First of all you might be asking, what is an ePub file?
Well an ePub file extension is an Open Publication Structure eBook file, which is a popular eBook standard. And as eBooks are becoming more popular I thought I would share with you how you can open ePub files in Windows as there is no support built into Windows to open these files.
So If a friend send you an ePub file you may not have an application on your PC to view or edit ePubs files.
To test if you have a application to open an ePub file you can try downloading and opening the ePub file below.
Beowulf by J. Lesslie Hall click here to download.
Ok so you have downloaded the Beowulf eBook above and you were unable to open it the next step is to find a application that will help you open the ePub files.
Below is a list of programs that will help you open an ePub file.
Adobe Digital Editions
Calibre
Stanza Desktop
Mobipocket Reader Desktop
Okular
Converting ePub files:
There are a number of ways to convert an ePub file.
* You can open the ePub file in its default program, in this case Adobe Digital Editions and save the file as another format.
* Download Calibre it is one the free applications mentioned above that allows you to convert ePub files to and from eBook formats. This is really helpful if you want to convert files to be compatible with the an Amazon Kindle.
* You can use an online file conversion service.
You will find that most PCs don’t have a “default” program to open or convert ePub files. The application Calibre motioned above is a great solution for opening and converting.
TIP: ePub files are structured exactly the same as Zip files, so if you change the .epub extension to .zip then you will be able to open the file as if it was a zip file.