Calibre: I do not get it

[HLS]

I hear talk of this program here so I downloaded it. How do I add my oasis books and Nook books to it? Also what are the good uses for it? I do not see the point but maybe someone to open my eyes to the benefits. Thank you.

[Cinisajoy]

Well the bigger the Calibre the bigger the hole it makes.

Oops wrong calibre. Be right back with a link to Calibre.
My tablet isn't wanting to paste.

[Cyberman tM]

Originally Posted by kcladyz

I hear talk of this program here so I downloaded it. How do I add my oasis books and Nook books to it? Also what are the good uses for it? I do not see the point but maybe someone to open my eyes to the benefits. Thank you.

You have to download the books to your computer, then you can add them inside Calibre (using the "add book" button).
Unless they've got DRM, you should immediately be able to view them via Calibre.
And as soon as you plug in an eBook reader, Calibre should recognize it, so you can transfer the books to it (right click, "send to main memory").

The benefit of it is mainly to have a central library of all your books,
instantly knowing which are on your reader right now (as soon as you plug in the reader, a new column appears in the library to show which books are on the device),
and of course, the far most important to me, being able to convert books from all sources and (with help from Apprentice Alf) get rid of DRM.
Also nice, it does offer good sorting/searching.
You can have it download new covers too - useful since some books, for whatever reason, don't have the cover that is shown in the shop.

I regularly buy books from Kobo and Amazon. I read them on my inkBook which is from neither.
(Note: I do have to install Adobe Digital Editions and an older Kindle for PC version to actually GET the books. But once I have the file, Calibre does the rest.)

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

The benefit of it is mainly to have a central library of all your books, instantly knowing which are on your reader right now (as soon as you plug in the reader, a new column appears in the library to show which books are on the device),
and of course, the far most important to me, being able to convert books from all sources and (with help from Apprentice Alf) get rid of DRM.
Also nice, it does offer good sorting/searching.
You can have it download new covers too - useful since some books, for whatever reason, don't have the cover that is shown in the shop.

I regularly buy books from Kobo and Amazon. I read them on my inkBook which is from neither.
(Note: I do have to install Adobe Digital Editions and an older Kindle for PC version to actually GET the books. But once I have the file, Calibre does the rest.)

This.
I use Calibre for backing up my books (several stores I've purchased from in the past have gone belly up), for managing my library (I have thousands of books from many different places, without Calibre I'd have no clue at all what I have), for converting (I only read on my Kindles, but thanks to Calibre and Apprentice Alf I can shop wherever I want, Kobo and Google Play among others), for editing my books (most of them are formatted in ways I dislike). I would not have gotten into ebooks at all if not for Calibre. It's invaluable for me.

[maddz]

Definitely for centralising my ebook library and for backing up my files. I buy from multiple sources and it’s a great way to keep track of everything. (I also keep track of logging ebooks into LibraryThing as that is my central catalogue of all my physical and digital books.)

If you only purchase from a single source, then it’s only useful to create back-ups, but using Calibre gives you the freedom to manage purchases from multiple sources.

[Nabeel]

I agree with the previous contributions: it's a back-up, it's a way of sorting out what you've got. It was invaluable when I left my dearly beloved Sony Reader on a train.

I also use it frequently to convert word documents into a format that I can carry on my e-reader (you have to save them in ODT first).

It's also a wonderful example of the useful stuff that's available free on the web.

I have to say it took me about three years to fully understand what it could do, but that's my fault. I'm still a bit lo-tech. It's worth reading through all the advice that comes with it.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by kcladyz

I hear talk of this program here so I downloaded it. How do I add my oasis books and Nook books to it? Also what are the good uses for it? I do not see the point but maybe someone to open my eyes to the benefits. Thank you.

What I use calibre for:

* A central store of all my purchased books, so I don't buy twice
* Noting where and when I bought them, and how much I paid
* Noting whether and when I've read them, along with a rating
* Tracking series to make sure I read in order
* Converting between formats, so I can read on my preferred reading device.
* With Alf's plugin, stripping DRM so conversion is possible.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

What I use calibre for:

* A central store of all my purchased books, so I don't buy twice
* Noting where and when I bought them, and how much I paid
* Noting whether and when I've read them, along with a rating
* Tracking series to make sure I read in order
* Converting between formats, so I can read on my preferred reading device.
* With Alf's plugin, stripping DRM so conversion is possible.

I use it for all of this and:

• Keeping track of the books which are going to be published and if they are available at the libraries
• Central point for having the same books in all my devices

[Kieran Seymour]

Apart from the organizational side of things, sometimes it's just handy to be able to do what the publishers apparently couldn't.

About a month ago I was reading a novel where one of the characters had a French name with the inevitable accent - Aimée. All well and good, apart from the fact that the name always displayed as Aime´e.

After about the tenth time I just got so irritated that I fired up Calibre, put my knowledge of HTML to use, and replaced every single example in there. I also set one Souffle´ to rights!

[spindlegirl]

I love Calibre for the reasons already mentioned. Having a single program to store all of my e-books in one place. I get e-books from at least 5 different sources and I like being able to store them all in one program, not 5 different apps! It's a great computer accessory to have for anyone who (like myself) loves collecting their e-books into one place.

Also, I am fussy about book presentation for my own visual reading needs. I have favorite fonts and margin and paragraph settings and I like to convert a book to my liking. I often have both an ePub version (to read via Moonreader on my phone or tablet or Calibre's own native reader) and an azw3 version for my Kindle.

In general I have about a hundred or so books on my Kindle at a time, and often rotate what I put on it. Depending on what I feel like reading, I will plug in my Kindle and side-load via Calibre, a dozen or so books prior to going out, then toss my kindle into my purse and have them all there.

That is just for starters, I just have nothing but praise for Calibre and am thankful every day that I have a way to read my e-books wherever I go.

[Apache]

Nothing else to add. I love Calibre.
Apache

[Dr. Drib]

Get it!

Got it!

Love it!

[Josieb1]

I use calibre as a library for my ebooks from all sources, plus I use it to turn word docs into ebooks.

I've been using it since 2007 and it's invaluable.

[barryem]

I don't use Calibre as a library program at all. I use it to make safe backups of the books I buy. When I get a Kindle book I download it to Kindle for PC, drag the book into Calibre, remove the DRM, convert it to both epub and mobi and put those into my library.

My library consists of a folder on an external hard drive called Ebooks and within that is a folder for each author. I like to keep it simple. This let's me use Windows Explorer to go right to any book I own.

Barry

[SleepyBob]

The conversion feature can be very useful. Being able to convert a generic text file to epub so you can put it on your reader. Or being able to buy a kindle book and convert it to epub - you can buy from a preferred storefront without worrying about format compatibility (assuming you remove drm at the same time).