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DNSB · 08-15-2026, 03:22 PM

You might want to check when Kovid made that comment about Kobo software being buggy. It's been a few years.

You can set the font being used to display a book on the Clara. Unless the CSS in the ePub forces a font, you can use any font you want. If there is a specific font you want to use that is not in the Kobo factory font set, it is trivial to add a font.

To download ePubs from the library, the easiest way is to have a Kobo account which allows you to sync the books OTA if Kobo's copy and the library copy have the same ISBN. Otherwise you can use ADE or the ACSM plugin for calibre to download the book from the library supplied .acsm file. For your workflow, you could add SideloadedMode=true under the [ApplicationPreferences] header.

See message #9 in the Firmware 4.31.19086 thread for more information.

Personally, I find the Kobo Utilities plugin very handy. It allows you to do backups of the databases and other important files—I have it set to do this the first time I connect to calibre during a day.

Yes, they are more prone that a Kindle to having database issues if you do not safely eject. OTOH, using the Kobo Utilities backup allows you to recover from a database corruption very easily.

Unlike many other ereaders, there is no need to jailbreak or root a Kobo. They are open Linux devices. This has the advantage of allowing users to modify the database contents, etc. It has the disadvantage that you can more easily break your Kobo but, if nothing else, you can resort to a factory reset.

Many of the older Kobo devices have a removable µSD card. This has advantages in being to remove and re-image the card. OTOH, µSD cards, especially the older units, have relatively short write lifetimes. This is one of the reasons that Kobo has been switching to using eMMC for storage.

08-15-2026, 03:22 PM	#5
DNSB Bibliophagist Posts: 53,837 Karma: 181886195 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Vancouver Device: Kobo Sage, Libra Colour, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos	You might want to check when Kovid made that comment about Kobo software being buggy. It's been a few years. You can set the font being used to display a book on the Clara. Unless the CSS in the ePub forces a font, you can use any font you want. If there is a specific font you want to use that is not in the Kobo factory font set, it is trivial to add a font. To download ePubs from the library, the easiest way is to have a Kobo account which allows you to sync the books OTA if Kobo's copy and the library copy have the same ISBN. Otherwise you can use ADE or the ACSM plugin for calibre to download the book from the library supplied .acsm file. For your workflow, you could add SideloadedMode=true under the [ApplicationPreferences] header. See message #9 in the Firmware 4.31.19086 thread for more information. Personally, I find the Kobo Utilities plugin very handy. It allows you to do backups of the databases and other important files—I have it set to do this the first time I connect to calibre during a day. Yes, they are more prone that a Kindle to having database issues if you do not safely eject. OTOH, using the Kobo Utilities backup allows you to recover from a database corruption very easily. Unlike many other ereaders, there is no need to jailbreak or root a Kobo. They are open Linux devices. This has the advantage of allowing users to modify the database contents, etc. It has the disadvantage that you can more easily break your Kobo but, if nothing else, you can resort to a factory reset. Many of the older Kobo devices have a removable µSD card. This has advantages in being to remove and re-image the card. OTOH, µSD cards, especially the older units, have relatively short write lifetimes. This is one of the reasons that Kobo has been switching to using eMMC for storage.