What do you use Calibre For?

[latepaul]

Lots of individual tasks but it's all centered around the idea that my Calibre library is my definitive master collection of ebooks (yes it's backed up). Even when I only had 1 ereader device I occasionally used my phone and my PC and my books are from different sources and the ebook retailer's cloud tends to only back up books they sold me.

(I suppose I could send all my public domain sourced books to Amazon as "personal documents" but I'm not going to do that with deDRM'd stuff. Call me paranoid...)

I also add some custom tags to mark stuff as read and when (though the definitive place for that is a separate spreadsheet and/or Goodreads). I've lately added a custom field for "price paid" so I can keep an idea of how much I'm spending (more out of curiosity than anything).

I also use the plugboard to generate custom titles when I transfer to my Kobo which doesn't have (official) collection support.

Oh and I use the reader.

[morriss003]

Originally Posted by crich70

I picked up the book at Amazon on how to use Calibre the other day so I might use it more for other things in the future.

Could we get a link to this book?

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by morriss003

Could we get a link to this book?

It's called Calibre - the E-Book Tool - First Steps, Tips & Tricks.

It was a freebie a week or so ago, but it looks like it's now $4.99 or free in the Kindle Lending Library.

http://www.amazon.com/Calibre-E-Book...7115528&sr=1-1

[BeccaPrice]

gads, and I've been giving away the Calibre procedures I wrote for class. Still, the book is free for prime members, and if it's 171 pages, I'm sure I'll learn a lot more from them than what I've gathered here at the calibre forum.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

gads, and I've been giving away the Calibre procedures I wrote for class. Still, the book is free for prime members, and if it's 171 pages, I'm sure I'll learn a lot more from them than what I've gathered here at the calibre forum.

It's not "free for prime members". It's simply available in the Kindle Lending Library that's open to Prime members, which allows you to borrow "up to one" book per month, and you can't borrow a second book until you return the first one. It's basically Netflix's single DVD plan for ebooks.

I guess technically you could borrow the book, rip off the DRM, and then return it and it would be "free", but that's not the same thing as "free for prime members".

[BeccaPrice]

yeah, I mis-typed. I got it as a Kindle Lending Library/prime member, just now, borrowed it. Am not in general impressed with it. I've learned more about calibre just hanging out here. (and it's badly edited - sometimes calibre is capitalized, sometimes it isn't. And that's all I noticed in a few-minutes review of the book.)

[DreamWriter]

Occasionally the metadata book title will be incorrect when I get .mobi ebooks from Smashwords. I use Calibre to fix that before loading the book on my Kindle.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

(and it's badly edited - sometimes calibre is capitalized, sometimes it isn't. )

That's not bad editing. That's how [c|C]alibre is spelled. In fact it would only be bad editing if only one or the other was used consistently

[BeccaPrice]

Originally Posted by toddos

That's not bad editing. That's how [c|C]alibre is spelled. In fact it would only be bad editing if only one or the other was used consistently

I know calibre isn't standardly capitalized - but in the book sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't, even in the middle of sentences.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by toddos

That's not bad editing. That's how [c|C]alibre is spelled. In fact it would only be bad editing if only one or the other was used consistently

Huh? The program Calibre should take an initial cap.

[BeccaPrice]

No, according to Kovid Goyal, it should take a lower case 'c'. I actually don't care as long as the usage is consistent.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

No, according to Kovid Goyal, it should take a lower case 'c'. I actually don't care as long as the usage is consistent.

Sigh

Winky-smiley face implies sarcasm or a joke, and the casing of "calibre" vs "Calibre" has always been a bit of a joke (kinda like people calling it "kah-lee'-bray" rather than the correct "kal'-ib-er"). Even on the web page the name is inconsistent. "About Calibre", "Click to watch calibre demo", the logo looks like either "CAlibre" or "cAlibre", etc. It's mostly consistent as "calibre" everywhere else, but my joke was that it would only be bad editing if the author had stuck with only "calibre" or "Calibre", because using both interchangeably is what happens on the web site and here on MR.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

I use calibre to manage all my books, purchased and free. I've got a column set up to indicate whether I've read the book or not. I edit the metadata all the time. I use it to install the books on my kindle, and to set up collections with the Kindle collections manager. Basically, I use it for everything except reading the books.

^This!!

[BeccaPrice]

Originally Posted by toddos

Sigh

sorry, I missed the smiley.

[RainingLemur]

I use it to convert some of the oddball books I have to work on my readers and to utilize Alf's utensils to backup my stuff.