Aura ONE Kobo Aura One owners thread

[paulvro]

Hi everyone here,

I purchased this reader for my wife (Mother's Day present) and because we're elderly people I selected the one with the biggest and most detailed screen. Earlier we received from friends all kinds of books in MOBI format via email so I assumed it would be easy to just put them in so my wife (of American origine) could start reading right away.

Well, nothing is less true. Inundations of stuff that all want you to buy books from them and instructions from the online manual did absolutely nothing. They pretended that when connecting the Reader to my PC it would autmatically show an explorer type screen to which you could copy and paste your books. Instead Explorer showed three directories and a lot of subdirectories, one of which named Kepub which sounded like the most likely candidate but no files that I transferred into that directory showed (I did include an epub file just in case MOBI was the problem) on the Reader.

Searching further I found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd5LikhTlAQ in which I was told how to install Adobe and register Adobe Digital Editions, with which I could then transfer my books.

However even though I transferred at least around 20 of these books, only one appears to be in my reader's library. And even that one cannot be read, I got some kind of statement that my adobe account didn't authorize me to read that book. Why none of the other books got even listed? Who knows... We live in Europe, perhaps these American books cannot be read outside of the USA? I have no idea, my wife, a retired teacher of English, and her friends and family in the US are of course all rather literary-minded.

I am totally a-technical and spent all day just trying to get this thing to work but short of an overwhelming amount of offers to buy books nothing seems to work. Now I fould on Youtube a film about this "calibre" software, I already downloaded the 64 bits software for my Windows 8.1 PC but I'm rather scared to go on and make things even worse.

I hope that I'm writing this in the right place, but is there anyone who can please help me with this whole matter? Is Calibre a software that one installes instead of the Kobo software or is it an app-like thing? Will there be a problem because I aready registered the Kobe Reader and also registered at Kobo software and at Adobe Digital Editions? In brief, our intention was to use it for epub and mobi files that friends have mailed us but I have not the slightest idea how. Is there either an "instruction for dummies" of someone who is kind and patient enough to tell me what to do? Or is the Reader unsuitable and should I return it to the store where I bought it?

By forehand many, many thanks! (and please forgive me if I posted this in the wrong thread, I assumed that the Kobo thread would be the right one).

PS: I see that Adobe Digital Editions created a new directory onto my my Aura One named Digital Editions in which all the transferred books are listed. Remarkable is that they all now have EPUB formats even though I entered almost all as being MOBI files. But the BIG QUESTION is why I can't see then in any kind of index of my Reader.

[Telemachus]

Originally Posted by paulvro

Hi everyone here,

I purchased this reader for my wife (Mother's Day present) and because we're elderly people I selected the one with the biggest and most detailed screen. Earlier we received from friends all kinds of books in MOBI format via email so I assumed it would be easy to just put them in so my wife (of American origine) could start reading right away.

Well, nothing is less true. Inundations of stuff that all want you to buy books from them and instructions from the online manual did absolutely nothing. They pretended that when connecting the Reader to my PC it would autmatically show an explorer type screen to which you could copy and paste your books. Instead Explorer showed three directories and a lot of subdirectories, one of which named Kepub which sounded like the most likely candidate but no files that I transferred into that directory showed (I did include an epub file just in case MOBI was the problem) on the Reader.

Searching further I found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd5LikhTlAQ in which I was told how to install Adobe and register Adobe Digital Editions, with which I could then transfer my books.

However even though I transferred at least around 20 of these books, only one appears to be in my reader's library. And even that one cannot be read, I got some kind of statement that my adobe account didn't authorize me to read that book. Why none of the other books got even listed? Who knows... We live in Europe, perhaps these American books cannot be read outside of the USA? I have no idea, my wife, a retired teacher of English, and her friends and family in the US are of course all rather literary-minded.

I am totally a-technical and spent all day just trying to get this thing to work but short of an overwhelming amount of offers to buy books nothing seems to work. Now I fould on Youtube a film about this "calibre" software, I already downloaded the 64 bits software for my Windows 8.1 PC but I'm rather scared to go on and make things even worse.

I hope that I'm writing this in the right place, but is there anyone who can please help me with this whole matter? Is Calibre a software that one installes instead of the Kobo software or is it an app-like thing? Will there be a problem because I aready registered the Kobe Reader and also registered at Kobo software and at Adobe Digital Editions? In brief, our intention was to use it for epub and mobi files that friends have mailed us but I have not the slightest idea how. Is there either an "instruction for dummies" of someone who is kind and patient enough to tell me what to do? Or is the Reader unsuitable and should I return it to the store where I bought it?

By forehand many, many thanks! (and please forgive me if I posted this in the wrong thread, I assumed that the Kobo thread would be the right one).

PS: I see that Adobe Digital Editions created a new directory onto my my Aura One named Digital Editions in which all the transferred books are listed. Remarkable is that they all now have EPUB formats even though I entered almost all as being MOBI files. But the BIG QUESTION is why I can't see then in any kind of index of my Reader.

Firstly don't panic, the Aura One is a great ereader and I'm sure it will be suitable for your wife.
It is possible to simply drag and drop files to the ereader using explorer.

The Kepub folder should only be used for storing books that are in the Kepub format. (Kepub is Kobo's own variation on the epub format. Kepub books come from the Kobo bookstore or another bookstore that has adopted their format)

eBooks in other formats including mobi format should be transferred to the main root of the ereader device or stored within folder/folders within the main root e.g. KOBOeReader (E: )

Things get a little more complicated if the eBooks you are trying to transfer are protected by DRM (Digital Rights Management) this is outside the scope of my knowledge as I only use DRM free eBooks.
Do you know if these eBooks are DRM protected?
Hopefully someone here might be able to give you advice if this is the case.

Calibre is eBook management software that allows you to organize and transfer eBooks to your eReader. You can also use it convert eBooks to different formats. I find it very useful.

There are better qualified members who will be able to help you to a greater degree than my paltry efforts and you may get more help from the forum if you create a "New Thread" in the Kobo Forum as single posts can tend to get buried amongst all the traffic here.

[paulvro]

Thank you Telemachus. As to your question: I have no idea at all, I never ever heard the expression DRM. My wife corresponds with a number of collegues in the States, I don't think that anyone of them pirated any of the books they read and/or sent to her. In the old days it meant boxes with mostly paperback books, but since postage costs have risen so horrendous in price (there is no longer such a thing as slow but cheap shipping by boat) the idea of using E-Readers seemed to be the ideal solution. I stayed away from Kindle because it's a known fact that they steal books from your reader, even if you paid for them, when they change the status for the country you happened to be in. No longer availible means they take the right to remove it from your book case (just imagine anyone doing that to a printed book you own!). But I assumed that Kobo would show any book you'd electronically put into it.
The fact that I can see the books converted to EPUB in a separate directory but that that directory cannot be found when operating the Kobo Reader puzzles me. If these books had some embargo on them, why do I only see one of the 20 or so that are in that (Adobe) Digital Editions folder? But then again, if books must be entered into the root directory, how do they find a place in the proper book case surroundings so that the Reader notices their presence? I have been working about 10 hours on this so far but I'm not an inch closer to a solution.

[filmo]

Get Books on calibre has list of places you can buy or download free books. Most of the free books with expired copyright comes from http://www.gutenberg.org/ in english and other languages. Calibre will transfer epub books to correct place on your Kobo, after you run welcome wizard in calibre-preferences.

DRM is Digital Rights Management encrypted books.

[Telemachus]

I can sympathize with your predicament it's very confusing to a newcomer but we'll take it one step at a time.
Try moving any books in the Kepub folder to the main root directory or create a new folder named "books" or something and put them there.

A very rough guide to adding books to your Kobo eReader can be found here...Click to open link

Adding books (EPUB files) or PDFs to your Kobo eReader using your PC

You can connect your Kobo eReader to your Windows computer, and then drag and drop books into your eReader Library.

Connect your eReader to your computer using a Micro USB cable.
Tap Connect on your eReader.
When Windows prompts you, click Open folder to view files.
A desktop explorer window will open, showing the contents of your eReader.
Open a second desktop explorer window, and display the books you want to add to your eReader.
Drag and drop your books into the eReader.
Eject your eReader when you're finished.

Once books are transferred and the eReader is ejected using windows "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media"
Remove the USB lead and the eReader should start to process the new content added, it looks for new files with the appropriate file extension and adds them to the device's database.
Then when you go to the menu button on the top left hand side of the screen and select "My Books" from the drop down menu you should see your eBooks displayed in your library.
You'll see it says "Books" just below that you should see it displays "Show:All" if it doesn't then touch "Show:" and a drop down menu should appear where you can select "Show:All"

Good luck, let me know how you get on.

[Telemachus]

The fact that I can see the books converted to EPUB in a separate directory but that that directory cannot be found when operating the Kobo Reader puzzles me.

The Kobo doesn't display folders it simply looks for the eBooks loaded onto it and displays them in it's library under "My Books"
You can organize the books on your eReader by creating new "Collections" I categorize my books this way for example "Biography", "History", "Novels" these collections are virtual and don't change the way those books are stored on the eReader.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by paulvro

The fact that I can see the books converted to EPUB in a separate directory but that that directory cannot be found when operating the Kobo Reader puzzles me. If these books had some embargo on them, why do I only see one of the 20 or so that are in that (Adobe) Digital Editions folder? But then again, if books must be entered into the root directory, how do they find a place in the proper book case surroundings so that the Reader notices their presence? I have been working about 10 hours on this so far but I'm not an inch closer to a solution.

One item is that the Kepub directory is inside the .kobo directory. A '.' starting a directory name makes it a hidden directory to Linux and your Aura One will not look for ebooks stored inside that directory. I would suggest creating a new directory in the root -- calli it ebooks for example -- to copy your books into. Ebooks in subdirectories of that directory will also be visible.

To handle converting formats. managing your ebooks and transferring them to the Aura One, I would recommend looking at Calibre. There is a forum on Mobileread dedicated to it.

[paulvro]

Originally Posted by DNSB

One item is that the Kepub directory is inside the .kobo directory. A '.' starting a directory name makes it a hidden directory to Linux and your Aura One will not look for ebooks stored inside that directory. I would suggest creating a new directory in the root -- calli it ebooks for example -- to copy your books into. Ebooks in subdirectories of that directory will also be visible.

To handle converting formats. managing your ebooks and transferring them to the Aura One, I would recommend looking at Calibre. There is a forum on Mobileread dedicated to it.

I just had to revise my posting completely. After reading Telemachus' advice to go to a folder named "My Books" I already was busy writing him a reply saying that there is no option for that on my Kobo screen when I suddenly noticed that at the center top where it says "Books" (NOT "My Books") it now suddenly reads below it "15 books added". I am sure that yesterday that message wasn't there yet. And yes, I did operate the reader properly, using the Kobo program to correctly detach it from my computer each time.

Nevertheless, it looks like my problem is solved in an unexpected way. Just one question left: Must I first remove the Adobe program before using Calibre or can they coexist?

Thanks to all who gave me help, I appreciate it greatly. So will my wife once she gets home this evening :-)

[paulvro]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

I can sympathize with your predicament it's very confusing to a newcomer but we'll take it one step at a time.
Try moving any books in the Kepub folder to the main root directory or create a new folder named "books" or something and put them there.

A very rough guide to adding books to your Kobo eReader can be found here...Click to open link


Once books are transferred and the eReader is ejected using windows "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media"
Remove the USB lead and the eReader should start to process the new content added, it looks for new files with the appropriate file extension and adds them to the device's database.
Then when you go to the menu button on the top left hand side of the screen and select "My Books" from the drop down menu you should see your eBooks displayed in your library.
You'll see it says "Books" just below that you should see it displays "Show:All" if it doesn't then touch "Show:" and a drop down menu should appear where you can select "Show:All"

Good luck, let me know how you get on.

Thanks a million: as you might have read above somehow my problem was solved. As to the instructions you quoted: yes I saw them and that was the very first thing I tried. However, I wasn't prepared to be facing three subdirectories plus a couple of non-books related files in Windows Explorer.The idea to just ploink my books in the root didn't even come up in my mind, being an IBM computer user for decades you don't even think of doing something like that. And as it gave no indication that you could actually create a new directory that the reader then would consult I assumed that my books had to be written in some kind of books list. The only thing I found that remotely looked like a book lost was the kepub subdirectory so that's where I deposited the books in the first place. Well knowing that it wasn't quite right because some of the books had covers with images but all covers had the same name so they could never all be written into the same directory.

A last question perhaps: is there any way to discover if and how a book is DRM protected? So far I knew about DRM but that is Digital Radio Mondiale, the way to digitally broadcast on AM and Shortwave frequencies. That it had another totally different meaning I had no idea.

[paulvro]

I guess I found the problem (not the solution yet!) Encouraged by my success I added five more books using Adobe. These appear in the library of the Reader but not on any bookshelf. So it still reads as "new books" only those I put in yesterday.

I did properly close off Adobe, and after that I even opened up the Kobo desktop to see if there was anything there to effectuate the changes I made but I saw nothing so I properly used the disconnect option to remove the reader from the computer.

Then on the reader I used the synchronize option left below hoping that that would make the newest books appear but it didn't. So obviously i am still not doing something that I should. I can't (yet) discover what....

[Telemachus]

I'm so glad you got your books installed ok Paulvro.
I don't know much about adobe but I'd guess it can co-exist with Calibre.
I don't know if there's a way to tell if a book is DRM before downloading it but if you click on a DRM protected book on a pc or ereader I believe it doesn't open and delivers an error message.

[Telemachus]

I don't ever use the Kobo desktop. Many people on here have reported that it's not very good.
Calibre or drag and drop using explorer is the way to go.
I think sync only works with books downloaded from the Kobo bookstore.

[paulvro]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

I don't ever use the Kobo desktop. Many people on here have reported that it's not very good.
Calibre or drag and drop using explorer is the way to go.
I think sync only works with books downloaded from the Kobo bookstore.

Thank you Telemachus. I only went to the kobo Desktop because I read somewhere that you may never just disconnect the Reader without logging off and as I never saw anything in the Adobe program that does that I figured that I had to go to the kobo Desktop in order to do so. The many misconceptions that can happen if one is totally inexperienced...

(PS: I only now realize that you refer to the icon on my PC that is used to disconnect USB sticks and external drives, sorry, I erroneously sought it within the Adobe program - stupid me)

OK, Synchronizing is not an option, I understand now. But how DOES one see a recently added book on the Reader??? My reader still only shows the number of books that I added yesterday as being new but does in no way acknowledge the five new ones that I added a few hours ago.

When I look at Adobe Digital Editions I see all books including the last 5 ones in my so called bookshelf. They are all listed in the top (All items) and at the bottom (Recently added) of the Bookshelf column. But when I start up the reader I see only those listed that I added yesterday including the claim that that's the number I recently added. Apparently I must have skipped something in the process to confirm to the reader that I added the last 5 books but I have no idea what it may be...

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by paulvro

Nevertheless, it looks like my problem is solved in an unexpected way. Just one question left: Must I first remove the Adobe program before using Calibre or can they coexist?

Thanks to all who gave me help, I appreciate it greatly. So will my wife once she gets home this evening :-)

I use ADE and Calibre for different purposes and haven't seen any problems caused by this. I would avoid running both at the same time with your Kobo connected to the computer.

[paulvro]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I use ADE and Calibre for different purposes and haven't seen any problems caused by this. I would avoid running both at the same time with your Kobo connected to the computer.

Thanks a lot David. So my only problem left is the question how to make visible newly transferred books that are on the bookshelf but remain unseen on the reader. There must be something that i somehow omitted doing... but what?