Installing old version of Calibre

[Sylver]

Hi, forgive me if someone has asked this before. I have upgraded a dozen versions now without any noticeable issue, each time a new version is installed on top of the old, I don't have to uninstall the old one and my library is kept intact and everything seems to be working fine. I was wondering can I do the other way round if I have to go back to older versions, that is, directly install an old version on top of the new version and still have all my books in good shape in the library? or do I have to uninstall the new version first if I need to go the other way round? Just curious.

[kovidgoyal]

You have to uninstall first and no it wont affect your books. But note that downgrading is not recommended/supported. Don't do it unless you really have to.

[Sylver]

Thanks, kovidgoyal. Yeah, I have everything working fine for my purpose on v0.7.48 and will keep this as a benchmark for now. Thanks for a great app.

[twplunkett]

How can I get an older version of Calibre? Around 6.0 version. I made a mistake and upgraded what I had to the current version a few months ago and the interface is not like the old one. I need to convert both epub and mobi from and to. My reader now is epub and I have a lot of mobi that needs to be converted to epub. Nook color and Sony does not like them. Kindle did. Now my family has both types of readers and is getting confusing.
Thanks in advance for any help
Tom

[theducks]

Originally Posted by twplunkett

How can I get an older version of Calibre? Around 6.0 version. I made a mistake and upgraded what I had to the current version a few months ago and the interface is not like the old one. I need to convert both epub and mobi from and to. My reader now is epub and I have a lot of mobi that needs to be converted to epub. Nook color and Sony does not like them. Kindle did. Now my family has both types of readers and is getting confusing.
Thanks in advance for any help
Tom

If you upgraded more than a few fractional numbers, you can not go back as the internal DB structure gets updated.
Going back 2 MAJOR levels would mean you would need to re-import all you books into a NEW Library folder

The only reasons to uses such an OLD version is:
1) Your reader device firmware has been superseded (a few models) and you did not want to send it in to get it done.
2) You have a MAC that is old and the OS will not support the newer calibre. (see notes on the download page)

The UI changes, but Calibre does everything that it once did and Lots more.

So the Big question(s)
1 Does the installed version RUN?
2 Does the installed version properly detect your device?

[twplunkett]

Originally Posted by theducks

If you upgraded more than a few fractional numbers, you can not go back as the internal DB structure gets updated.
Going back 2 MAJOR levels would mean you would need to re-import all you books into a NEW Library folder

The only reasons to uses such an OLD version is:
1) Your reader device firmware has been superseded (a few models) and you did not want to send it in to get it done.
2) You have a MAC that is old and the OS will not support the newer calibre. (see notes on the download page)

The UI changes, but Calibre does everything that it once did and Lots more.

So the Big question(s)
1 Does the installed version RUN?
2 Does the installed version properly detect your device?

The installed version runs and detects mu Sony fine. I have never hooked it up this way. I just converted the files I needed done and put them on my reader. So I have no clue what it is supposed to do or get or read whatever in order to simply convert like the older version.
I am not that smart and do not like it when people say things that they think are easy and logical and I'm still out in left field. So please keep this in mind when replying.
I just would like to know how I can get an older version around 6.0.

Thanks in advance,
Tom

[itimpi]

You cannot go back as you ask without having to recreate your Calibre library from scratch. The old version will not understand the database format of the more recent Calibre releases.

Also, the old version will not understand the nook color as it did not exist in those days. The same might be true of your Sony (you do not mention which model you have).

You might be better off just clarifying what you find confusing about the conversion features in the current release. It should be no harder to use than the similar capability offered by the earlier release - and in fact the opposite is more likely to be true as it has had considerable improvement.

[bagby]

This latest version of Calibre (0.8.49) seems to fail at nearly every conversion task I set it to. I want to revert to 0.8.48, to see if that version has all of these problems.

The installer balks at installing over the earlier version, which would be by far the easiest way to do this. How can I get back to 0.8.48 without reinstalling the whole library?

[kovidgoyal]

Uninstall and then install the older version.

[itimpi]

Note that uninstalling Calibre does not lose the existing library or Calibre settings. Therefore following Kovid's suggestion achieves what you want and is functionally equivalent to what you would expect if you were allowed to install the 0.8.48 release over the 0.8.49 one.

One thing to note about the 0.8.49 release is that if you run from source it is also important that you also do the binary install. Until I did that I was getting conversion failures complaining that I did not have the required release of cssutils (which is included in the binary install).

[twplunkett]

Please:
How can I get an older version of Calibre? Around 6.0 version.
That is all I am asking. There used to be sites that had almost everything as far as older versions of anything.
Thanks for any help.
Tom

[PeterT]

Try http://sourceforge.net/projects/calibre/files/ as linked from the calibre download pages (for instance http://calibre-ebook.com/download_windows )

[twplunkett]

Thank you. That's perfect. I uninstalled the newer version and installed 6.53 and it works perfect. Am running Windows 7. You're awesome.

[Marcs1102]

The UI changes, but Calibre does everything that it once did and Lots more.


Actually the current version of Calibre Does *NOT* do what it once did

Specifically i had a long text column with a file location in it ( ZAB = Zipped Audio Books elsewhere on my network with the text displayed "Click to Play" which then played ZAB files with my audio player ((VLC plays zipped audiobooks Added to the registry to always play zab with vlc))

as far as i can tell (on 3 different computers xp/w7/w8) it no longer does that

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Marcs1102

The UI changes, but Calibre does everything that it once did and Lots more.


Actually the current version of Calibre Does *NOT* do what it once did

Specifically i had a long text column with a file location in it ( ZAB = Zipped Audio Books elsewhere on my network with the text displayed "Click to Play" which then played ZAB files with my audio player ((VLC plays zipped audiobooks Added to the registry to always play zab with vlc))

as far as i can tell (on 3 different computers xp/w7/w8) it no longer does that

@Marcs1102 - How did you put the link into your longtext column in earlier version.

I dont have ZAB files but I have flv files that I play with VLC, it works in Calibre 9.13 on Win 7 and Linux (Mint) - sample HTML.

<div><a href="file:///E:/Economics/History
/The%20History%20Of%20Austrian%20Economics%201.flv/">The History Of Austrian Economics 1</a><p></p></div>

Note it must be "file:///" - in other places a "file://" will work but Calibre seems to need the triple slash.

I created that with the Insert Link widget in the Long Text Editor - it has fields for the URI and Link Name. The button is the last of the middle group.

BR