Register Guidelines E-Books Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Go Back   MobileRead Forums > E-Book Readers > Kobo Reader

Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 05-31-2010, 08:30 PM   #1
dantaipan
Enthusiast
dantaipan began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 29
Karma: 10
Join Date: May 2010
Device: kobo
Instapaper + Calibre + Kobo = great

This has been mentioned in other Categories on this forum but thought it worthwhile posting for people who only read this section.

Instapaper (instapaper.com) is a site/browser plugin that allows you to archive web pages and save them to an account with a single click. So while your browsing or someone sends you a link and you don't have time to read, just click the button and archive it. You can then add Instapaper as a feed to Calibre and set it up so that every time you sync, it grabs your Instapaper feed.

P.S. it would be even better if Calibre didn't automatically set font-sizes on epubs it creates from news feeds as for now as we all know Kobo doesn't handle that well.
dantaipan is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-01-2010, 10:37 AM   #2
nboshart
Connoisseur
nboshart has a complete set of Star Wars action figures.nboshart has a complete set of Star Wars action figures.nboshart has a complete set of Star Wars action figures.nboshart has a complete set of Star Wars action figures.nboshart has a complete set of Star Wars action figures.
 
Posts: 65
Karma: 456
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Toronto
Device: Kobo
Good to know, I'm behind in my reading and was wondering how this worked.
Thanks!
nboshart is offline   Reply With Quote
Advert
Old 06-01-2010, 05:45 PM   #3
artificial
Groupie
artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.
 
artificial's Avatar
 
Posts: 179
Karma: 6328
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Device: Kobo eReader
Thanks dantaipan. I looked at the instapaper website before I bought my Reader, but haven't tried it out. Will have to give it a whirl.

EDIT: Checked it out - fantastic! The epubs it creates look great, and somehow it's parser is smart enough to remove all of the cruft from the blogs I tested it on, leaving just the article. It's kind of a shame to lose all the comments from the articles (since that's part of the appeal of blogs - the conversation), but I can live with that.

Last edited by artificial; 06-01-2010 at 06:06 PM.
artificial is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-01-2010, 07:22 PM   #4
sunami88
Enthusiast
sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.
 
sunami88's Avatar
 
Posts: 28
Karma: 1434
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Ontario
Device: Kobo
Theoretically couldn't we just print a page to PDF then convert it with Calibre?

This is something I've been meaning to try out. You'd probably get stuck with some ads (Adblock ftw mind you), but that way you could keep the comments section, couldn't you?
sunami88 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-01-2010, 07:25 PM   #5
Stinger
Asha'man
Stinger has learned how to read e-booksStinger has learned how to read e-booksStinger has learned how to read e-booksStinger has learned how to read e-booksStinger has learned how to read e-booksStinger has learned how to read e-booksStinger has learned how to read e-books
 
Stinger's Avatar
 
Posts: 335
Karma: 844
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Canada
Device: Kobo
Quote:
Originally Posted by sunami88 View Post
Theoretically couldn't we just print a page to PDF then convert it with Calibre?

This is something I've been meaning to try out. You'd probably get stuck with some ads, but that way you could keep the comments section, couldn't you?
Yes, you can. But you should avoid PDF. If you just saved in HTML and then converted to EPUB, the result would be much nicer than the PDF conversion.

I was thinking the same thing when I read this post. But after some thinking, I believe the advantage of this system is you can use the Calibre fetch news function to automatically aggregate all the individual pages you 'bookmark'.

So rather then manually saving, converting, and transferring each article to the Kobo manually, you get a RSS feed type thing that is automated.
Stinger is offline   Reply With Quote
Advert
Old 06-01-2010, 07:32 PM   #6
sunami88
Enthusiast
sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.sunami88 is no ebook tyro.
 
sunami88's Avatar
 
Posts: 28
Karma: 1434
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Ontario
Device: Kobo
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stinger View Post
Yes, you can. But you should avoid PDF. If you just saved in HTML and then converted to EPUB, the result would be much nicer than the PDF conversion.

I was thinking the same thing when I read this post. But after some thinking, I believe the advantage of this system is you can use the Calibre fetch news function to automatically aggregate all the individual pages you 'bookmark'.

So rather then manually saving, converting, and transferring each article to the Kobo manually, you get a RSS feed type thing that is automated.
True. The only big problem I have is that Calibre takes up a good 600 megs of ram for some reason on my computer. I also wouldn't want to read "everything" on the go. It'd probably just be a few articles here and there.

I guess it depends what you want to do. All the content from WebsiteX = Calibre. For a few articles here and there, Print to PDF or saving the HTML like you said would probably suffice (and not eat up a staggering amount of memory while it does it).

Guess I'll have to get unlazy one of these days and actually try it out :P .
sunami88 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-01-2010, 07:35 PM   #7
Stinger
Asha'man
Stinger has learned how to read e-booksStinger has learned how to read e-booksStinger has learned how to read e-booksStinger has learned how to read e-booksStinger has learned how to read e-booksStinger has learned how to read e-booksStinger has learned how to read e-books
 
Stinger's Avatar
 
Posts: 335
Karma: 844
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Canada
Device: Kobo
Quote:
Guess I'll have to get unlazy one of these days and actually try it out :P .
You and me both! Meh, lets worry about that tomorrow tho...
Stinger is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-01-2010, 07:43 PM   #8
artificial
Groupie
artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.artificial got an A in P-Chem.
 
artificial's Avatar
 
Posts: 179
Karma: 6328
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Device: Kobo eReader
Oh BTW I didn't actually try Instapaper w/ Calibre, just by itself

I have done a side-by-side comparison now, and here are what I see as the pros and cons.

Fetching Intapaper feed with Calibre:
+ Preserves all comments
- Atrocious formatting in ePub
- Aspect ratio of some images not maintained

Creating ePub from Instapaper:
+ Beautiful formatting
- Blog comments not included in ePub

Note that I haven't attempted to finesse the Calibre news feed formatting at all. I just added my Instapaper feed and fetched it.

But for my money (that would be zero dollars!) Instapaper does a better job or ePub creation. If there was an option to maintain comments then I think it would be perfect!
artificial is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-01-2010, 08:03 PM   #9
dantaipan
Enthusiast
dantaipan began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 29
Karma: 10
Join Date: May 2010
Device: kobo
The main advantage of Instapaper and Calibre is that it's easy. When you come across something you want to read later you just click "read later." Then next time you plug your Kobo in, all of those items are automatically uploaded to it. Converting something to PDF or ePub then manually uploading requires far too much effort.
dantaipan is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-01-2010, 09:54 PM   #10
RedRoverJ
Zealot
RedRoverJ has a complete set of Star Wars action figures.RedRoverJ has a complete set of Star Wars action figures.RedRoverJ has a complete set of Star Wars action figures.RedRoverJ has a complete set of Star Wars action figures.
 
Posts: 125
Karma: 314
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Canada, Eh!
Device: Kobo
Quote:
Originally Posted by artificial View Post
Oh BTW I didn't actually try Instapaper w/ Calibre, just by itself

I have done a side-by-side comparison now, and here are what I see as the pros and cons.

Fetching Intapaper feed with Calibre:
+ Preserves all comments
- Atrocious formatting in ePub
- Aspect ratio of some images not maintained

Creating ePub from Instapaper:
+ Beautiful formatting
- Blog comments not included in ePub

Note that I haven't attempted to finesse the Calibre news feed formatting at all. I just added my Instapaper feed and fetched it.

But for my money (that would be zero dollars!) Instapaper does a better job or ePub creation. If there was an option to maintain comments then I think it would be perfect!
I did that same comparison earlier this evening and also found the Instapaper generated ePubs worked far better than those produced by Calibre. Not to mention, for the Calibre generated ePubs I had to mess with the stylesheet.css to solve the font issue. The ePubs from Instapaper had no such font issues at all.
RedRoverJ is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-15-2010, 10:03 PM   #11
Nexutix
Reading and reading
Nexutix ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nexutix ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nexutix ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nexutix ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nexutix ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nexutix ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nexutix ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nexutix ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nexutix ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nexutix ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nexutix ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Nexutix's Avatar
 
Posts: 582
Karma: 8250144
Join Date: Oct 2010
Device: Infibeam Pi, iPod Touch 4G, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 2, Oneplus One
Arrow

Info: Wordcycler is said to be autosync from instapaper directly to your device. Just attach the device, it will copy instapaper's ePubs/Mobis and eject it automatically when done.

Complain: But somehow, even after providing my login information, it does not determine which folders I have on instapaper, nor does it download epubs from default folder. Anyways, I am currently downloading manually from instapaper.

Question: Is there any way, by which we can automatically download webpages daily and save them in epub/mobi format. Those website dont have RSS feed, so maybe Calibre won't work. Actually , I have humor websites, which update daily with no RSS feed, but I would like to get them automatically downloaded somewhere in ePub/Mobi format.

Suggestion: Maybe we will need new subforum somewhere about instapaper, web automation and similar services; won't we?
Nexutix is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
New Calibre Kobo Driver allows deleting of Kobo Free books timlegge Kobo Reader 46 08-27-2011 10:16 PM
Calibre + Instapaper Limits feelsgoodman Calibre 3 11-27-2010 02:40 AM
Instapaper folders and Calibre flyash Calibre 4 08-13-2010 02:01 AM
Calibre, Instapaper, multipage articles and ordering flyash Calibre 1 06-10-2010 07:03 PM
Calibre not working with Instapaper fetch angelsdan Calibre 3 05-22-2010 01:34 PM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 09:49 AM.


MobileRead.com is a privately owned, operated and funded community.