Using the Reader

This page is about the actual reading screen: the place you use after opening a book from the library.

The reader is meant to stay out of the way while still giving quick access to navigation, bookmarks, appearance controls, tracking, and book-specific actions.

Main Reader Controls

The top bar contains the most common reader actions.

Depending on screen size and book type, some actions may move into the More reader actions menu.

Common controls include:

• Table of contents: opens the book's chapter list, if Yatsu can find one.
• Save current position or Update current position: saves the current reading position Yatsu uses for progress and returning later.
• Bookmarks: opens the saved bookmarks drawer, where you can add, name, rename, delete, and jump to bookmarks.
• Return to current position: jumps back to your saved current reading position, if one exists.
• Current autoscroll speed: shown in continuous mode when autoscroll is available.
• Fullscreen: toggles browser fullscreen.
• Zen mode: hides the reader chrome, footer, clock/session overlay, and reading position markers until you press Z again or click the pale Z in the bottom-right corner.
• Appearance: opens the live appearance panel for reader-specific visual settings.
• More reader actions: opens less frequent reader actions such as completion, custom point controls, image gallery, and keyboard shortcuts.

On narrow screens, the reader uses a compact actions menu so the reading area keeps more space.

Moving Through a Book

Yatsu has two reader modes: paginated and continuous. The controls are similar, but movement feels different.

In paginated mode:

• Use the page controls, tap edges, or keyboard shortcuts to move page by page.
• In supported browsers, you can also use a connected controller for navigation. The standard layout uses D-pad left or L1/LB for previous page and D-pad right or R1/RB for next page. A/Cross saves the current reading position, and B/Circle asks to exit the reader. Press the exit binding again within the confirmation window to return to the library. Open Controller navigation from Settings or the live reader settings panel to rebind the controller inputs, tune the stick deadzone, or add optional bindings for auto-scroll controls, toggling the table of contents, and the reading tracker panel.
• Use Table of contents to jump between chapters.
• Arrow keys can flip pages. Left and right follow the visible page edges, which means vertical text can feel different from horizontal text.

In continuous mode:

• Scroll normally.
• In supported browsers, either controller stick can scroll continuously. Push down or up in horizontal text, and left or right in vertical text. The farther you push the stick, the faster Yatsu scrolls. If the reader moves while the sticks are centered, raise the stick deadzone in Controller navigation.
• Autoscroll can move the text for you.
• The speed indicator shows the current autoscroll multiplier.

In VN mode:

• Yatsu shows one reader block at a time by default, such as a paragraph, heading, list, table, or image.
• Use Space, Enter, PageDown, ArrowDown, or the visible reader controls to move forward. Use PageUp, ArrowUp, or the opposite horizontal arrow to move back.
• VN reveal speed controls the typewriter-style reveal speed. Set it to Instant to show each screen immediately.
• Set VN screen content to Sentences to choose how many sentences appear on each screen. Images, lists, and tables still stay together as whole blocks.

The default reader shortcuts include:

Action	Shortcut
Previous page	PageUp / ArrowUp
Next page	PageDown / Space / ArrowDown
Flip toward left edge	ArrowLeft
Flip toward right edge	ArrowRight
Previous chapter	N
Next chapter	M
Toggle autoscroll	S
Increase autoscroll speed	A
Decrease autoscroll speed	D
Search current book	/ / Ctrl+F / Cmd+F
Toggle fullscreen	F
Toggle Zen mode	Z
Show keyboard shortcuts	?
Exit reader	Esc twice

Note

Keyboard shortcuts are ignored while many dialogs and menus are open, and while you use modifier keys such as Ctrl or Alt.

Current Reading Position and Bookmarks

Yatsu separates the current reading position from user-created bookmarks.

The current reading position is the one place Yatsu uses for progress, returning later, and compatibility with older TTU-style progress data. Use Save current position or Update current position to store it, then use Return to current position to jump back.

Bookmarks are separate saved locations. Open Bookmarks to show the drawer, where you can:

• add a bookmark at the current location
• give a bookmark an optional name
• jump to a saved bookmark
• rename or delete a bookmark from the row actions menu

Saved bookmark markers appear in the reader. When the header is closed, clicking or tapping a bookmark marker opens a small rename/delete flyover for that bookmark.

The default shortcuts are:

Action	Shortcut
Open bookmarks drawer	B
Add a quick bookmark	Shift+B
Save current reading position	O
Return to current reading position	R

If text selection bookmarking is enabled in settings, Yatsu can use the selected text location when creating a current reading position or bookmark. Otherwise, it uses the current reader position.

For a screen-based position, use Set Point before saving. The custom reading point changes what Yatsu treats as "here", so the next saved current position or bookmark can land at the spot you chose on the screen instead of the default page or scroll reference.

Current reading position is stored with progress data. Multiple bookmarks are stored separately and can be synced or exported with your reading data when the relevant sync/export options are enabled.

Table of Contents

The table of contents appears when the book includes chapter data that Yatsu can read.

Use it when:

• You want to jump to a specific chapter.
• You need to check where you are in the book structure.
• Keyboard chapter shortcuts are too coarse.

If a book does not include usable chapter data, the table of contents control may not appear.

Custom Reading Point

The custom reading point tells Yatsu which part of the screen should count as your reading position.

This matters for:

• progress calculation
• current reading position
• bookmarks
• reading statistics
• returning to a stable spot after resizing or changing layout

Use Set Point from the reader actions menu to choose the point. If a point already exists, the menu can also show Show Point and Reset Point.

The default shortcut is:

Action	Shortcut
Set custom reading point	T

Save the current reading position at a screen location

Use this when the saved current position should match the line or area you are actually reading.

1. Open the reader action menu.
2. Choose Set Point, or press T.
3. Click or tap the place on the page that should count as your current reading position.
4. Choose Save current position or Update current position, or press O.

After that, Return to current position jumps back using the position calculated from that point.

Add a bookmark at a screen location

Use this when you want a bookmark to point to a specific line or area on the visible page.

1. Open the reader action menu.
2. Choose Set Point, or press T.
3. Click or tap the place on the page where the bookmark should be anchored.
4. Open Bookmarks and add a bookmark, or press Shift+B to add a quick bookmark.
5. Rename the bookmark if you want a label for that location.

The bookmark uses the reading position calculated from the point you just set. If Show Point is available, you can use it to briefly reveal the active point before saving. Use Reset Point if you want to go back to the default reader position.

In paginated mode, Yatsu sets the point from the text location you choose on the current page. When you turn the page, that temporary point is cleared. In continuous mode, Yatsu uses a persistent screen position. Continuous mode requires Settings > Reader > Custom Reading Point to be turned on.

Tip

If progress or bookmarks feel slightly ahead or behind where you expect, set the custom reading point to the place your eyes naturally treat as "current".

Appearance

The Appearance action opens live reader settings without leaving the book.

Use it for changes such as:

• font size and font family
• reader content language, including Simplified and Traditional Chinese glyph forms
• line height
• text margins
• vertical or horizontal writing behavior
• per-book character counting method for Japanese/Chinese or Korean progress
• page columns
• furigana display
• VN reveal speed and Supporter sentence grouping
• theme and custom theme adjustments
• publisher style handling

Changes apply while the book is open, so you can adjust the reader until the text feels comfortable.

Vertical text spacing

When Writing mode is set to vertical text, Yatsu shows extra text spacing controls:

• Enable Font Kerning lets the selected font fine-tune spacing between vertical characters when the font and browser support it. Leave it off if you want Japanese characters to stay on a stricter grid.
• Proportional vertical spacing uses the font's proportional vertical alternates when available. This can tighten kana and punctuation, but adjacent columns may no longer line up exactly. Turn it off when aligned Japanese columns are more important than compact spacing.

Even with both settings off, vertical Japanese text may not look like a perfect manuscript-paper grid. Japanese fonts use square character frames, but the visible glyph inside each frame can be narrower, wider, or intentionally off-center. Small kana such as っ, ゃ, ゅ, and ょ, punctuation, and half-width Latin numbers like 7 can look less centered than full-width Japanese characters. Browser font rendering, fractional pixels, and book-specific CSS can also make the optical spacing look slightly uneven.

This is usually normal. If you want the strictest alignment Yatsu can provide, keep both vertical spacing settings off, prefer full-width Japanese punctuation and numbers where the book provides them, and turn off publisher typography if the book's own CSS is adding spacing. Large unexpected gaps between ordinary full-width kana and kanji may still be worth reporting.

Yatsu normally uses the language stored in the book file. If Chinese text shows Japanese-style character variants, set Reader content language to Simplified or Traditional in the live appearance panel. This choice is stored locally for that book and is not synced by Yatsu Account Settings Sync. For more detail, see Chinese Support.

Yatsu counts Japanese and Chinese characters by default. For Korean books, set Character Counting Method to Auto or Korean in the live appearance panel. Auto only uses Korean counting when the book file declares Korean or the book text looks clearly Korean. This choice is stored locally for that book and is not synced by Yatsu Account Settings Sync. For more detail, see Korean Support.

Some layout changes can move your current position. Yatsu tries to preserve the current reading position, and the custom reading point can make that more predictable.

Image Gallery

Some books contain images that Yatsu can collect into an image gallery.

When available, Image gallery appears in the reader actions menu.

Inside the gallery:

• move between images with the gallery controls
• use page or arrow shortcuts to move between images
• press Esc to close the gallery
• spoiler controls may appear if image spoiler settings are enabled

If the current book has no collected images, this action may not appear.

Reading Tracking

If Enable Statistics is turned on, the tracker icon appears in the reader.

The tracker can record:

• reading time
• characters read
• reading speed
• book completion data
• reading goal progress

Useful defaults:

Action	Shortcut
Toggle tracking	P
Freeze tracking position	E

Use Freeze tracking position when you are about to jump around and do not want that movement counted as normal reading.

For more detail, see Reading Tracking and Statistics.

Completing a Book

The reader actions menu includes Complete book.

Use it when you want Yatsu to record that the book is finished. Depending on your tracking settings, Yatsu may also open the tracker menu or add the remaining character count to the completion entry.

Completion data can appear in statistics and can be affected by tracking settings such as Overwrite Book Completion and Update on Completion.

Leaving the Reader

Pressing Esc once shows a warning. Pressing Esc again within a few seconds returns to the library.

This is meant to prevent accidental exits while reading.

You can also return to the library from the app navigation.

If close confirmation is enabled and your current reading position has not been saved, Yatsu may ask for confirmation before leaving.

When Controls Are Missing

Some reader controls only appear when they apply.

For example:

• Table of contents needs chapter data.
• Return to current position needs a saved current reading position.
• Image gallery needs collected images.
• Fullscreen depends on browser support and current context.
• Tracking needs statistics to be enabled.
• Custom point controls depend on reader mode and custom point settings.

If you do not see a control, it usually means the current book, mode, or settings do not make that function available.