After successfully using the iPad with Calibre for the last few weeks, I thought I would share the process I am using to see what others think.
Let me start by saying, if you haven't seen a Calibre Recipe displayed in iBooks, you have a treat in store. With colour images and beautifully laid out contents, it is a real step up from when I used to read my daily newpapers on my Kindle DX.
Apart from one twist, there is no great difference in automating the process:
- In Calibre Preferences->General: Make sure the “Preferred output format” is set to ePub and under
- In Calibre Preferences->Conversion: Make sure the “Output Profile” is set to iPad
- Under Fetch News, select the recipes you want to be automatically scheduled for download
At this stage you can use the Save to Disk icon to manually save a copy of the ePub output to the iTunes “Automatically Add to iTunes” folder. Any ePub files placed here will be loaded into the Books section of iTunes and automatically synced with the iPad next time it is plugged in.
As a slight twist, on my Mac, I have set up a Folder Action, using the built in Automator, that detects any new files being added to the “calibre” folder in the Calibre LIbrary, copies them to the iTunes auto-import folder and then deletes the originals. This more or less recreates the standard Calibre behavior of automatically copying and then deleting recipes when you attach a Kindle etc. Keeps the catalogue clean as well. Would be nice to be able to configure Calibre to do this in a cleaner way (Hint for a new feature maybe), but for now it makes the process as easy as I had hoped.
Of course, the manual copying trick works for any other ebooks in ePub format in my Calibre LIbrary.
Last word, is to thank Kovid, kiklop74 and all the others that have made Calibre and in particular its Recipes such a great way to read stuff.