Underneath the note-taking, the reMarkable is a calm, focused e-reader - for books, documents, and the occasional long article, all without a backlit screen pulling your attention around.
What it reads
The reMarkable reads EPUB ebooks and PDFs, and you can mark up and highlight directly on the page as you go. That is the whole reading library: fiction, textbooks, manuals, sheet music, and any PDF you load, all annotated in place rather than in a separate notes app.
EPUB vs PDF
| Format | How it behaves |
|---|---|
| EPUB | Reflowable text - you can change the font size and the page reflows to fit, closer to a traditional e-reader. |
| Fixed layout - the page looks exactly as designed, which matters for anything with specific formatting, diagrams, or a notebook grid. |
Reading long web articles
A long article is a much better read on e-ink than on a phone screen. Rather than fighting with a browser, you can save a single web page as a clean, readable document and send it to the tablet - the Klass-RM Uploader does this by fetching the page, extracting the article text, and sending it across as one document, the same way it handles other files, as covered in Getting Files onto reMarkable. This is about saving an article you want to read, one at a time, not a running feed of updates.
Getting books and PDFs onto the device
However you load ebooks and PDFs, the routes and trade-offs are the same as any other file transfer. See Getting Files onto reMarkable for the official options and a faster one.
Comfort and battery
E-ink reflects light like paper rather than shining it at you, so long reading sessions stay easy on the eyes and the screen stays readable outdoors. The Paper Pro adds a front light for reading in the dark, and because e-ink only draws power when the page changes, battery life comfortably outlasts a backlit tablet.
Bring your reading library along
Send books, PDFs, and articles to your reMarkable in a tap, then organize your reading with a hyperlinked notebook system.