E-reader firmware for the Xteink X4 Pro, with the features of CrossInk and VARAGH.
Features · Install · Build from source · Changelog · Credits
NeuInk is e-reader firmware for the Xteink X4 Pro. The X4 Classic and X3 can also be built, but they are experimental and have not been tested on hardware. It is a fork of VARAGH, which is itself a fork of CrossInk, which in turn comes from CrossPoint Reader. Each fork keeps the features of the one before it.
The X4 Pro gets every feature, with touch and a front light. The X4 Classic and X3 have no touch screen or front light, so their code path works with the buttons only (see Experimental readers).
NeuInk is an independent community project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Xteink, CrossInk, CrossPoint or VARAGH.
 Home |
 Library |
 Reader |
 Reader menu |
 Layout, in line |
 Control Center |
 Battery |
 Storage |
 Home layout |
 Edit mode |
 Widget options |
 An app's settings |
Contents: What it adds · Install · Build from source · Contributing · Credits
NeuInk's own interface comes first, then the features this fork inherits from VARAGH on top of CrossInk. The full list, with photos and how to use each one, is in FEATURES.md.
NeuInk's own redesign (0.3.0, widgets in 0.4.0), on the X4 Pro. Details are in FEATURES.md.
- Vega theme (the default): widgets over a paged grid of rounded icons for every action and app; light-gray title bars with the app's icon. A swipe up from the bottom edge opens a panel for icon size, shape, the grid's columns and rows, and the pencil that starts edit mode.
- Home widgets: the current book (with pace, time left and finish date), recent covers, a calendar that marks the days you read, the date, a clock, your reading streak, a daily reading goal, the book that comes next, a highlight of the day and the battery, in up to three sizes. In edit mode, drag widgets and icons into place, tap a widget for its options, hide any icon.
- Everything is an app: Settings > Apps lists everything on Home with its own page (Open, Enable / Disable, its settings), and the Battery page shows the time and charge of each, Home and Settings included.
- Reader menu: a floating gray card with tabs, white rows and switches, sliders like the Control Center's, and orientation and paragraph alignment as picture buttons in the list. All icons are Lucide.
- Battery: the charge in large type, a graph of the last 24 hours (a point every five minutes) with an estimate for the next 24, how long the charge lasts with the screen on and asleep, and time and charge per app and for the reader. It survives restarts and updates.
- Storage: what fills the SD card as one segmented bar (books, images, fonts and dictionaries, app data, other), scanned in the background.
- USB: plug into a computer and the reader offers to open the SD card as a drive (a switch on the File Manager's page turns that off).
- Apps: Sudoku, Chess, Checkers, Go, Tic Tac Toe and a Clock with a calendar.
- Tap to Look Up: one tap on a word opens its meaning.
- Long Press on a Word: look up, highlight, add to a category, or Ask with a bubble at the words.
- Hold to Select: choose how long a finger rests on a word before selection opens: Fast, Normal, Slow or Very slow.
- Selection handles to resize a selection, on the touch screen or with the buttons.
- Dictionaries: an offline dictionary per language, plus optional online sources (Wiktionary, Wikipedia, Datamuse and OpenThesaurus). Online results are saved on the card after the first lookup. Back cancels a lookup at once.
- Remembers your choice: the last dictionary stays the default; Switch Dictionary at any time.
- Highlights hub on Home: Favorite Lines, your own categories and By Book.
- Add to… straight from the dictionary.
- Flashcards: Leitner boxes with Again / Know it and Practice.
- Swipe left to delete in files, recent books, highlights, bookmarks, lookup history and categories.
- Drop caps, text and heading sizes, bordered and lightly shaded boxes, and tables, as the publisher made them.
- Smooth grey pictures without a crosshatch pattern, on clean white paper.
- Line breaks after hyphens and dashes.
- Book ratings: five stars with halves, at the end of a book, in the book menu, in Reading Stats and in Library.
- Next in series at the end of a book.
- Vega, the new default theme: widgets above a grid of gray squircles for every action and app, Lucide icons, light-gray title bars, and a selection that shows only while you use the buttons.
- Settings in eight groups, each with an icon and a short description.
- Control Center: swipe down for light and warmth in 1 % steps, with eight buttons you choose and a Settings button in its corner (X4 Pro).
- Night light: a second brightness and warmth from evening to morning (X4 Pro).
- Rotation that turns the buttons and the touch screen with the page.
- Bluetooth page turner: pair a remote and map its buttons.
- Games: Sudoku with five levels, a daily puzzle and explaining hints, Chess, Checkers, Go and Tic Tac Toe. Apps stay open across sleep, and you can hide any of them, or anything else on Home.
- Clock & Calendar, also as a sleep screen.
- A clock that stays right: set on every Wi-Fi connect, with a manual time zone, Summer Time and an optional Live Clock. NeuInk does not look up your location.
- Fast chapters: long chapters show their first page at once (Automatic indexing), with a faster SD card and fonts kept in memory.
- Fast picture pages: the next page's pictures are prepared while you read.
- Battery: the processor slows down sooner and the display powers down when idle, while buttons still respond instantly.
Inherited from VARAGH, and not the main focus of this fork: English, German and Persian are built in, with right-to-left Persian and Arabic script, IPA pronunciations and menus in 29 languages (the extra languages download as small packs). A Persian keyboard layout is included.
 Flashcards |
 Home |
Download the latest firmware file for the X4 Pro, firmware-x4-pro.bin, from the
releases page. To build it yourself instead,
see Build from source.
To flash a firmware file from an SD card, copy it to the card and use Settings → System → SD Card Firmware Update. If you are coming from the original Xteink firmware, read the installation guide first.
Optional: a German → English dictionary, see Dictionaries.
Moving to NeuInk from CrossPoint or CrossInk is usually safe. In the normal case it keeps everything: your settings, books, highlights, bookmarks and even your reading stats, since NeuInk reads the same files on the SD card. Make a backup of the card anyway, before any firmware change: it costs a minute, and a flash that goes wrong or a card that is pulled out at the wrong moment is the one case where it saves you.
If NeuInk is not for you, Settings → System → Switch to Another Firmware installs the latest release of VARAGH, CrossInk or CrossPoint over WiFi, with no computer. It uses the same update mechanism as NeuInk's own updates, pointed at their repositories:
| Choice | Repository |
|---|---|
| VARAGH | PewPewzxc/VARAGH |
| CrossInk | uxjulia/crossink |
| CrossPoint | crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader |
Your SD card files and books should stay safe, since the switch only replaces the
firmware, but a backup is free and sensible. To come back later, copy NeuInk's
firmware-x4-pro.bin to the card and use SD Card Firmware Update in the other firmware.
Only the X4 Pro is supported and tested. The X4 Classic and X3 have no touch screen or front light. Their builds exist, but nobody has confirmed them on hardware yet. If you have one and test a build, a report in Issues is very welcome.
X4 Pro: Control Center |
 X4 Classic: apps with buttons |
 X3: Look Up / Highlight / Add to |
On the X4 Classic and X3 the apps are played with a frame that the direction buttons move and Confirm taps. In Look Up Word, hold Confirm, add words with Left/Right and press Confirm for Look Up, Highlight or Add to. Not available there: Control Center, front light, night light, Tap to Look Up and selection handles.
Updating: Settings → System → Check for Updates looks for NeuInk releases. Only install firmware built for NeuInk: a CrossInk or CrossPoint release replaces this one, and the reader warns you first.
You need PlatformIO. The display library (freeink-sdk)
is vendored in this repository, so a plain clone is enough:
git clone https://github.com/voxain/NeuInk.git
cd NeuInk
pio run -e x4-pro # X4 Pro (supported)Experimental, not tested on hardware: pio run -e x4-classic (X4 Classic) and
pio run -e default (X3 and the original X4).
The firmware is written to .pio/build/<env>/ (firmware-x4-pro.bin, and for the
experimental builds firmware-x4-classic.bin and firmware-x3-x4.bin). The default
build also writes the menu-language packs to .pio/lang-packs/default/. Developer notes are in
docs/development. The upstream sync guide
explains how to bring in changes from the projects this one forks.
- Custom sync servers are not supported, for security reasons. KOReader sync
talks only to the built-in server,
sync.crosspointreader.com, and checks its certificate. A custom server cannot be checked the same way, so the firmware refuses it rather than send your sync credentials to an unverified host. - Firmware downloads come only from GitHub, over https with pinned certificates, and the release SHA-256 digest is checked before anything is installed. This holds for switching to another firmware too, which is refused if the release publishes no digest.
- Plain http sync is not supported.
Bug reports, ideas and pull requests are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md first. Bugs go to Issues.
NeuInk is released under the MIT licence. It keeps the copyright notices of the projects it comes from, and the same licence applies to them: CrossPoint Reader (Dave Allie and contributors), CrossInk (uxjulia and contributors) and VARAGH (PewPewzxc). Third-party code, fonts and data are listed in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.
- FreeInk SDK (display and UI library): Free-Ink/freeink-sdk
- Fonts: Noto (Google / Noto Project Authors), Vazirmatn (Saber Rastikerdar and the Vazirmatn Project Authors), Inter (Rasmus Andersson and the Inter Project Authors)
- Speed ideas in VARAGH 1.1.0 were inspired by studying microreader (no code copied).
Dictionary data is not included; see Dictionaries.