Plenty of novels exist as HTML, and not only on the web. Project Gutenberg offers its tens of thousands of classics as HTML pages, often with their illustrations. Publishers have sold whole libraries of literature in this form, on USB sticks or DVDs. Fan fiction archives such as Archive of Our Own let you download a story as HTML. And you may have books of your own, laid out that way years ago.
On a computer, nothing could be simpler: a double click, and the browser shows the book. On iPad and iPhone, it's another story. Here is why, and how to read your HTML novels there as comfortably as a book, with Pagira.
Why HTML, for a book?
HTML is not an ebook format, and that is exactly its strength. It is open, documented, DRM-free, readable by any browser for thirty years, and it will still be in twenty. A book in HTML keeps its typography, notes, illustrations and links, chapter by chapter. For a library you want to keep for a long time, it is a sound choice.
Where iPad and iPhone get stuck
An HTML book is rarely a single file: it is a folder, with a contents page, a page per chapter, a style sheet and pictures stored in subfolders. And that is where iOS stumbles:
- The Files app previews one page at a time. Links to the other chapters lead nowhere, and pictures or the layout are often lost.
- Safari can't open an HTML file stored in Files.
- Apple Books reads EPUB and PDF, not HTML.
We went through these dead ends in how to open an HTML file on iPhone and iPad. For a novel, you need more than opening a page: you need to move from one chapter to the next, read for a long time without tiring your eyes, and find your place again.
Should you convert to EPUB?
That's the advice you often read: run each book through Calibre to make an EPUB. For a book or two, it works. But it takes a computer, the conversion sometimes damages the layout, the notes or the illustrations, and for a library of thousands of titles it simply isn't realistic. Better a reader that reads the HTML as it is.
Reading an HTML novel with Pagira
Pagira opens the whole folder and shows it like a browser, but locally: the contents page, the links from one chapter to the next, the style sheet, the pictures. The book looks the way its author or publisher laid it out.
- Text size and colours. Tap Aa (on an upright iPhone, Display in the "..." menu): the text size goes up or down by tenths, and the page turns Sepia or Dark for reading at night. Original keeps the book's own colours and is the default. A pinch still zooms the whole page. This setting came with version 3.1, at a reader's request.
- Brightness in the same menu, without leaving the book.
- Your place. History keeps every page you read, grouped by day, and reopens it where you were. At launch, Pagira can take you straight back to your last reading. Add a book to Favorites: it shows there under its title.
- Offline. A book stored in iCloud Drive streams chapter by chapter, without downloading it all. Before a trip, Download keeps a copy on the device.
An honest note: highlights and notes are for EPUB books and PDFs. In an HTML page, Pagira shows, adjusts and finds, but doesn't annotate.
A whole library, with search
HTML really pays off as the library grows. Open the folder that holds all your books: Pagira browses it the way you arranged it, a folder per author or per century, subfolders included, with nothing to import.
Tap the magnifying glass, then Prepare Search: Pagira reads every book in the folder once, on the device. After that, a word, a character's name or a half-remembered quote can be found across the whole library at once; tap a result, the book opens at the right chapter with your words highlighted. It works at a very large scale too: one reader browses over 200,000 pages of German classics this way, as he tells in this case study.
And if your library mixes formats, as it nearly always does, the EPUBs, PDFs and Word documents in the same folder open in the same reader.
In practice
- Copy the folder of your books to iCloud Drive or to Files, On My iPad. If it comes as a .zip, keep it that way: Pagira unzips it in one tap.
- Install Pagira from the App Store (iPhone and iPad, iOS 17 or later), tap Open a folder or file and pick that folder.
- Open the book's contents page (often
index.html), then Aa to set the text and the colours.
The trial unlocks everything for 20 document openings; opening a folder doesn't count. After that, a one-time purchase of $11.99, with no subscription and no account, and your books never leave your device.
Frequently asked questions
Can you read an HTML book on iPad?
Yes. Pagira opens the book's whole folder: the contents page, the links between chapters, the layout and the pictures work as on a computer, offline.
Does Apple Books read HTML files?
No. Books reads EPUB and PDF. For a book in HTML you need an app like Pagira, which reads the folder as it is.
Can you enlarge the text of an HTML page and read it in dark mode?
Yes. Since version 3.1, Pagira sets the text size of HTML pages and their colours: original, sepia or dark.
Do I need to convert HTML books to EPUB to read them on iPhone?
No. Pagira reads HTML directly, with no computer and no conversion, which keeps the layout, the notes and the illustrations.
Can you search a word across a whole library of HTML books?
Yes. After Prepare Search, Pagira finds a word or a phrase in every book in the folder and opens the right chapter, on the device.
Can I read my HTML books offline?
Yes. A book stored on the device always opens offline, and Download keeps a copy of a book stored in iCloud Drive.
