Calibre and Nook Color - adding own ePubs

[Themus]

I seriously apologize if this is explained somewhere else. I tried hooking up my new Nook Color with the updated Calibre and when I try to send it to the device, the Nook Color is not seen.

Do you have to have a memory card to load your own ePubs. Is this what they call side loading?

[SCION]

Is the nook seen by your computer? No, you don't need a memory card to sideload stuff. You can use the main memory on the device.

[Themus]

Well, it said it installed the driver, but no it does not show up as a device. And here's a weird thing, when I plug the USB cable in, my floppy drive keeps spinning like it is trying to read a disk!

[exvaxman]

Here is what I had to do to use a 32GB card in the color nook. Their support is useless and I see thing thing being a major bomb. A couple of extra steos because of the 32GB card that will not format in the nook (but will in any other device it is in, tried a couple of cards)

1) format a lower capacity card in the nook
2) put that card into your card reader
3) copy the directory structure over to an empty directory
4) remove the card
5) put in the 32 GB card and format it to fat-32
6) copy the directory structure to the 32gb card
7) change the attributes on the My Files top level dir and sub-dirs to remove the read-only attribute s you can write to them
8) export your books in epub format from Calibre to a temp directory
9) copy those books to My files/Books/ on the sd card
10) remove the sd card and put it back in the nook.
11) don't have too many books - I tried loading 3000 books and the library does not work - you have to go through the file browser to get to them. Seems to work OK for under 1000 though.

Not really happy with the color nook right now - very poor support from B&N, not the fastest thing in the world (but I did know this going in) and with all of the work arounds I have had to do to load my own books, it is obvious they released it into the public before its' tmie to get holiday sales.

[Themus]

If you don't have a memory card, you are stuck? You cannot load books like the Kindle? With the Kindle, I was able to move books over via my USB cable w/o a memory card.

That would be sad.

[sjkevin]

Originally Posted by Themus

Well, it said it installed the driver, but no it does not show up as a device. And here's a weird thing, when I plug the USB cable in, my floppy drive keeps spinning like it is trying to read a disk!

I think your computer is the problem. Either that, or you have a defective nook.

I have not put an SD card in my nook color, but if I connect it to my computer with the USB cable, it shows up as a drive I can drag and drop ebooks into, just like you can with your Kindle.

[LoganK]

The memory card is not necessary. Calibre works great for me with no special work.

It seems obvious but it is worth mentioning: the Nook Color won't mount while it is asleep (although it will remain mounted if it returns to sleep). After you plug it in, you have to press power, unlock, and you'll see a message on the display indicating that you are now connected to the computer.

Wait a few seconds for Calibre to recognize the device.

[SCION]

Originally Posted by LoganK

... the Nook Color won't mount while it is asleep (although it will remain mounted if it returns to sleep)...

Forgot about that!

[Themus]

That fixed it as far as seeing it. I was able to give up and think it's return my Nook and buy a new computer!

Where do they publish that trick.!

[Themus]

I was able to move two ePubs. Yes! Now I have to figure out how to get the covers to move with them. I appreciate all your help. All of you have been great to respond so quickly.

[sjkevin]

Originally Posted by SCION

Forgot about that!

Me too. Oops!

[LoganK]

Excellent! Glad to hear I could help. (As for where this is documented ... I, err, tend not to read the documentation these days. Sorry. )

Originally Posted by Themus

I was able to move two ePubs. Yes! Now I have to figure out how to get the covers to move with them. I appreciate all your help. All of you have been great to respond so quickly.

Unlike the nook, the Nook Color reads the covers out of the documents themselves. I haven't tested it thoroughly, but it appears that all of my books converted to ePub via Calibre have working covers. If there are Calibre books that aren't working, I'm sure the behavior will be fixed soon. Everything else has failed (in particular, Feedbooks and O'Reilly, which was a surprise).

[Themus]

After four hours, I think I can pass on what I have found out. The covers will transfer to the Nook Color. First, make sure you 'refresh' your display as when you transfer over some books, the covers {even previously successful covers} may come out generic. I did this by changing the order of the library display and even going to the home screen. Often that fixed the problem.

I also made sure I "added" a cover from within Calibre and reconverted them from ePub to ePub. Now a lot of public domain ePub's don't come with covers so I had to capture jpg's from the net that reflected the title of the book.

I thought size would matter and in the end I don't see it makes much of a difference. BTW, on the Nook Color, the cover size in the MyFiles folder is 96 x 144.

If anyone know, can Calibre support folders within it? It would be nice to group one's library by genre in folders rather than one long list.

[Ghostlight]

Just wanted to pop in and thank everyone for posting information in this thread. It was very helpful with my new Nook color. Started out as a very frustrating experience, but everything is going smoothly now. Thanks!