Simple answers to make my life easier? New to Calibre...
 

Evening all

Just wasted a couple of days of my life over the new sony reader library update (3.1) which resulted in me not being able to open my library at all: saw the advice on here and none of it fixes it. Sadly this comes about a week after getting into using my PRS600 which I received as a gift in November. Peed off as waited til I had time to play with it, and now it wont work.

So now I am using calibre.

I am not computer savvy and I just want a simple life when I get home at the end of the day.

All I would like to know is:

1) **What is the most compatible, no-hassle way to purchase ebooks and put them on my reader using calibre?**

I am hoping there is an easy way to buy a book in a specific format (epub the best?), not have drm trouble, and not have to convert files, put it on my reader and have done with it. Otherwise cheap paperbacks from amazon seem very appealing!

2) Are the following right?

(a) I have added books (epubs) from my digital editions into calibre. calibre won't let me view them because of the drm, but presumably these will be transferred as normal onto my reader without the need to convert or strip the drm (get me and my lingo!)?

(b) If i delete a book from calibre it's gone forever? I now have six copies of wolf hall on there from fiddling with adding and trying to get round the drm, which if (a) is right i don't need to do. Can I just delete the 5 i don't want?

(c) I have books on my reader that the sony software popped on for me. Sony software has been removed. if i plug in the reader will it wipe and re-sync like an ipod or will i have duplicates?

I would really appreciate a quick answer or two - I have all the kit and no ebooks! It was a really thoughtful gift from my dad, but i'm not feeling very lucky right now because sony rained on my parade!

Cheers

Clare

Go to the ebook store of your choice, buy your book, download. I understand you have Adobe Digital Editions (and I assume you have authorized your reader), so Adobe Digital Editions handles it and opens it. Plug in you reader, drag and drop your book to your reader using Adobe Digital Editions and you're done. That's the simplest way.

If you want to manage your library with calibre, add your books to calibre (adobe digital editions places them in <your username>/documents/my digital editions), edit the metadata as you please, plug in your reader, send to device. That's it.

Alternatively, you can drag and drop your books onto the reader using explorer. The folder for ebooks is READER/database/media/books

Correct, if you have authorized your reader with either the sony software or adobe digital editions.


If you delete a book from calibre it's gone forever from the calibre library. You could (and probably should) have copies elsewhere. If you have 6 identical books you can of course safely remove 5 of them!


Sync with what, if your sony software has been removed? Calibre doesn't sync, you copy books manually, so no worries :)

Great reply, thanks very much!