[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

do I understand you correctly that, if you change a cover in calibre, and then send the file to the device, the cover is changed without doing a conversion? because that's not what I've found happens, although I last experimented on this several months ago and it could have changed.

If calibre can identify what the existing cover is, then yes it will replace it - it depends on the book. If you want to *guarantee* that calibre can identify it, then a conversion or Modify ePub is the only way, beyond manually editing the opf manifest yourself. I'll be honest and say that replacing covers in MOBI files isn't a high personal priority, because on the Kindles you and I have Amazon does their best to make it difficult to see them anyway. Given the Kindle is b&w, and it is just another page I would otherwise click past I think they have it right - I save the pretty cover browsing time for when perusing my books in calibre.

I mostly use mobi because I do have a kindle (a k3, if that matters). I like having the metadata comments (a book description) up front in a book, so I can tell what the book is about before i get into it - I have so many books on my k3 that I forget why I have which books. I do have a lot of my books in both files formats, though.

You are talking about a metadata *jacket* being a page you can insert into the book using calibre, which is different to what the OP is referring to, which is the *internal* metadata stored in the book. You are absolutely correct that inserting a metadata jacket page is the only way to see your book comments on a Kindle. And the only way of doing that is via a calibre conversion (unless you were working with an ePub for Modify ePub of course). But this is all very different to the internal metadata stored inside an ebook (which is what calibre reads to put in the title bar of the calibre ebook viewer, and your Kindle reads to display as the title/author on the device).

Are you saying that when I get a mobi file, I should convert it to epub for archive reasons, because that's a superior format?

No point, unless you plan on editing the book to restore formatting that was lost when the MOBI was created. A MOBI file due to the nature of its format has less options available for the formatting of the HTML it contains inside it (e.g. no right margin capability and issues with tables). Converting back to ePub cannot magically "restore" formatting that gets lost by converting to MOBI.

However if you are downloading/buying a book and have a choice of formats available then all things being equal an ePub version is a better long term bet. Amazon is trying to up their game of course with the new KF8 standard, but that doesn't help you and me as Kindle 3rd gen owners .

If I have a book in both mobi and epub (and I do have a lot that way) do I need to convert or use Manage Eputbs to make the changes twice, once in each format?

As Modify ePub only works on ePub books, I would make the change once to your ePub, and then reconvert to MOBI. That is what I do - I use ePub as my master format for every book, that I do any editing on using Sigil, Tweak ePub or the Modify ePub plugin to get it formatted exactly as I want it. Then I convert to MOBI to prepare it for sending to my Kindle at a later point.

However if you are looking to keep your life incomparably simple, are perfectly happy with the limitations in the formatting of the MOBI books you have believe it will take death to have the Kindle pried out of your hands then don't fuss yourself bothering about ePub and conversions