Calibre Newbie - Creating a library from a large collection of ebooks

Silanah · 03-14-2016, 01:34 AM

I have a very large collection of books and documents - more than 8000. I want to add them all into Calibre and organize them properly. I have some questions regarding this.

(Windows 8.1 laptop)

1. When I add books to Calibre, are they produced in a different location on my computer? For example if I have my books in G/Ebooks, will they be duplicated in C/Documents/Calibre Library? Can I configure Calibre to work like the music management program Musicbee? It doesn't physically move the music but allows editing of metadata.

2. I intend to convert a number of books and documents. Having done a couple of trial conversions, I find that both the previous and the new formats are stored in the Calibre Library. So if I converted 5 Mobi files to Epub they would all be taking up disk space. Do I have to delete them manually or can I configure Calibre to do it for me?

3. How smooth is the conversion from PDFs to Epub? I have a number of articles and essays in PDF which I would much rather have in epub.

I am sorry if these are very basic or obvious questions. I have only ever used Calibre for conversion and I don't want to make a mistake that will cause me to lose my files. I would love some help/advice in setting up my library.

pdurrant · 03-14-2016, 06:36 AM

1. No, there's no way to do this. Calibre will always store its own copy of your books.

2. You'll have to delete manually, if disk space is really so tight for you. I would never advise deleting the original.

3. PDF->ePub is rarely very good. Almost every PDF will need manual tweaks after conversion, or may even be unusable, depending on the source PDF.

PeterT · 03-14-2016, 07:09 AM

For PDF's see this post Read this before Posting PDF Questions; this lays out some of the issues with PDF conversion.

Silanah · 03-14-2016, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pdurrant

1. No, there's no way to do this. Calibre will always store its own copy of your books.

2. You'll have to delete manually, if disk space is really so tight for you. I would never advise deleting the original.

3. PDF->ePub is rarely very good. Almost every PDF will need manual tweaks after conversion, or may even be unusable, depending on the source PDF.

Thank you! I plan to have the Calibre Library on my laptop and keep the original backed up in an external source.

Silanah · 03-14-2016, 08:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeterT

For PDF's see this post Read this before Posting PDF Questions; this lays out some of the issues with PDF conversion.

That was a very informative link. Do tihngs improve if I convert to RTF first and then to Epub?

gbm · 03-14-2016, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeterT

For PDF's see this post Read this before Posting PDF Questions; this lays out some of the issues with PDF conversion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silanah

That was a very informative link. Do tihngs improve if I convert to RTF first and then to Epub?

You might want to give Mobipocket Creator 4.2 Publisher Edition a try, it has a PDF import and convert wizard. Convert to HTML then import into calibre or Sigil to do touch-ups.

It has been several years since I last used, but did a good job of converting PDF.

bernie

phossler · 03-14-2016, 11:16 AM

Quote:

1. No, there's no way to do this. Calibre will always store its own copy of your books.

Also another thought: As many, many people have said: "Treat the calibre library as a black box, and don't use any other program to manipulate it (Explorer, etc.)

PeterT · 03-14-2016, 05:19 PM

The issue with PDF is finding an accurate conversion from it to any other TEXTUAL format (RTF / DOC / TXT / ePub / Mobi) as opposed to making an eBook comprised of a series of images; one image per page of the original PDF.

Some folks go so far as after any conversion reading the converted file and comparing character by character to the original file.

03-14-2016, 01:34 AM	#1
Silanah Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2016 Device: none	Calibre Newbie - Creating a library from a large collection of ebooks I have a very large collection of books and documents - more than 8000. I want to add them all into Calibre and organize them properly. I have some questions regarding this. (Windows 8.1 laptop) 1. When I add books to Calibre, are they produced in a different location on my computer? For example if I have my books in G/Ebooks, will they be duplicated in C/Documents/Calibre Library? Can I configure Calibre to work like the music management program Musicbee? It doesn't physically move the music but allows editing of metadata. 2. I intend to convert a number of books and documents. Having done a couple of trial conversions, I find that both the previous and the new formats are stored in the Calibre Library. So if I converted 5 Mobi files to Epub they would all be taking up disk space. Do I have to delete them manually or can I configure Calibre to do it for me? 3. How smooth is the conversion from PDFs to Epub? I have a number of articles and essays in PDF which I would much rather have in epub. I am sorry if these are very basic or obvious questions. I have only ever used Calibre for conversion and I don't want to make a mistake that will cause me to lose my files. I would love some help/advice in setting up my library.

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03-14-2016, 06:36 AM	#2
pdurrant The Grand Mouse 高貴的老鼠 Posts: 73,866 Karma: 315126578 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Norfolk, England Device: Kindle Oasis	1. No, there's no way to do this. Calibre will always store its own copy of your books. 2. You'll have to delete manually, if disk space is really so tight for you. I would never advise deleting the original. 3. PDF->ePub is rarely very good. Almost every PDF will need manual tweaks after conversion, or may even be unusable, depending on the source PDF.

03-14-2016, 07:09 AM	#3
PeterT Grand Sorcerer Posts: 13,456 Karma: 78880114 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Toronto Device: Libra H2O, Libra Colour	For PDF's see this post Read this before Posting PDF Questions; this lays out some of the issues with PDF conversion.

03-14-2016, 05:19 PM	#8
PeterT Grand Sorcerer Posts: 13,456 Karma: 78880114 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Toronto Device: Libra H2O, Libra Colour	The issue with PDF is finding an accurate conversion from it to any other TEXTUAL format (RTF / DOC / TXT / ePub / Mobi) as opposed to making an eBook comprised of a series of images; one image per page of the original PDF. Some folks go so far as after any conversion reading the converted file and comparing character by character to the original file.

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