Arc eReader apps for the Arc

[UberMike]

I've spent much of my evening playing with the Arc in Kobo Library, Aldiko, Google Play Reader and trying out a few others. What I'm after is something that manages the ebook library properly, and organises series/collections in chronological order.

Example, I have the Warhammer 40K series The Horus Heresy which is over 20 books. The only way any of these apps allow you to sort is by title, author or read date. None of them let you sort by series order, publish date, or any form of grouping that let's you manage the set from 1 through to 24, instead they're all jumbled in a messy heap with no sense.

I've tried dumping the files straight onto the Arc in Explorer and I've tried Calibre, spending time with metadata and sorting the series by title, only to find every app ignores this.

Is there any app out there that properly manages novel series so they display in order?

[UberMike]

Apparently I need one that also supports both EPUB and MOBI. Not having much luck. I've tried a whole bunch tonight, including (from memory) iReader, Cool Reader, FBReader, Moon+ Reader, Zo Reader, Kobo, Kindle, Google Play Reader, Aldiko...

If so many novels come out in series/sets, why don't any of these applications let you organise them in order so you can easily browse and read them in order?

[Carpman]

Hi UberMike

Frustrating is it not, such a simple thing, or so you would think. I was using audiobooks and have come back to 'reading' again, I had the same problem with audiobook management.

It does not help when you look for books on the Kobo website that the listings do not always have the series information ie: book 1, book 2, book 3 and so on. I did raise the issue with support but I have no idea if they will update the database.

When I look for books on the Kobo website I have a browser window open for Google and one for Amazon, just so that I can ensure I read book series in the correct order.

I will say that with Calibre you can at least change a books format, I downloaded a fee book from Amazon in the Amazon format then used Calibre to change it to EPUB, probably works for MOBI to.

You wonder how a company such as Kobo can sell books and devices yet get some of the basics wrong, many books are sold in series format but for some reason 'big brother' does not seem to grasp that point.

Maybe one day someone may turn the light on!!!!

[UberMike]

Since they all seem to allow you to sort by title I may fall back on the idea of completely butchering the title of the book lol. So I would name the title:

Series Name # - Title - Author

That way I can display by title and have it pick up the entire series together. I'll play in Calibre this afternoon and see if that will work. I'll also look at trying to convert the MOBI to EPUB or just finding an EPUB version, then I should be able to use Kobo Library or Aldiko without any issues.

[Carpman]

Changing the title as suggested makes sense, Calibre would be my choice as it will convert MOBI to EPUB.

The advantage I see with Calibre is that it will (according to the website) convert most formats into EPUB, so it has lots of flexibility.

I may in the end follow your lead and start sorting my "SERIES" books in the manner you have indicated.

I would be interested to hear how you get on, I am unable to play today or tomorrow as I am committed elsewhere.

Good luck

[UberMike]

It definitely worked, using Aldiko for it. Calibre converted the roughly dozen MOBI I had into EPUB without issue, and the title syntax I have is:

Series Name # - Title of book

With Aldiko I've also created a Collection for each series so they can be browsed individually (and in order) or view the entire book collection in list or shelf format. So I've got about 6 series in total, between 2 to 35 books in each one.

Only thing I need to do new is fix up some of the book covers, they either don't display or they're tiny little fractions of the entire cover space, while the majority appear in full size so I'm not sure what happened there.

[Carpman]

With regard the book covers, have you tried obtaining them through the 'edit metadata' tab?

In this tab click on 'download cover' this will start a web search and may give you different size covers (pixels) for example one of my books is: 500 x 762 pixels, but by doing a search I can get the following sizes: 575 x 872 and 325 x 480, now this may not be the answer but it may be worth trying.

Failing that you should consider emailing the developer to see if he can help you.

[UberMike]

Some of the ones that display poorly on the kobo (in Calibre they show fine) include:

294x500
281x475
291x475
608x811
307x500
440x660
523x841
305x500 (doesn't even display the cover)

Most of these were got with the download cover feature, usually from Amazon. I tried Google searches as well and just dragged some covers from the browser into Calibre on the cover art frame and it changed in Calibre but it still seems to be the wrong size.

Would like to know what the ideal or recommended dimensions are for cover art on the Kobo, either in the Kobo app or Aldiko (or just generally).

[Carpman]

With reference to the recommended dimensions for cover art I suggest that you post a question for Kobo - Robin who is active on these forums. He, as his 'handle' suggests, works in the right place to obtain an answer on this subject.

It sounds to me that you are nearly at the end of your quest.

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by UberMike

Most of these were got with the download cover feature, usually from Amazon.

That's because the cover download feature in calibre doesn't actually change the epub. You have to do an epub-to-epub conversion for that, if you want to do it within calibre, or else open the epub in an archive program (7-Zip is free and good - just right-click on the epub and choose 7-Zip->Open archive) and replace the existing cover.jpg with the new cover.jpg (which will be sitting in the book's directory in your calibre library; might have to delete the existing cover.jpg first instead of just dragging-and-dropping the new one into the archive - can't remember if 7-Zip replaces files by default).

[UberMike]

Converting seemed to work, just tested on one that had the Penguin logo on the cover of about 5 books in a series. Had updated the image but when exported to the Kobo it was the Pengiun again. I opened the book in Calibre and same thing. Converted it, opened the new EPUB and it had the new image, so I deleted the ORIGINAL_EPUB format

Will have to sort out the others later in the week when there's time. Thanks for the tip. Happy with Aldiko now with all the tweaks and title changes to organize things.

[LoveSweetLove]

I agree that it totally sucks that the reading apps ignore the metadata. The series thing is my biggest pet peeve too. At least with the tapestries I pin the all the books by the same author together with their webpage so I can figure out which book to read next.