New Kindle Paperwhite owner, what are some essential utilities i should get?

[Nausicaa]

I do not suggest calibre because its like the iTunes of ebooks. Its bloated and very slow for me.

They usually have multiple formats if you bought the books. I would just use the better formats. If you want to read a comic book, just put all the pictures in a zip file and it will be a neat comic book. Ideally you would jailbreak and use a different program to read your books (koreader) but if you can't you are stuck with calibre to convert.

[steven168]

Originally Posted by Coops

Get Calibre & the de-drm stuff installed...

then convert to azw3 with Charis SIL font

thread for JSWofl's fab font here:-
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...light=chareink

It's embarrassing how poor the built in fonts are in Kindles compared to Charis SIL.
Embed that Chareink font, and once on your Kindle you can choose the 'Publisher Font' which will be ChareInk.

Also install the Hyphenate This! plug-in so you can have proper hyphenation in the azw3 book.

ChareInk NoWeight v1.1.zip
ChareInk v1.1.zip

what is the different?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Nausicaa

I do not suggest calibre because its like the iTunes of ebooks. Its bloated and very slow for me.

Odd. I don't find calibre slow never mind really slow. As for bloated? There are a lot of functionality I don't use but others seem to love.

Originally Posted by Nausicaa

They usually have multiple formats if you bought the books. I would just use the better formats. If you want to read a comic book, just put all the pictures in a zip file and it will be a neat comic book. Ideally you would jailbreak and use a different program to read your books (koreader) but if you can't you are stuck with calibre to convert.

It would be nice if I could read CBR/CBZ/CB7 mangas on my Tolino epos. Unfortunately, a non-supported format so conversion is necessary. I take it your eInk Kindle supports those formats?

It would also be nice if multiple formats were available. Unfortunately, other than Baen who support multiple formats and a few places that have mobi and epub formats available, conversion is about the only game in town if you want the ebook in a different format.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Nausicaa

I do not suggest calibre because its like the iTunes of ebooks. Its bloated and very slow for me.

They usually have multiple formats if you bought the books. I would just use the better formats. If you want to read a comic book, just put all the pictures in a zip file and it will be a neat comic book. Ideally you would jailbreak and use a different program to read your books (koreader) but if you can't you are stuck with calibre to convert.

Isn't the main point of kindle comic converter converting comic books?
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=207461

Why would someone be stuck with calibre for converting comic books?

[GlenBarrington]

Unfortunately, false positives are a fact of life with any anti-malware. And sometimes, you have to take a leap of faith with certain combinations of desired software and your anti-malware of choice.

Most of the time, there is no harm or foul. But sometimes we lose that bet! Calibre, downloaded from the Calibre project site, has never caused me any problems whatsoever. I think it is a safe and reasonable risk to take to either whitelist Calibre or temporarily turn off your A-MW software.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by steven168

ChareInk NoWeight v1.1.zip
ChareInk v1.1.zip

what is the different?

The NoWeight version has the fonts with the original weight. The other has added weight. The NoWeight is a good one to use on a Kindle PW2 on up because it has the bold setting in the current firmware. Older Kindles that don;t have this, the other is better to use because it has added weight. When I posted originally, no Kindle could add weight to fonts.

So grab both and you'll be all set for whatever you want.

[steven168]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The NoWeight version has the fonts with the original weight. The other has added weight. The NoWeight is a good one to use on a Kindle PW2 on up because it has the bold setting in the current firmware. Older Kindles that don;t have this, the other is better to use because it has added weight. When I posted originally, no Kindle could add weight to fonts.

So grab both and you'll be all set for whatever you want.

thanks

[netromo]

Originally Posted by Nausicaa

I do not suggest calibre because its like the iTunes of ebooks. Its bloated and very slow for me.

They usually have multiple formats if you bought the books. I would just use the better formats. If you want to read a comic book, just put all the pictures in a zip file and it will be a neat comic book. Ideally you would jailbreak and use a different program to read your books (koreader) but if you can't you are stuck with calibre to convert.

iTunes of ebooks? Bloated? Over the years I have built up a library consisting of thousands of ebooks in different formats. Calibre still runs smoothly without any slowdowns. For comic book conversions I use Kindle Comic Converter (mentioned in an earlier post). The only bloat I find in Calibre is the comic book conversion part

[ilovejedd]

I'd echo comments on Calibre's good performance. The only computers where I found Calibre to be slow were on Intel Atom and AMD Zacate (which are around Pentium 3 level?). That's the fault of the CPU and not Calibre. On Core 2 Duo up, it performs quite nicely especially when paired with SSD.

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

I'd echo comments on Calibre's good performance. The only computers where I found Calibre to be slow were on Intel Atom and AMD Zacate (which are around Pentium 3 level?). That's the fault of the CPU and not Calibre. On Core 2 Duo up, it performs quite nicely especially when paired with SSD.

I've found it slow in one single situation: at startup, on a machine with spinning-rust disk that has not previously run any Qt 5 applications since boot. This is not Calibre's fault: it's just that Qt 5 is *huge*, and faulting in the parts of it used by Calibre can take quite a long time. I doubt this is practically fixable: nor, with the increasing prevalence of SSD with its zero seek time, are people particularly motivated to fix it.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by NullNix

I've found it slow in one single situation: at startup, on a machine with spinning-rust disk that has not previously run any Qt 5 applications since boot. This is not Calibre's fault: it's just that Qt 5 is *huge*, and faulting in the parts of it used by Calibre can take quite a long time. I doubt this is practically fixable: nor, with the increasing prevalence of SSD with its zero seek time, are people particularly motivated to fix it.

I find mechanical HDDs to be a bottleneck in most software I use (web browsers, office suites, etc).

Atom and Zacate were notable cases since I was *already* using decent SSDs on those builds so the bottleneck was really the CPU.

[jj2me]

Originally Posted by syrianrue

is k2pdfopt the best converter for pdf? better than calibre's ? or are there any other options as well?

I use Amazon's e-mail "convert" service, which comprises these three simple things:
1. address the e-mail to your kindle's e-mail address.
2. e-mail's Subject is the single word "convert" (without the quotes, of course).
3. Attach the PDF file. (No need to have anything in the e-mail body.)
Send, wait a bit, the converted PDF appears on your Paperwhite

I also use k2pdfopt, mostly for converting two-column PDFs, and set the output to landscape. I then hold the Paperwhite sideways when reading. Just about all PDFs are readable if you have good eyesight. Will probably be wonderful on the 7" Oasis 2.

[Coops]

Originally Posted by Lady Stardust

With the latest firmware you don't have to embed fonts any more, you can simply add them in the folder fonts in your Kindle and chose them from font display. More in this thread https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=298832

Thanks Lady Stardust.... hadn't bothered to check for any firmware updates for yonks.

Updated and installed the Veleka font (which is a Charis SIL based font) - the ability to add weight to a font even makes Bookerly ok-ish.

Still need to use the 'Hypehante This!' plug-in in Calibre with AZW3 files, correct?