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I'm looking for an iBooks-like eBook reading application for Windows that would allow me to import both PDF and ePub eBooks.

My understanding is that Microsoft's recommendation is to use the Microsoft Edge browser on Windows 10, which can both open PDF and ePub documents. However there's one big flaw that prevents me from using it: For PDF eBooks it doesn't keep the last page position. After every browser restart, the reading position is the first page. (For ePub, it seems to keep the reading position). As of this writing, this is even the case with the latest Win10 insider build (17115.rs4_release.180302-1642).

Are there any alternatives that you can recommend?

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I can recommend Calibre for both managing e-book readers as well as stand-alone e-book reading.

It will manage multiple file types including PDF and epub, along with mobi and so many others.

The listing of supported book types includes PDF and places it in the last position, validated by stating:

PDF documents are one of the worst formats to convert from. They are a fixed page size and text placement format. Meaning, it is very difficult to determine where one paragraph ends and another begins.

I can confirm that this is correct. It can be resolved by sizing the reading window and changing the font size to get close(r) to the native settings for the PDF.

I can also confirm after testing moments ago that it will remember your previous page location after closing the window containing the document as well as closing the program and re-opening later.

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  • Thanks for the suggestion. I've extensively tried Calibre, but it's PDF rendering is rather poor. If you have a PDF eBook that is more than "just text" (i.e. complex layout, etc) then Calibre completely destroys the layout (probably because it's trying to detect text paragraphs to display them similar to other ebook formats - instead of just rendering the PDF, like iBooks does). I think using Calibre as eBook library is great. But for PDFs you need an external viewer. And that's what I'm still looking for...
    – Chris
    Commented Mar 11, 2018 at 9:01
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If you just need a pdf and epub reader, you might try okular. Alternatively, for something more like Calibre, you could check out Icecream Ebook Reader

screenshot

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