Open any book, tap a chapter, and you're in the reader. At first it looks simple — just you and the page, the way it should be. But the little icons up top unlock a lot. Let's go through them.
Tip: tap the center of the screen to show or hide the reading controls, so nothing gets between you and the story.
Reader settings (make it yours)
Tap the settings icon (the little tune/sliders) to open your reading preferences:
- Theme — white, sepia, or a true AMOLED black for night reading.
- Font size — slide it until it's comfortable for your eyes.
- Font family — sans, serif, or mono, whatever you read best in.
- Text alignment — left, center, right, or justified.
- Reset — one tap to return everything to default.
All of it is remembered, so the next book opens just how you like it.
Listen with text-to-speech
Tap the play/speaker icon to have Arwy read the book aloud, hands-free. There's a mini player so you can pause and resume, plus voice profiles (standard, faster, slower & deeper). It keeps playing in the background while you do other things, and it remembers where you stopped. Perfect for commutes and chores. (More in our text-to-speech guide.)
Translate on the fly
Tap the language icon to translate the chapter into your language right where you're reading. Great for foreign-language books or just reading in your most comfortable tongue. The translation is remembered chapter to chapter.
Download for offline
The download icon saves the book to your device so you can read it with no signal at all — on a plane, on the subway, anywhere. It turns green once it's saved. Find all your downloads in Settings.
Inline comments & reactions (the secret sauce)
Here's something special: select any sentence and a little bar pops up. From it you can:
- Comment right on that line — and see what others said on the same line.
- Leave a reaction — drop an emoji (❤️ 😂 😮 😢 😡 🔥 👏 🤔) on the exact words that hit you.
- Share the quote as a beautiful card, or send it to a friend inside the app.
Swipe left while reading to peek at the comment gutter on the right edge — those little bubbles show which lines other readers have been talking about. It turns reading into a quiet conversation.
The match hourglass
See that small hourglass with the orange ring filling up? That's Arwy quietly looking for someone reading the same book as you. When it finds a match, a little banner slides in from the top. (We explain matching fully in how matching over books works.)
Next in the series: how to write and publish your own book. To get more reading done, see how to read more books in a year.
Experience the reader for yourself. Get Arwy on Google Play.