PRS-T1 Calibre or Sony

[tponzo]

Calibre forms collections based on tags - a lot of books come already tagged. You can edit the tags with Calibre so you don't get collections you don't want.

Yeah I did that when I got my PRS 900. Thought the settings for the 900 would work for the T1 but I think it needs tweaking. Haven't figured it out yet. I sent some of my books in series' (numbered and tagged with series name) to the reader from calibre and only some of the books are in collections on the reader. Any idea on what I need to do to get the T1 to read all of my tags to form collections?

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by tponzo

Yeah I did that when I got my PRS 900. Thought the settings for the 900 would work for the T1 but I think it needs tweaking. Haven't figured it out yet. I sent some of my books in series' (numbered and tagged with series name) to the reader from calibre and only some of the books are in collections on the reader. Any idea on what I need to do to get the T1 to read all of my tags to form collections?

Update Calibre. If it's still messing up your tags/collections, then submit a support ticket to Calibre.

The T1 uses a different OS than the previous Sony models, it's possible that Calibre isn't interfacing with it correctly (although I use Calibre and I have not had the problem).

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by chrisridd

Well that's a surprise! Interesting too - I was under the impression almost everyone here uses calibre. Certainly the ones that have been here for a couple of years...

Some of us have been using the Sony software since the original version and ereader model PRS-500 back before there was a program called calibre. We remember the early days of development and the software called libprs500. The Sony software has previously worked well for library management for me and keeping notes synced across multiple Sony devices. I've mainly used calibre for conversions and metadata manipulation. I had an operating system that worked, but the new Sony software has serious limitations causing me to re-evaluate my approach.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The only thing I'd need to figure out is how to be able to reorder collections. But other than that, I may very well use Calibre. When I first moved books over to the T1, I did it manually. I used Windows Explorer to load the books and then I manually sorted the collections on the T1. It wasn't that bad really. But if I can just send to the T1 and it's in the collection already, I'm good to go.

I'm giving up on the Sony software and experimenting with calibre now. I got too frustrated that you can't easily see how many books are in your library or even do a simple search anymore! I've been following your posts in the calibre forum and learning along with you. I am curious how you decided to organize and sort your collections. I have settled on a combination of series and custom metadata for the moment.

[vishcompany]

Enjoy calibre, both of you.
I also was a bit confused in the beginning, but once you have learned the ropes with it, it's a great, great tool. Especially with the dustbuster plugins it makes my life so much easier: Drag, drop and forget about drm for the rest of your life with this book.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

I'm giving up on the Sony software and experimenting with calibre now. I got too frustrated that you can't easily see how many books are in your library or even do a simple search anymore! I've been following your posts in the calibre forum and learning along with you. I am curious how you decided to organize and sort your collections. I have settled on a combination of series and custom metadata for the moment.

I am going to play about with tags and series and see if I can get the order changed. If that works with my 650, I can then try it also on the T1.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Wow! I have been experimenting with calibre as a library management tool and feel like I have been reborn! I must admit that I've spent several hours digging through old posts on MR and reading through the user manual. I also have programming experience which probably helped in interpreting the template language faster than a total newbie would. I also have experience with calibre for metadata, conversions, Fetch News, and "Send to Device" for my Kindle. I really recommend reading through the help info on the calibre website and also looking at the keyboard shortcuts.

Here are some observations. I was not aware that the user had so much flexibility to set-up custom columns. It has allowed me to create custom columns for data such as Source (where I got the book), Read Date, Read (Yes or No) and genres. Having genres allows you to be creative in how you use Tags without creating a bazillion collections. I have created a hierarchical genre structure that shows up in the tag browser (very cool for organization!). I have loads of books that belong to series, and I feel like they are better organized now. I have installed several custom plug-ins that I didn't realize were available. I love the ability to Count Pages. And, there is a plug-in that retrieves metadata from Goodreads (yeah!).

I'm still deciding on the best way to organize my books, and I haven't imported my entire library into calibre yet. I've only transferred a handful of books onto my T1 while I experiment. However, here's an example of what I've got so far on my Collections screen. I thought it might help someone if they were trying to decide between the Sony Reader software and calibre. I created a custom column for genres and formatted it to my preference with dashes rather than periods. I have collections based on Read status and whether the book is tagged Fiction or Non-fiction. I also have collections created from Series information. I think I'm going to rename "Read Tags" to be "Status" and then those items will sort in my collections at the end of the list alphabetically after My Tags and Series. I am quite happy so far!

[jackie_w]

Glad to see you've finally seen the light, Bookworm_Girl

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Glad to see you've finally seen the light, Bookworm_Girl

One of the reasons I didn't use calibre before was because I was picky about the order of items within a collection. Reader Library made it easy to drag-and-drop items in the list. Reader for PC/Mac took that functionality away. I've figured out in calibre how to sort my custom collections by my preference rather than title. For example, I now have my Read collections sorted by Read Date.

I also just discovered the catalog feature. Sweet! Now I can have a catalog on my ereader that contains nicely formatted summaries of all of my books. That's especially useful when you can't choose what to read next or you are reading the next book in a series and want to refresh your memory on the plot of the last book.

[Nicko]

Is there an easy way of doing a print-out of the Calibre Library?.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by Nicko

Is there an easy way of doing a print-out of the Calibre Library?.

Click the drop-down arrow next to the Convert icon. One of the options is to create a catalog. It gives you a variety of formats to which you can export the data in your library. I selected EPUB, and it gives you a nicely formatted catalog of your books which I can transfer to my ereaders.

[Cptow]

Hi,

Im new to this forum and just brought a sony T1.

In the process of installation of calibre i select Sony.
Then under devices i only have 3 option:

1) All other sony device
2) Sony reader daily edition
3) Sony reader pocket edition


Which option i select?
Seems that T1 not supported yet.

Btw, im using 0.8.35 version. Latest i suppose.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Cptow

Hi,

Im new to this forum and just brought a sony T1.

In the process of installation of calibre i select Sony.
Then under devices i only have 3 option:

1) All other sony device
2) Sony reader daily edition
3) Sony reader pocket edition

Don't fret, the current version of Calibre supports the T1 just fine

I suspect this is just Calibre-initialisation trying to decide what screen-size your device has, in case you plan to read image-based comics. The first option should be OK for your T1.

[Polarpenguin]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Click the drop-down arrow next to the Convert icon. One of the options is to create a catalog. It gives you a variety of formats to which you can export the data in your library. I selected EPUB, and it gives you a nicely formatted catalog of your books which I can transfer to my ereaders.

Thanks for the Info that's a great feature, will be using it quite a bit

[Nicko]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Click the drop-down arrow next to the Convert icon. One of the options is to create a catalog. It gives you a variety of formats to which you can export the data in your library. I selected EPUB, and it gives you a nicely formatted catalog of your books which I can transfer to my ereaders.

Thanks. I want to get a print-out of the books that I have downloaded, and I am no sure how I can do it using your suggestion. I am obviously missing something?.