PDF & EBOOK READER · NO UPLOADS
PDF & eBook Reader.
EPUB, DOCX, TXT & PDFs.
Open books, research papers and manuscripts in the HalfBold reader. Files are converted in your browser and read with half-bold emphasis, without uploading them. Preview the first 2 pages free; read full files with HalfBold Pro.
On a phone? Open this page on your computer to install.
Supported File Formats
Parsed in your browser, without third-party conversion services.
Digital eBooks
Books, novels, and long-form publications converted into flowing typography with clean chapter navigation.
Word Documents
Drafts, research papers, and corporate memos parsed directly with headings and paragraphs preserved.
Raw Plaintext
Notes, transcripts and plain-text exports rendered cleanly without formatting distractions.
Open a file in 3 steps
Open the Side Panel
Click the HalfBold icon in your browser toolbar.
Add a Document
Choose an EPUB, DOCX, TXT or PDF file in the converter.
Start Reading
Read with half-bold emphasis, your fonts and Light or Dark themes (more themes with Pro).
Color Themes
Light and Dark free; Sepia, Cream, Mint, Rose, Blue, Forest and Solarized Dark with Pro.
Font Switching
Sans, serif and monospace fonts, plus OpenDyslexic.
Sizing & Spacing
Custom margins, column widths, and line-heights.
Focus Mode · Pro
Dim everything except the current line, three lines or paragraph.
Read dense PDF books and reports in calm focus
Open web PDFs in the HalfBold PDF reader or add local files. Rendering, reflow and text recognition run on your machine.
Original View
Preserve authentic multi-column page geometry with an instant selectable saccadic text layer.
Smart Reflow
Extract and reflow dense academic papers into distraction-free reading columns.
On-Device OCR
Recognize text in scanned pages on your computer with Tesseract OCR; pages are not sent to an OCR service.
Focus, Pacer & RSVP
Focus line and word magnifier, a guided pacer and the RSVP one-word reader help you keep your place in long PDFs.
OCR and PDF reflow run in your browser. If an OCR language model is not bundled, HalfBold asks before downloading it. Password-protected or DRM-protected files may not open.
Read your PDFs and ebooks with half-bold emphasis
Install free, preview any document's first 2 pages, Full files come with HalfBold Pro, which is planned and not on sale yet.
Free webpage tools · No account needed
On a phone? Open this page on your computer to install.
Questions
Which files can I open in the reader?
PDF files open in the PDF reader, and EPUB, DOCX and TXT files open in the document reader. You can also open PDFs and PDF links from the right-click menu.
Are my documents uploaded anywhere?
No. PDF rendering, reflow and OCR for scanned pages run in your browser, and documents are not uploaded. If an OCR language model is not bundled, HalfBold asks before downloading it.
How many pages can I read for free?
Free users can read the first 2 pages of any PDF or document. Full documents come with HalfBold Pro (planned, not on sale yet).