Your family library

Where every book, word list and spelling list lives, and how to find one quickly.

Library is the shelf the whole family shares. Anything anyone adds appears for everyone, on every device, within moments.

Three kinds of document

Every item in the library has a type, and the type decides what the app does with it.

• Book (read page by page) — ordinary prose to be read aloud. Its main action is Read, which opens reading practice.
• List (flash cards & game) — a list of words. Its main action opens word lists.
• Spelling list (school spelling sheet) — its main action opens spelling.

Getting the type right matters, because it is what routes a tap to the right activity. You set it in the Book Editor.

Finding something

• Search by title, author, or who uploaded it.
• Filter by reading level, by who uploaded it, by document type, and — once your library holds more than one — by Language.
• Sort by name, author, reading level, date uploaded or uploader — ascending or descending. The default sort puts the picture books first and the word and spelling lists after them, sorted by title within each group, so a new shelf opens on something illustrated rather than a wall of grey list tiles. For a child signed in as a Reader, the default also puts the easiest books first within each group, with books that have no level yet at the end — so a young reader opens the shelf on something they can manage. Sorting by author, level, date or uploader ignores the type and sorts the whole shelf.
• Switch between grid and list. The grid shows covers; the list shows more per screen.

Above the shelf, a count tells you where you stand: "48 books", or "Showing 6 of 48 books" when a filter is narrowing things. If a book you added seems to have vanished, read that line first — a filter left on from last time is the usual answer. Your sort and filter choices are remembered when you come back.

On a phone the top of the screen folds away so the books themselves get it: one row of Refresh, Tools and Filters. Filters opens search, sort and the filters; Tools opens everything else — grid or list, and for a parent the adding and fixing tools below.

Opening a book

• The coloured button on a card goes straight to the activity that matches its type — reading, word lists or spelling. In the grid, tapping the cover does the same; in either view, so does double-tapping the card.
• Edit opens the Book Editor, where you can see and change everything about it.

Reading level

The level on a card is worked out from the book's own text in the Book Editor — for Chinese from the HSK vocabulary levels its characters and words belong to, for English from a standard readability formula that gives a school grade. Books in other languages have no level yet, rather than a guessed one. It is a guide to how demanding the vocabulary is, not a verdict on whether a particular child is ready.

A Chinese book's level is shown on Zen Reader's own nine-step ladder, from First words (1 of 9) through Early reader, Growing reader, Steady reader, Confident reader, Strong reader, Independent reader and Advanced reader to Fluent reader (9 of 9). Hover over it, or look in the Book Editor, for the HSK level it is worked out from. An English book shows its reading grade instead. The level filter lists levels easiest first, not alphabetically.

Adding books

Family Managers and Parents get the import tools; a Reader does not see them at all.

• + New book creates an empty one.
• Import PDF and Import multiple PDFs bring in what you have scanned, with an Import language to say what they are written in, and an Auto-process option that translates and fills in details as they arrive.
• Process books… does a job across the books currently in view — so filter first, then run it. It shows exactly what it proposes, book by book, and nothing is saved until you agree. It can name books from the code on their cover and mark title and copyright pages as not part of the reading. If a cover could not be read, the list says so in a line of its own rather than simply proposing nothing — and says whether the service could not be reached (check your connection and run it again) or was reached and could not read that cover (usually a blurred photo or a cover with no code on it — rename that book by hand in the Book Editor). If a book in view could not be loaded at all — usually a book never opened on this device while the connection is poor — it is left out of the plan, and a line at the top says how many, so nothing is changed in a book the app could not see.

• Restore… puts your books back exactly as they were before a change — useful if Process books, a re-scan or an edit did something you did not want. It lists recent changes (who made them and when), shows what would be put back, and changes nothing until you press Restore. Text, pinyin, English, pictures, covers, page order and skipped pages all go back; pages added since are removed, and pages or books deleted since come back. A book added since is archived, not deleted. If a picture from then is no longer stored, the current one is kept and the preview tells you. A restore can itself be undone the same way — it appears at the top of the list. Changes are kept for 180 days, counted from when change history was switched on, so older changes cannot be restored. In the Book Editor, Restore… does the same for just that book.

See Adding and preparing a book for what to do with a book once it is in.

Example books

A new family starts with a handful of example books already on the shelf, so there is something to try before you have scanned anything of your own. They show as uploaded by Jas. Treat them as yours: read them, edit them, or delete them.

Deleting and restoring

Deleting depends on whether the book has ever been used:

• Never used — it is deleted, but Restore… (above) can bring it back for 180 days.
• Used at least once — it is hidden from the library but kept, so your child's results still make sense. A Family Manager or Parent can bring it back from Settings → Deleted books.

Used means more than read. A reading, a spelling run, a word list test, a flash-card round, a card game or an assignment all count — so a spelling list nobody ever read is still archived rather than erased.

What "deleted" means for your data. So that a mistake can be undone, when a book or a page is deleted, edited or given a new picture, the earlier version — its text, pinyin, translations and pictures — is kept for 180 days and then deleted for good. A used book you delete stays hidden, with your child's results, until you restore it or your family's account is deleted. The Privacy Policy says the same from its 1 November 2026 version.

The confirmation says which case you are in. Either way, sessions your child recorded are kept — deleting a book never erases their history.

Who can add and change books

Family Managers and Parents can add, edit and delete. A Reader can read anything on the shelf and can suggest an edit — see Suggestions — but cannot change a book directly, and sees none of the import tools.

A Teacher sees books for the children they are linked to, and can share a book with a student: their family gets their own copy to keep. Later changes you make to yours do not reach that copy.