Why use Calibre with Kobo Touch

[RareBird]

I've seen quite a few posts here talking about calibre. I'm a noob to ereaders/ereading and I was wondering what the benefits there are to using calibre to manage my library as opposed to using ADE and the Kobo desktop app. Thanks for the info.

[BWinmill]

Originally Posted by RareBird

I've seen quite a few posts here talking about calibre. I'm a noob to ereaders/ereading and I was wondering what the benefits there are to using calibre to manage my library as opposed to using ADE and the Kobo desktop app. Thanks for the info.

Calibre and ADE manage books that you get through a 3rd party. Kobo does not.

Calibre allows you to manage large libraries of books.
- Download covers/descriptions/reviews/etc.
- Flexible filtering/search/sort/etc.
- Tags

Calibre can convert between ebook formats, make common fixes to ebooks, and even help you edit ebooks.

Calibre offers viewers for most common ebook formats, and it will cooperate with third party viewers.

Calibre can grab web pages and pack them into ebooks. Which is useful if you like to get your daily dose of news away from the computer.

Vendor agnostic bookstore to help you find rare titles or get the best price (which can be $0 if it's in the public domain).

And a lot more.

[RareBird]

Sounds a lot more flexible than ADE and versatile. So the next question is how easy is it to use?

[ltr]

Originally Posted by RareBird

Sounds a lot more flexible than ADE and versatile.

Sure, but if you're someone like myself who purchases all their books from Kobo, then the ability to read the books on my PC is limited to ADE or the Kobo desktop aplication. Calibre cannot view books with DRM (Digital Rights Management).

I also borrow some library books. Calibre is not able to help there, ADE is required to borrow and read the book on the PC.

Given the above, I choose ADE and the Kobo application, although Caibre is nice if you have a bunch of files you like to manage, or if you have a lot of DRM free books.

[RareBird]

Thanks for the additional info ltr. I plan on borrowing from the library a fair bit and will probably purchase when I can't get what I want there. I may just stick with ADE and the Kobo app for now.

[SF&F Reader]

They're all free. Why limit yourself?

[RareBird]

I see your point. However, I don't think of it as limiting myself. If I need something like calibre I know where to get it and where to come to get answers to my questions.

[digiSara]

Originally Posted by ltr

Sure, but if you're someone like myself who purchases all their books from Kobo, then the ability to read the books on my PC is limited to ADE or the Kobo desktop aplication. Calibre cannot view books with DRM (Digital Rights Management).

You cannot view DRM epubs with Calibre, but you can still load them into Calibre and then load them onto your Kobo from there. This allows you to take advantage of the Tagging and metadata features in Calibre.

[george71]

i've opened my Calibre, but i don't see the Kobo icon on it so i can't seem to upload books wirelessly to my Kobo Touch.

also, i can never see the Kobo icon when i plug it into the USB for charging or managing files.

[PeterT]

Do you select the option "CONNECT" on the Kobo Touch after making the USB connection?

[Cdesja5]

To transfer books wirelessly, 1- your Calibre server must be ON, 2- you enter your local IP address into the touch browser's address line in this format:
http://192.168.1.118:8080 where 8080 is the port used by Calibre and the 192.168.1.118 is replaced with you own IP address ( usually only the last 3 numbers will differ from the example above.)
Link below explaining how to find your IP address

http://www.bobborst.com/tools/whatsmyip/

[george71]

hey guys thanks for the info. the real problem, however, was completely different.
i couldn't get the icon to transfer because i had my kobo plugged in with a dual plug in for the light (which is attached to the case). this sets them both into charge mode only and you can't transfer with the light extension attached.

so if anyone else has this problem, this was the reason.
cheers.

finally, is there a reliable website for book downloads?
people on this board are talking about the books their reading, but where are they getting them from?
if you can't post it here, please pm me.
i found a book series i was looking for, but can't find the website anymore.

[jackastor]

Originally Posted by RareBird

I've seen quite a few posts here talking about calibre. I'm a noob to ereaders/ereading and I was wondering what the benefits there are to using calibre to manage my library as opposed to using ADE and the Kobo desktop app. Thanks for the info.

As mentiond Calibre does allow you to manage a large number of Books from descriptions to Cover Art. However I no longer use Calibre to send books to my device as I have found that it corrupts the Kobo Touch Data base and the covers show up only sometimes, unless you do a reboot and factory rest and the books are read in again from the sd card then the covers show. So I use calibre to maintain my library and optimize it. I then save all my books to a directory and I exit Calibre and then i Plug in my Touch and load the books in the directory to my Sd card on my touch. Calibre is a great tool, but as with all tools you can get preety damn close to mastering everything but not always with the results you expect on differnt devices.

DRM can be removed from your books using after market plugins for calibre so that you can move your collection easily between your devices.

good luck

jack

[JEBB40]

I'm new to ereaders. What is ADE?

[camiller]

Originally Posted by JEBB40

I'm new to ereaders. What is ADE?

Adobe Digital Editions.

Adobe provides the DRM for most epubs (although the epub standard is DRM agnostic so other DRM schemes could be used) including Kobo and most public library ebook lending programs.