highlight:', decoration.id);
      console.log('Note:', decoration.extras?.note);
    },
    []
  );

  return (
    <ReadiumView
      file={file}
      decorations={decorations}
      selectionActions={selectionActions}
      onSelectionAction={handleSelectionAction}
      onDecorationActivated={handleDecorationActivated}
    />
  );
};

Key concepts:

• DecorationGroup: A named group of decorations (e.g. "highlights", "underlines"). Pass an array of groups to the decorations prop.
• Decoration: A single visual annotation. It references a location in the publication via a Locator and defines its appearance via a DecorationStyle (supported types: "highlight", "underline").
• extras: An optional Record<string, string> on each Decoration where you can store arbitrary metadata like notes, timestamps, or the original selected text.
• onSelectionChange: Fires as the user adjusts their text selection, useful for showing a live preview or tracking selection state.

Take a look at the Example App for a full implementation with color picking, note editing, and highlight management.

Supported Formats & DRM

Format Support

Format	Support	Notes
Epub 2	✅
Epub 3	✅
PDF	❌	On the roadmap, feel free to submit a PR or ask for direction.
CBZ	❌	On the roadmap, feel free to submit a PR or ask for direction.

Missing a format you need? Reach out and see if it can be added to the roadmap.

DRM Support

DRM is not supported at this time. However, there is a clear path to support it via LCP and the intention is to eventually implement it.

API

View Props

Name	Type	Optional	Description
file	File	❌	A file object containing the path to the eBook file on disk.
location	Locator | Link	✅	A locator prop that allows you to externally control the location of the reader (e.g. Chapters or Bookmarks). ⚠️ If you want to set the location of an ebook on initial load, you should use the File.initialLocation property (look at the file prop). See more here
preferences	Partial<Preferences>	✅	An object that allows you to control various aspects of the reader's UI (epub only)
decorations	DecorationGroup[]	✅	An array of decoration groups to render in the publication (e.g. highlights, underlines).
selectionActions	SelectionAction[]	✅	Custom actions to show in the context menu when the user selects text.
style	ViewStyle	✅	A traditional style object.
onLocationChange	(locator: Locator) => void	✅	A callback that fires whenever the location is changed (e.g. the user transitions to a new page).
onPublicationReady	(event: PublicationReadyEvent) => void	✅	A callback that fires once the publication is loaded and provides access to the table of contents, positions, and metadata. See the PublicationReadyEvent interface for details.
onDecorationActivated	(event: DecorationActivatedEvent) => void	✅	A callback that fires when a user taps on a decoration (e.g. a highlight).
onSelectionChange	(event: SelectionEvent) => void	✅	A callback that fires when the user's text selection changes.
onSelectionAction	(event: SelectionActionEvent) => void	✅	A callback that fires when the user taps a custom selection action from the context menu.

Ref Methods

The ReadiumView component accepts a ref that exposes imperative navigation methods:

import React, { useRef } from 'react';
import { ReadiumView } from 'react-native-readium';
import type { ReadiumViewRef } from 'react-native-readium';

const MyComponent: React.FC = () => {
  const ref = useRef<ReadiumViewRef>(null);

  return (
    <>
      <ReadiumView ref={ref} file={file} />
      <Button title="Next" onPress={() => ref.current?.goForward()} />
      <Button title="Previous" onPress={() => ref.current?.goBackward()} />
    </>
  );
};

Method	Description
goForward()	Navigate forward in the publication (e.g. next page).
goBackward()	Navigate backward in the publication (e.g. previous page).

⚠️ Web vs Native File URLs

Please note that on web the File.url should be a web accessible URL path to the manifest.json of the unpacked epub. In native contexts it needs to be a local filepath to the epub file itself on disk. If you're not sure how to serve epub books take a look at this example which is based on the dita-streamer-js project (which is built on all the readium r2-*-js libraries)

Contributing

See the contributing guide to learn how to contribute to the repository and the development workflow.

Release

The standard release command for this project is:

yarn version

This command will:

1. Generate/update the Changelog
2. Bump the package version
3. Tag & pushing the commit

e.g.

yarn version --new-version 1.2.17
yarn version --patch // 1.2.17 -> 1.2.18

Sponsor The Library

If you'd like to sponsor a specific feature, fix, or the library in general, please reach out on an issue and we'll have a conversation!

License

MIT