Thread: Getting my calibre library ready for kobo forma questions
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Old 03-15-2020, 07:45 PM   #6
davidfor
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Posts: 24,905
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Sydney, Australia
Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos
Quote:
Originally Posted by Solarin View Post
Hey guys, I am a longtime kindle user and I just ordered a kobo forma. My calibre library is completely catered toward the kindle's eccentricities, so I was just wondering if anyone had answers to my relatively niche questions. I really appreciate any insight you guys can give!
The short answer is that it will just work. And it is probably a good idea to wait until you have the device and try it before changing much.

Having said that, and with the other comments...
Quote:
1. Is there a best image size for covers? I ask because the covers show up as screensavers as well on the forma. On my kindle, most of my covers are 651x990, so I was wondering if anyone found the sweet spot for image size and what that is.
My general advice is to get the best quality cover you can get and let the devices handle it. That goes for Kindles as well.

Kobo devices will generate the cover from the book. It doesn't matter much how big the cover is, but, the worse the quality or match to the size of the device, the worse the image will appear when displayed. You need to see it before you can make a decision.

You can also send the covers to the device using the driver. In this case, the covers are generated directly from cover in the calibre library. This will produce the best quality sleepcover images.
Quote:
2. Most of my authors are sorted by last name, first name because the kindle automatically re-populates them as first name, last name - but still sorts via last name for alphabetical purposes. I never figured out how to make calibre fix this, so I just manually changed the names in calibre to last, first and it worked fine for the kindle. Should I change that back to first name, last name for the kobo?
Kobo assumes the author is "FN LN" and "FN1 LN1, FN2 LN2" for multiple authors. It doesn't use author sort field from calibre, and in fact only uses the first dc:creator tag in the OPF. I recommend using the following metadata plugbord to set the author in the books when sending to the device:

Code:
program: raw_list('authors', ', ')
Quote:
3. Any other insights on calibre management for those who also switched from kindle to kobo would be much appreciated! I've already heard about the kobo epub plugin, but I do not know anything else. Thanks!
The rest really depends on what you want. Calibre can create the collections on the device if you want. There is an argument for using kepubs instead of epubs, in which case you look at the KoboTouchExtended driver or the appropriate conversion plugins. My Kobo Utilities plugin has a lot of function. One is to fetch the reading status from the device and store it in your library. Some people love that, some people don't understand why anyone would want to do that.

And all that is why I honestly think you won't really know what to do until you have the device in your hands and have played with it. Get it, put a few books on it and read a bit. Then work out what you do and don't like and what you want to change.
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