Aura ONE Kobo Aura One owners thread

[aceflor]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

Is yours slow too?

It seems to be very slow compared to my Aura. Reminds me of my very first device before the PRS-350... which means it has a distinct 2010 feeling to it.

It's slow in turning pages in epub (real slow). It's ok for the rest, and it's good for turning pages on kepubs.

Originally Posted by Iñigo

La Central bookshops received them past Friday 9th, at least in Barcelona, don't know about Madrid.

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

I received an email from FNAC Spain to collect it at FNAC Callao (Madrid), on Saturday 10th at 9 AM.

Yes, FNAC Madrid has had them for collection since Saturday, but not the other FNAC stores. I am way down south. I would have liked to see it live first, but this will not be possible here for a while.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by rstrube

Thanks for the replies!

Any downsides to converting my library to KEPUBs so that the page turns are faster? I've done some research and this requires a Calibre Plugin to accomplish, correct?

As a former Kindle user my entire library was in AZW3, and I recently converted them all to EPUB. With the new plugin would I convert to KEPUB via Calibre? To complicate things I noticed several different plugins - an "extended driver" plugin as well as an input / output conversion plugin for KEPUB.

Any advice on how to proceed or should I just stick with EPUBs for now?

Thanks!

I *hope* that you have a base format in your library; a format all the other ones come from? You're not converting from (original) AZW3, then to EPUB, and then to KEPUB and so on, always keeping only the last version? That will land you into much trouble some day.

My own library has EPUB as a base format. If I add a book that is not originally in EPUB (such as the old ones on the free Baen CD's), then I convert it. Even when I buy a book from Amazon in AZW3 to read on the Kindle, I put it into Calibre, convert it to EPUB, then clean it up where needed, and throw away the AZW3 (after saving the first, downloaded original somewhere else, outside of Calibre). Then I convert that EPUB back into AZW3... or KEPUB... or whatever format I may need in the future.

I never ever touch the EPUB again, except to add/fix metadata or mistakes. Every other format always comes from these EPUBs.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Please be mindful of posting misleading information.

1) Full screen mode is a little buggy, unless you patch your Kobo, which is a fairly easy and painless thing to do. This has been mentioned to you several times now by me. I know you continue to have issues, but as you've got discussions going in several threads I've stopped trying to keep pace. I have full screen enabled and have zero issues with kepubs.

You are using an undocumented, experimental, and buggy feature, by patching the device with undocumented and unofficial code. That is fine, and if it works, so much the better. For most people, that is not a trivial matter however, because it's easy enough to accidentally mix up files and flash either the wrong firmware or use the wrong patch if you don't know what you're doing exactly.

2) Chapter progess, reading time, etc. all work fine. You just don't have them at the bottom of the screen. A simple tap to bring up the controls, and another on the appropriate option will display all of this information.

The chapter progress graph, reading time, reading time for the next chapter and total book reading time do NOT work when using EPUBs. The icon is gone. The only thing you can get is a progress by page number by opening the Table of Contents icon in the bottom menu. The extra functionality only works when using KEPUB, regardless of using full screen mode or not.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

You are using an undocumented, experimental, and buggy feature, by patching the device with undocumented and unofficial code. That is fine, and if it works, so much the better. For most people, that is not a trivial matter however, because it's easy enough to accidentally mix up files and flash either the wrong firmware or use the wrong patch if you don't know what you're doing exactly.

If you're enabling the full screen feature, you really know enough to be able to patch it without issue. There is -far- too much fear mongering over patching. Yes things can go wrong. But if you follow the instructions you'll come out the other side unscathed.

The biggest issues are ensuring your reader is on the right firmware, and that you've downloaded the right firmware to put in the 'source' directory for the patch. You can check the firmware of your device from the device, and there is a stickied post in the dev forum which breaks down which firmware is for which series of devices and the devices in that series.

After that it's literally editing a document in either Text Edit (Mac), or Notepad++ (Windows), and changing 'no' to 'yes' or the reverse.

The second 'tricky' bit only applies to Mac/Unix/Linux systems since you'll be using a terminal to do it. Even then on Mac it's still as easy as drag/drop.

With Windows it's just drag/drop on to a batch file. I've not done this as I patch on a Mac.

Yes it's undocumented, as are the patches, but as you're discovering the alternative methods of obtaining more text per page is filled with issues. I rather doubt any amount of tinkering with the CSS will resolve those issues.

The chapter progress graph, reading time, reading time for the next chapter and total book reading time do NOT work when using EPUBs. The icon is gone. The only thing you can get is a progress by page number by opening the Table of Contents icon in the bottom menu. The extra functionality only works when using KEPUB, regardless of using full screen mode or not.

My mistake, I thought you were talking about KEPUBs, since the extra stats have either never been there for epubs or have been gone for numerous firmware releases regardless of turning on or off the full screen feature. Kobo did enable it for sideloaded KEPUBs awhile back.

[Barty]

So then what do we give up by using kepub?

[rstrube]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I *hope* that you have a base format in your library; a format all the other ones come from? You're not converting from (original) AZW3, then to EPUB, and then to KEPUB and so on, always keeping only the last version? That will land you into much trouble some day.

My own library has EPUB as a base format. If I add a book that is not originally in EPUB (such as the old ones on the free Baen CD's), then I convert it. Even when I buy a book from Amazon in AZW3 to read on the Kindle, I put it into Calibre, convert it to EPUB, then clean it up where needed, and throw away the AZW3 (after saving the first, downloaded original somewhere else, outside of Calibre). Then I convert that EPUB back into AZW3... or KEPUB... or whatever format I may need in the future.

I never ever touch the EPUB again, except to add/fix metadata or mistakes. Every other format always comes from these EPUBs.

Yes, in my case the "base format" is always AZW3 - because 90% of my books are from Amazon.

In this case I did convert from Original AZW3 to EPUB - then let the extended driver do it's work to convert from EPUB to KEPUB when pushing the ebook to the Aura One.

Would this cause a problem? It was my understanding that the extended driver only works with EPUB, so I had to first convert from AZW3 to EPUB.

Is there a reason you prefer EPUB as your base format? Will there be a problem for me if I use AZW3 as my base format?

Thanks!

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Yes it's undocumented, as are the patches, but as you're discovering the alternative methods of obtaining more text per page is filled with issues. I rather doubt any amount of tinkering with the CSS will resolve those issues.

GeoffR has ensured me that all the full-screen-fix patch does is to make sure that some properties in CSS are as the Kobo reader expects them.

Apparently, the issue can be fixed by tinkering with the CSS, but I had to switch to a different book and back again (apparently reloading something) to get it to actually work. I've powered down and restarted the reader (hold power button until it powers down, then restart), and it still works; all books I've tested seem to be fixed.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by rstrube

Yes, in my case the "base format" is always AZW3 - because 90% of my books are from Amazon.

That's fine. In your case, if you do buy a book somewhere else as an EPUB, I'd actually recommend to import it into calibre, and then convert it to AZW3. Then export the original EPUB (un-DRM-ed by Alf) and stash it somewhere outside of Calibre. Then remove the EPUB from the library.

If you actually need an EPUB later, then convert that AZW3 again.

Maybe you're doing this already; it might seem a round-about way, but it ensures that all of your books start from the same format, wherever they may go.

In this case I did convert from Original AZW3 to EPUB - then let the extended driver do it's work to convert from EPUB to KEPUB when pushing the ebook to the Aura One.

Would this cause a problem? It was my understanding that the extended driver only works with EPUB, so I had to first convert from AZW3 to EPUB.

It's fine; it's the way you should be doing it.

Is there a reason you prefer EPUB as your base format? Will there be a problem for me if I use AZW3 as my base format?

I prefer EPUB for two reasons:

1. I get most of my books at Kobo
2. I make extensive use of plugins such as EPUBSplit, EPUBMerge, and Modify EPUB, to either split omnibuses, merge short stories of an author into a single book, and to clean up EPUBs before editing them with the editor.

If you don't do a lot of tinkering/fixing with your books using EPUB-only plugins, AZW3 as base format is fine. It is well known, and Calibre can convert perfectly from it, and to it. It also supports all, or most of the markup that EPUB does. If I understand correctly, EPUB and AZW3 are actually quite similar, technically.

Don't switch to KEPUB as your base format. It is not yet as well known or documented as EPUB and AZW3.

=========

Originally Posted by Barty

So then what do we give up by using kepub?

AFAIK, not much, if anything. You mostly gain:

- The chapter progress graph
- Chapter time to read
- Next chapter time to read
- Complete book time to read
- Quicker page turns
- A more balanced page if you use headers and footers (IMHO)

The one drawback I can think of is:
- Pagenumbers are not the same as for EPUBs. When using EPUBs, you can use the Adobe algorithm in Count Pages in calibre. Then Calibre and the reader will show the same page numbers. (The Kindle can show any page number scheme you choose, as calibre sends the scheme along to the reader.) With KEPUB, I haven't found a way to match page numbers in Count Pages to the ones used by KEPUB.

If there's a way, I'd like to know

[soulfuldog]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

If you do buy a book somewhere else as an EPUB, I'd actually recommend to import it into calibre, and then convert it to AZW3. Then export the original EPUB (un-DRM-ed by Alf) and stash it somewhere outside of Calibre. Then remove the EPUB from the library.

Maybe you're doing this already; it might seem a round-about way, but it ensures that all of your books start from the same format, wherever they may go.

Why does it matter that all your books start from the same format?

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by aceflor

It's slow in turning pages in epub (real slow). It's ok for the rest, and it's good for turning pages on kepub.

ePub? What is ePub??? 😀 Haven't used it since 2013.

It is slow doing stuff,you know, like search in a book or rendering book covers when I page through collections. And I only have 73 books on it now. There are 800 on my Aura and it is faster than the Aura One.

Otherwise it is delightful!

ETA Correct autocorrect.

[rstrube]

Thanks for the advice and information. This definitely helps. I do always try to hold on the "original" ebook file - mostly because I get the impression that converting and then converting again is akin to making a copy of a copy.

I added an additional column to my Calibre library that records the "Original Format". This way I can always be sure what to start with when converting.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by soulfuldog

Why does it matter that all your books start from the same format?

Technically, it doesn't really matter, but IMHO, it makes things easier.

In calibre, there is no obvious way to see which was the original format; you'd need to add a custom column or something. When you put your entire library in the same format from the start, and then never touch that format again except to fix errors and/or enhance metadata, you can ensure for 100% that you're not converting from FormatA to FormatB, then from FormatB to FormatC and so on, ending up with FormatA again in 5 years... which will then have *really* mangled code.

It's also an easy way to convert your entire library in one go if you want, without being worried that you're overwriting a format for this or that book.

Originally Posted by rstrube

Thanks for the advice and information. This definitely helps. I do always try to hold on the "original" ebook file - mostly because I get the impression that converting and then converting again is akin to making a copy of a copy.

It is. That is the reason why I put everything into the library as EPUB (but still saving the originals somewhere else), clean the files with Modify EPUB, fix them where needed with the Editor, add metadata, and then Polish them. Then I use them to convert to any format I'd need; MOBI for my Kindle Touch back in 2011, AZW3 for the Paperwhite 1, and now KEPUB for the KA1. If I ever need to, I can also send the EPUB straight to the reader.

I added an additional column to my Calibre library that records the "Original Format". This way I can always be sure what to start with when converting.

That is also possible, of course. But I like all base files to be the same format. Therefore I've also ripped all of my CD's again, in FLAC format, which is lossless, so I can convert to any other lossless format I need to in the future. (Or convert to MP3 for other uses, if I want.)

[jiminrussell]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

If only, the tick is still there.

Well, I'll just wait for the corrected firmware then. I'll guess it is in their own best interest to fix this one or people will flock in to give their devices back.

Poppaea, did you put the PeriodicAutoSync=false under [ApplicationPreferences] of the kobo ereader.conf file? It won't work if you don't have it in that section of the file.

[rstrube]

1. I get most of my books at Kobo

Do you find that the overall quality of the ebooks from Kobo is good? It really frustrates me when you purchase a book for $10 only to find that it's riddled with OCR errors. I know Amazon has gotten much much better in regards to their ebook quality.

I'd love to support another company, as I think it's much better for consumers to have more than one company dominating the ebook market.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by rstrube

Do you find that the overall quality of the ebooks from Kobo is good? It really frustrates me when you purchase a book for $10 only to find that it's riddled with OCR errors. I know Amazon has gotten much much better in regards to their ebook quality.

I'd love to support another company, as I think it's much better for consumers to have more than one company dominating the ebook market.

For the most part, I've seen little difference in the quality of ebooks produced by major publishers regardless of where I purchased them. Self-published ebooks are iffier since quite a few are produced for Amazon first and then converted to epub without any manual cleanup -- often by an antique version of Calibre. Some of the "proofreading" is best described using a spellchecker without any common sense (one recent book kept using no for know -- You no how that goes...).

One ebook that I picked up from Google and a co-worker picked up from Amazon had the same typo in the first chapter. Menial instead of millennial -- enough to make me turn in my blue pencil.