How to use SchriftOhr

● The front door

SchriftOhr opens to your reading: today's minutes across all your devices, the book you're in, and every book you own. (Prefer landing straight in your last book? Settings → Open the last book when the app starts.)

Continue Reading — the heading across the top of that page, with See All beside it — gives the book you're in a card of its own — cover, chapter, and how far through you are — with the books you've been in lately alongside, from any of your devices and each stamped with where it was last read. The − and + set the cover size; on a phone the arrow beside them aims the pair at whichever shelf is showing. Press and hold any cover for its menu.

Below sit two doors and one search box. Library is everything you own, wherever it lives; Folders is the folders themselves — your library's own, and any you've attached. Whichever door is open, typing searches it: the filter button narrows to a shelf, an author, or a series, and the chip on the right chooses between searching everything and searching only the folder you're standing in. The trail of folder names walks you back, and SchriftOhr returns you where you were.

A folder shows the two books you last read from it, so a shelf is recognisable before you open it. A book with no cover of its own gets one drawn in its format's colours — blue for EPUB, gold for PDF, burnt orange for Markdown — and any file that isn't an EPUB wears a small tag saying what it is, even when it has a cover to show.

The stats line at the top opens Reading Stats; the toolbar holds your Reading List and What's New; the footer keeps this guide and the sync line.

● Open a book

Nothing to read yet? Folders → Find New Books opens the SchriftOhr Editions — our own public-domain texts, newly proofed — and the public catalogs beside them. One tap and you're reading.

Find New Books (in Folders, and in Settings → Library) browses free public-domain catalogs — Project Gutenberg is built in — plus any OPDS catalog of your own, including a calibre content server on your network. Get downloads straight into your library.

Catalogs outside SchriftOhr's review are age-gated, and the app says so before anything opens: they need an account the system reports as 18 or over, or a parent's say-so on this device. The notice offers both roads — check now, or open Settings → External Catalogs, where a parent finds the status, the re-check, and their own approval. SchriftOhr never sees a birthdate, only whether the account is 18 or over.

Choose Book opens an EPUB, PDF, Markdown or plain-text file, a comic (CBZ), or an audiobook (m4b, m4a, mp3). On a Mac you can also drop the file anywhere in the window.

Have a folder full of books? Folders → Add a Folder of Your Own. The app reads them where they lie — nothing is moved, renamed, or deleted — and Library sifts the lot by folder, author, or series, as a list or a wall of covers at any size.

All books here is your library: it travels through iCloud to every device signed into your account, and you can make folders inside it to sort it your own way. Folders you attach stay on the device that attached them. Touch one of their books and the app asks, before anything opens: add a copy to your Library (it follows you everywhere), open it here only, or cancel if you didn’t mean to touch it.

The library shows the truth of the folder: a book still up in iCloud appears with a small cloud mark, and opening it downloads it on the spot. Deleting a book isn't goodbye — it waits in Recently removed for 30 days (the door appears under the library whenever something's there), where one tap restores it. Detaching a folder of your own never touches the books inside it.

And Where to find books lists free libraries and publishers who sell you an EPUB you actually own.

● Get the voices

Settings → Voice → Engine. The Neural engine downloads once (about 350 MB) and then works entirely offline — eighteen voices, on device.

Every book remembers its own voice. Pick one from the voice menu on the audio board, and set the pace with the tortoise and the hare.

A voice that won't speak? The ⋯ menu → Voice → Voice status shows what every voice can do on this machine.

● Listen

Press play. The page follows the voice — highlight, underline, and page turns arrive together.

The small capsule above the controls cycles the audio board: full, slim, hidden. The lighter capsule below it tucks the tools row.

Auto page turn: the speaker-in-a-red-circle button on Reading Controls mutes the voice while the pages keep turning and the highlight keeps walking — reading on a stand, hands free. Silent reading keeps its own speed, separate from the spoken one — each mode remembers its pace, and the speed controls adjust whichever is live.

Skip 30 seconds back or 15 ahead, jump chapters, or use the lock screen — playback keeps going with the screen off. Screen off (in the tools) is Listen from here with the lights out: it starts reading from the page you are on and blanks the screen, for driving at night or listening without the page in front of you. Tap to bring it back.

● Read

The Aa panel sets font, size, theme, margins, and the layout: a paged book or a continuous scroll. The Font menu carries a few good faces, every font installed on the device — and Import Font File…, which takes a TTF or OTF of your own and reads every book in it from then on.

Turn pages by tapping the edges (the faint chevrons mark the spots), swiping, or with arrow keys on a keyboard.

Reading outdoors? Reading Style → Bright Sun turns everything to full contrast at once — pure white page, pure black ink at a heavier weight, no faint grays — and switches back to exactly what you had. Bolder text is also its own toggle, any theme.

The bottom-left indicator cycles percent → time left → page numbers → hidden. Tap it to change.

The page number at the bottom center is a door: tap it and Reading Controls opens — transport, speed, voice, sleep timer, everything. The ⋯ mark reaches the same place the long way around.

Press and hold any word: Look Up opens the dictionary, Listen from here starts the voice at that sentence without leaving the page, and Highlight or Note keeps the passage.

● Your reading list

Done with a book? Press and hold it on the front door: Mark as Read files it to your reading list and asks how it was — five stars, skippable. Mark as Left means "I don't plan to finish" — no rating, no judgment, and its place is kept for the day you come back.

Finish the last chapter after a real session and the app offers to file it for you — once, and never again if you decline.

The Reading List — the checkmark in the front door's toolbar, or from Reading Stats — holds everything: what you're reading, what you've read with its stars, and what you've left. Search it, sort it, re-rate in place, or return any book to the shelf.

Opening a Left book asks the only fair question: pick up where you left off, or start over? Either way it's reading again.

Reading Stats keeps the journal — every finished book as its cover, with the stars it earned and the hours it took.

Remove a book from Continue Reading on just this device, or everywhere at once. Reading it again always brings it back; nothing is ever lost for good.

● Comics & PDFs

Comics and graphic novels open as pages, held up full-bleed and turned with the same edge taps and swipes — EPUB, PDF, or CBZ alike, even scans with no text layer. The folio is literal: 121 of 448. There's no voice on picture pages; there's nothing to read aloud.

A text PDF reads reflowed, cleaned for listening — running heads and bare page numbers are stripped so the voice doesn't recite them. Want the real thing? Reader Style offers True Pages: the PDF's own layout, figures and all, with its own remembered spot.

● Battery

SchriftOhr is built to be the cheapest thing on your phone. The voice renders on the Neural Engine — the most efficient silicon in the device — and while it plays, nothing in the app wakes on a timer to count the time; the sentences themselves carry the bookkeeping.

The screen costs more than the voice. Screen off (in the Listen tools) is the biggest battery saver the app has: the voice reads on while the display rests. On phones with OLED screens, a dark theme also helps at high brightness.

Low Power Mode is respected: the app shortens its read-ahead, rests the word highlight, and stops holding the screen awake — and says so in the Sync Log. If the phone runs warm, synthesis narrows to one sentence at a time until it cools.

Keep Screen Awake (Settings → Listening) trades battery for a always-on page. It's your choice; the cost is real.

Settings → Device health shows the receipts: live battery, brightness, and heat; what today's listening cost; and Apple's own daily scorecard for the app, with arrows against yesterday.

● Your notebook

Every kept passage and bookmark lives in the Notebook (in Contents), in reading order, with your notes.

Long-press a row to edit its note, remove just the note, or delete the entry. Export the whole notebook as Markdown any time.

● Reading Together

⋯ menu → Book → Reading Circle starts a circle on the open book — a shared reading with whoever you invite. Members see where each reader stands, talk in threads, and the circle follows you to all your devices.

Invitations are links. A reading invitation lets someone follow the circle; a voice invitation lets them post. The circle is sealed end-to-end — the key travels only inside the link, the server holds only ciphertext — and anyone with the link can follow along in a browser at reading.schriftohr.com, no app needed. Everyone brings their own copy: the circle shares the conversation, never the book's files.

Violet is the group's pen. Your marigold, fern, sky, and rose stay yours alone — mark a passage violet in a circled book and it appears in your circle-mates' books with your name, the moment you make it.

For the meetings themselves: in Contents, Make a Reading Plan divides the book into sessions — chapters stay whole, front matter rides with the first evening, end notes with the last. Each session wears a radio you fill as you finish; give the plan a meeting place and a cadence and every session gets its evening.

No circle? Sharing still works by hand: export violet passages from the Notebook — with your comments or without — and import a friend's file to see theirs. Settings → Reading Together sets the name you share under and can remove everything a person shared, per person.

● A cast of voices

⋯ menu → Configure Voice → Use voices in this book assigns a voice to each character; the narrator reads everything else.

The app attributes dialogue by reading the book — who said what — and you can settle any line it wasn't sure about by hand. Or cast by gender and let every he-said and she-said sort itself.

Prepared audio keeps every sentence the voice renders, so nothing is synthesized twice — starts become instant, re-listens free, and the voice model can rest while prepared chapters play. Settings → Listening chooses the mode, depth, and size; receipts live in Usage & battery.

On Apple Intelligence devices, an AI second reader can re-read the lines the rules couldn't call — one chapter ahead of you, entirely on the device. Settings → Listening chooses off, while charging, or always; its cost is measured in Usage & battery.

● Say it right

A name the voice mangles? ⋯ menu → Voice → Pronunciation: teach the word once, press Hear it until it sounds right, and every book uses it from then on.

Pronunciations follow you to your other devices automatically.

Share them too: Pronunciation → Share your fixes can Export a file for a friend, Import theirs, or mail your list to the makers — the best fixes ship with the app for everyone.

● Make it yours

The ⋯ menu is yours to arrange: Customize this Menu (at its foot, or from Settings) pulls the tools you use into your own order, riding together nearest your thumb. Everything else stays in its usual group — each tool lives in exactly one place, and Settings, Help, and Reading Controls never move.

Your menu follows you to every device. A device can keep a menu of its own instead — the toggle is right in the organizer, and switching back never loses the order you made.

Settings is the catalog: everything customizable is either there or one clearly named door away — the ⋯ menu organizer, Reader Style for the page itself, voices, listening, screen behavior, and your devices.

● Everything follows you

Your place in every book, your notebook, your casts, your pronunciations, your reading list, and your reading journal sync through iCloud between your devices. Nothing to set up.

Reading positions know where they were made — "Chapter 12 · iPad mini · 22 minutes ago." If another device is further along, opening the book takes you there and says so in a small capsule at the top: "Continued from iPad mini — chapter 14." Back to mine returns you to this device's own spot, if it had one.

Settings → Devices names this device for those stamps, and lets you rename or remove old ones.

The opening page's footer shows when everything last synced — Refresh pulls it all now.

Read on an e-ink device with KOReader? Settings → KOReader sync shares one reading position with it — the same file, the same spot. Their place appears under Where You Left Off; choosing it lands on the nearest sentence.

● Export an audiobook

On iPhone, iPad, or Mac, Export renders the whole book to an m4b audiobook — chapters, cover art, your voice choices, and your cast included. Pick the chapters, name the owner stamp, and convert: on iPhone and iPad the finished audiobook lands on your shelf as a playable book with a share button; the Mac saves it wherever you choose. The screen stays awake while it renders, and an interrupted export continues where it stopped.

● When something's off

A silent voice: Voice status shows what this machine's routes can do, and offers a Something wrong? report with the details that matter.

A book missing from this device: open it once from Library or Folders and it joins Continue Reading here.

A book the app says it can't find: if it's anywhere the app can see, it reopens from there on its own; otherwise Find It… lets you point at the file, and this device remembers.