Kobo has released a new firmware update for pretty much their entire lineup of ebook readers past and present, except the Kobo Mini.
The new software version is 4.12.12111, with a release date of December 2018.
It adds a couple of nifty new features that were previously only available on the new Kobo Forma.
Now all Kobos have the option to show or hide the headers and footers in ebooks.
I really like having this option, and it works better than the old fullscreen hack because you can leave the footer on to see how many pages are left without having to be reminded of what book you’re reading at the top of every single page.
Go to Settings > Reading settings > Page appearance to turn the header and footer on and off.
Kobo’s software developers also tweaked the PDF software a bit. You can now double-tap to zoom in, and then swipe to move between sections of the page.
According to the release notes, they also improved performance with CBR and CBZ files, and they made it so the fast page turn feature is faster, and they fixed some Wi-Fi issues.
Like usual you can wait for your Kobo ereader to automatically update while syncing, which can take several weeks because they usually do a slow gradual rollout, or you can manually update now.
You can find the links to all the individual downloads for each device on the unofficial Kobo Firmware Downloads page. You can find the full list of release notes there as well.
via: MobileRead
Great and thanks for this info Nathan!
Did a sync on my 2012 Glo last night, looked back and it was installing this update. It would be nice to be able to defer since it takes a while but nevermind, it’s nice that Kobo continue to support their older models.
Thanks Nathan. Do we have to do anything to clean up after the now redundant hack?
I’m glad, too, that there’s better pdf support – I tried to install Koreader on my KB1 but never succeeded. How can I clean up that failed install as well?
I don’t know. I don’t think it matters.
I don’t suppose it adds library access for the Kobo Glo HD does it? That’s all I really want now!
I doubt they’ll add it to the older models at this point, but you never know.
Wow finally! The old hack wasn’t all great either because many times the text would cut off strangely. Good to hear. But I’ve already moved onto kindle years ago.
I tried it out and of was a big disappointment: the waisted white space on the bottom is giantic!
A word of warning here: If you read PDFs with a 3 column layout, you will be unable to center on the middle column. As useful as the new PDF navigation is, you are only able to see either the left or the right part of the page, rendering it unusable for such PDF magazines…