Libra Comprehensive Calibre Set-Up Guide + Questions

[NormalToblerone]

Hello everyone. Normal here. First time posting on MR, but am a long time lurker and reader. Little preface before starting this; I have been on kindle for most of my life and have finally wanted to break free from the amazon hold on me not really "owning" my books that were bought digitally. I am aware from home quite a bit for work and having my eBooks there with me on flights really helps me stay sane ha

I am writing this as if I just opened up the device. I have gone with the Libra H2O.

1. Sign in to a Kobo account and get new device prompts taken care of.
2. Plug in Kobo into PC and open Calibre.
3. Run start up wizard in Calibre and select the device as the "Kobo Vox, Aura and Glo" Family.
3. Install Plug-In(s) - KoboTouchExtended, This will convert the EPUBs to KEPUBs automatically when sending to the kobo device.[/LIST][/B]
4. Convert AZW3 (no DRM of course) to EPUB using onboard converting tool within Calibre.
5. Press "send to device" main memory.

As I understand things right now, I just wanted to make sure of some things before getting started on the steps listed above.

1. For metadata, since this is a Kobo device, do you use google metadata or Kobo metadata now? Before I was using both Amazon and Google data for my books.

2. Book covers are going to vary in sizes, so does Kobo automatically make the book covers the same size when transferring books over? Or will I need to install another plug in to make the book covers the same size?

[DevonHess]

1. For metadata, you can use whichever source you want. Personally I've found that no source is perfect, and you'll often get weird title, author, or series data. I just manually input that stuff for my collection.

2. Kobo is usually able to resize book covers, but sometimes it just doesn't work correctly. (Gutenberg books, I'm looking at you) I suspect it has to do with bad CSS but I haven't looked into it.

Also it's worth noting that you don't necessarily have to convert epub to kepub, there are pros and cons to each. I would suggest trying both.

[NormalToblerone]

Are there any other plug ins you use? Also, I have been hearing people talk about "collections", what are those?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by NormalToblerone

Are there any other plug ins you use? Also, I have been hearing people talk about "collections", what are those?

Can I suggest a step between 1 and 2:

Use the device and work out what it does and how to use it.

Without that, you don't actually know which of your later steps are needed.

But for your steps:

Step 2 should be done after 4. You can't do some of the others with the device connected. And there is no reason to have the device connected while doing them.

For the first Step 3, just use the "Tablet" profile. There won't be any actual difference, but, if you have another device, it's a little less confusing.

For the second Step 3, this is completely optional. Only do it if you only want to use Kepubs on the device. Many don't want to.

Step 4 is also optional. Calibre will send a supported format, or convert during the send-to-disk. The only real reason to do it ahead of time is if you need to customise the conversion for each book.

For metadata, use whatever metadata sources you want to. None of them are completely accurate.

For the cover, the device generates the covers from the book. For kepubs, it extracts the image that is marked as the cover and size that as needed. For epubs and other formats, it renders the first page and uses that as the cover. That means that the cover you see for an epub, depends on the code in the first page as much as the actual image. The driver has options to send the cover images which means calibre generates them from the cover in the library. That will downscale the cover to the size the device uses, but it wont upscale them.

[NormalToblerone]

Thank you davidfor for the reply! I am not sure I follow for the covers involving kepub. Do your covers come out the same size on the device? Or are you having to uniform them all in calibre so that they are the same on the device?

Now when talking about epubs, do I have to have Adobe editions if I am using epuvs or does that only apply to books that still have DRM?

[NormalToblerone]

Originally Posted by davidfor

For the first Step 3, just use the "Tablet" profile. There won't be any actual difference, but, if you have another device, it's a little less confusing..

I am guessing your talking about this selection:

[JSWolf]

Before you decide on KePub instead of ePub, there are differences and ePub does much better typesetting. Give both a try and see which on you prefer. Don't just go jumping tp KePub without trying ePub. And you'll want to turn off the side visible page numbers in the Reader settings for ePub.

As for what plugins I use...

DeDRM
Kobo Utilities
Reading List
Find Duplicates
Count Pages
Diaps Editing Toolbag
EpubCheck
KePub Metadata Reader
Amazon hi-res covers
Kobo Books
KePub Metadata Writer
EpubSplit
Favorites Menu
KindleUnpack
Modify ePub
Quality Check
ScrambleEbook
KePub Output

I do have KoboTouchExtended installed but only use that rarely.

[NormalToblerone]

Originally Posted by davidfor

For the cover, the device generates the covers from the book. For kepubs, it extracts the image that is marked as the cover and size that as needed. For epubs and other formats, it renders the first page and uses that as the cover. That means that the cover you see for an epub, depends on the code in the first page as much as the actual image. The driver has options to send the cover images which means calibre generates them from the cover in the library. That will downscale the cover to the size the device uses, but it wont upscale them.

I understand you helped make the KoboTouch driver. So If I have polished EPUBs in Calibre right now, with book covers that vary in size, the driver will automatically make them the same size when sending them over in "my books" on the kobo device? I attached a photo of the driver settings I have configured from other forum's advise.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by NormalToblerone

I am not sure I follow for the covers involving kepub. Do your covers come out the same size on the device? Or are you having to uniform them all in calibre so that they are the same on the device?

On the device, the cover image is taken from the kepub and scaled to fit in the sizes used. This is done maintaining the aspect ratio. If the covers all have the same aspect ratio, then they will appear to be the same size. But, if they don't have the same aspect ratio, then they will appear to be different sizes.

Epubs are different. The cover is whatever you see as the first page. That could be a full screen image, a text title or a tiny image shoved into the top right corner of the screen with the rest white. These are always the same size.

Now when talking about epubs, do I have to have Adobe editions if I am using epuvs or does that only apply to books that still have DRM?

For epubs with DRM, you need to use ADE to sideload the books. For epubs without DRM, you don't need any tools, you can just put them on the device. But, once you get a few books, I think that tools such as calibre makes sense as a way to manage your ebooks.

[NormalToblerone]

Originally Posted by davidfor

On the device, the cover image is taken from the kepub and scaled to fit in the sizes used.

Perfect! Is the configuration I have on the photo attached above correct for what your saying? Better question, what needs to be unchecked/checked to do what you are saying?

-upload covers
-keep cover aspect ratio

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by NormalToblerone

Perfect! Is the configuration I have on the photo attached above correct for what your saying? Better question, what needs to be unchecked/checked to do what you are saying?

-upload covers
-keep cover aspect ratio

No. The bit you quoted was me saying the way the device did it. That would mean you turning off the upload covers option.

But, that isn't what you actually want. The best answer I can give it to try it and see what you like. You might want the cover to fill the screen no matter what, which could mean some distortion. Or prefer the aspect ratio to be maintained, which means some blank space around the image.

[NormalToblerone]

Originally Posted by davidfor

No. The bit you quoted was me saying the way the device did it. That would mean you turning off the upload covers option.

But, that isn't what you actually want. The best answer I can give it to try it and see what you like. You might want the cover to fill the screen no matter what, which could mean some distortion. Or prefer the aspect ratio to be maintained, which means some blank space around the image.

Maybe there is some confusion on my part. All I want in is covers that are the same size on the device when I go to look at "my books." Which boxes would I need to check to have that?

[JSWolf]

Why do you ant KePub without first testing ePub?

[NormalToblerone]

Isn't that the optimal use for kobo readers? I want the stats involved with the format, same reason thousands of other users use KEPUB.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by NormalToblerone

Isn't that the optimal use for kobo readers? I want the stats involved with the format, same reason thousands of other users use KEPUB.

Personally, I'm not big on stats though I do find the reading time remaining numbers to be an endless source of amusement. The main reason for my preference for epub is the better typography—whatever else I may have to say about Adobe, most of which is not praise—they do understand typography. At one point, kepub had faster page turns and annotations were easier but those advantages have pretty much disappeared with newer firmware.