[citac]

Originally Posted by booksonthemove

With respect, I'd say you're therefore not the target audience. The software is quite obviously for people who want to manage their ebooks in conjunction with using a portable reader. Or even several portable readers, some of which might be better at using a format particular to them.

I started using calibre hoping I would be a part of that target audience. It's become obvious to me that regretfully, I am not. Nothing wrong with that. There are many programs out there that don't suit my needs, so I use those that do.

I doubt that's the intention, though if it said something along the lines of "much more efficient for CALIBRE to look up" that might clarify things for you somewhat. It does not touch or modify your existing collection, possibly for the reason you've just described, i.e. you have your own ideas how you'd like your books organised. It has its own ideas. So it makes its own database. Without touching yours.

That wording I can live with. Yes, people have different ideas on what's efficient or not. You might be appalled at the way I organize my stuff, and I can be appalled at yours. Again, nothing wrong with that. No, it doesn't touch my collection, but it makes a duplicate. I don't have thousands of books, but the books I have are very image heavy pdfs and I don't have the money to buy spacious hard drives.

well blimey if that's not snarky then I don't know what is. If the software does not suit your idea of what it should do, you are under no compulsion to use it.

I believe I was very polite: "I wouldn't mind having one that would suit my idea of a properly organized collection." I never said that my idea of how files should be organized is the be-all, end-all of organization schemes and that everyone should start conforming to the way I do things, but that it works for me and I'd like to keep it that way. The original claim bothered me because I felt it implied that we couldn't possibly be smart enough to devise a scheme that suits us. I like to think that there was no ill intention behind the words, only unfortunate wording.

Like I said above, there are many other programs that are excellent, free or paid, but simply do not suit me so I use something else instead. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find an alternative to calibre for me to try. The Library management software has four threads:

- calibre,
- Sigil "an open-source WYSIWYG ebook editor designed to edit books in ePub format",
- Reading Software and
- OpenInkpot, "a community project aimed at creating a free, open-source firmware replacement for various e-book devices."

There is no venue for me to ask for recommendations for programs other than calibre. If you know of such a thread, or an outside link, I would be much obliged.