iPad & Kindle switching for Pref/CommonOptions/Page?

[unboggling]

Hi. Trying to set up calibre preferences for my iPad, after a clean reinstall of calibre last month trashed my prior iPad settings. I understand GRiker's stickies re Apple devices, and that things have changed a little. But I also do most reading on Kindle, except I do graphics and complex PDF reading on iPad.

So I have this question. Is there a way to set something somewhere so that when I use Connect to iTunes, calibre will automatically know to use the Preferences/CommonOptions/PageSetup choice of iPad output, and when I use Send to Device with Kindle connected, calibre will automatically know to use Kindle page output? So that I can avoid having to manually reset those device outputs in preferences every time I switch between devices?

Edit: My apologies if I missed something obvious somewhere...

[itimpi]

Calibre should do what you want automatically for ebooks!

You do have to set the output device correctly for news if you use that feature and want to avoid having to convert when you connect to a device. Other than that it should just be a case of plugging in the correct device.

You may find the Reading List plugin to be of use to help with queuing items for a particular device.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by unboggling

So I have this question. Is there a way to set something somewhere so that when I use Connect to iTunes, calibre will automatically know to use the Preferences/CommonOptions/PageSetup choice of iPad output, and when I use Send to Device with Kindle connected, calibre will automatically know to use Kindle page output?

Page Setup is never a determining factor when sending a book to a device. This is only a factor when converting books.

[unboggling]

Originally Posted by itimpi

Calibre should do what you want automatically for ebooks!

You do have to set the output device correctly for news if you use that feature and want to avoid having to convert when you connect to a device. Other than that it should just be a case of plugging in the correct device.

You may find the Reading List plugin to be of use to help with queuing items for a particular device.

Thanks. I'll look into Reading List plugin's syncing capability. And I recently started using news, so that will be a consideration too. Regarding calibre doing what I want automatically, since I stated my original question poorly I'm not sure that applies, re conversion issue with CommonOptions/PageSetup/OutputProfile.

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Page Setup is never a determining factor when sending a book to a device. This is only a factor when converting books.

Thanks. I miscast my original question onto ConnectToDevice or Sending rather than Converting.


@all. So, focusing on Converting. My Preferred Format is EPUB and I convert nearly everything except problem PDFs to EPUB, then before sending any to Kindle I convert EPUB to MOBI. Let's say a LIT format comes in. Or a PDF. And it converts well to EPUB. I might want to eventually read that on the iPad, or on the Kindle. Which Prefs/Conversion/CommonOptions/PageOutputProfile setting should I use for converting that LIT or PDF in specific, and any book formats generally as a global setting? My choices for that seem to be iPad, Kindle, or Default Output Profile.

Should I just use Default Output Profile all the time for any conversion? Would that Default Output Profile break anything or give poor output appearance after Connect to iTunes for iPad choice later, or break anything or give poor output appearance on the Kindle later? I vaguely remember briefly testing Default Output Profile on both devices months ago and it worked okay, but I'm not sure, don't recall details, and it wasn't very extensive testing. I'll have to look at that again with both devices with an assortment of books including problem PDFs.

But this seems to be the gist: Does it really matter much in terms of reading on either device later which output profile global setting was used during the conversions?

[DoctorOhh]

The only real difference for ePubs between the two profiles would be the images. I may be wrong but I think images are resized smaller, if needed, based on the output profile during conversion.

[itimpi]

For most purposes the output profile chosen does not matter. This is almost universally the case with text based material. When it can be relevant is when you are converting graphic material such as comics where you would like the graphics to be optimised for a particular screen resolution.

[unboggling]

Thank you both.

OK then. Since I read most books on Kindle, until I have time to test further I'll just leave the global Preferences/CommonOptions/PageOutputProfile setting on Kindle for now. And try to remember to change that to iPad manually in the specific conversion dialog box when converting comics or other graphic laden content, which are much rarer cases for me than mostly-text fiction.

[itimpi]

I would expect that you could get away with leaving it at Kindle all of the time. The worst case would then be that in some cases graphics are not optimised for the (larger) resolution of the iPad screen - but they should still display fine.

That is what I do where I want MOBI files that work on a Kindle 3, a and EPUB files that work on a Sony PRS950 and an iPad. I have not noticed any real problems with this approach.

[unboggling]

Great. I'll do that. Thanks again.