Calibre: I do not get it

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by kcladyz

I hear talk of this program here so I downloaded it. How do I add my oasis books and Nook books to it? Also what are the good uses for it? I do not see the point but maybe someone to open my eyes to the benefits. Thank you.

If you bought a book on the Oasis but decide you want to read it on your Glowlight 3, why should you have to buy a second copy? With Calibre, you don't.

My library consists of books bought from B&N, Smashwords, Amazon and free sites like Standard Ebooks. I can read all of those books on my Kobo or my better half's Nook due to Calibre.

You can buy (or download) a book from anywhere and read it on the device of your choosing.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by barryem

I don't use Calibre as a library program at all. I use it to make safe backups of the books I buy. When I get a Kindle book I download it to Kindle for PC, drag the book into Calibre, remove the DRM, convert it to both epub and mobi and put those into my library.

My library consists of a folder on an external hard drive called Ebooks and within that is a folder for each author. I like to keep it simple. This let's me use Windows Explorer to go right to any book I own.

Barry

Barry, you and I do the same thing. Except I then back up my Ebooks folder from my external hard drive to Google drive and (once a week or so) I sync to a second external drive.

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Barry, you and I do the same thing. Except I then back up my Ebooks folder from my external hard drive to Google drive and (once a week or so) I sync to a second external drive.

I do this also. I used to just dump whatever I had into Calibre but now I'm moving more towards file name management. I found a very handy script that does a good job doing ISBN metadata lookups so I'm working though Gutenberg right now and after I'm done I'm going to run the script on my calibre library and then back up to the cloud.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by sealbeater

I do this also. I used to just dump whatever I had into Calibre but now I'm moving more towards file name management. I found a very handy script that does a good job doing ISBN metadata lookups so I'm working though Gutenberg right now and after I'm done I'm going to run the script on my calibre library and then back up to the cloud.

I like the default way Calibre sets up my e-book library. Each author gets a folder and each book gets a folder in the author folder. I can comb through the e-book folder using Windows Explorer and find the book I'm looking for if for some reason I don't open it from Calibre.

[skb]

I've been buying and reading ebooks since...forever. The books (and the company) I bought in 10BC for my Palm disappeared and in some cases, I had to purchase again. Also, different readers had different formats (I remember LIT* and PRB at least?). Now, everything goes into Calibre and it's just there and always available.

I also import RTF and DOC files into Calibre and use it as a document library/DMS. I've gone from one whacking great library to three separate libraries, bring even more order to my chaos.

Because Apple (grrr) nobbled iOS so it won't talk to Calibre anymore (properly), I also use Calibre2OPDS and store my ebooks in Dropbox and access via Updog (so I can browse and download from my library).

I think people who only read a book once and never revisit or re-read a book would struggle to find usefulness in Calibre, but for serial offenders er, readers such as myself, it is completely invaluable.

* I recently found a LIT file in backups (seriously old backups) and managed to Calibre/ALF them into a once more readable format. Woot!

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I like the default way Calibre sets up my e-book library. Each author gets a folder and each book gets a folder in the author folder.

Yea the script I'm using I have set up to sort books into an Author folder, but no child folders, I just dump the books in there. I'm going to to do a write up on it in Calibre/Dev Corner, I just haven't had the time. It's very useful and scriptable. I like it.

Sample output:

OK: ./13453/pg13453.epub
TO: /home/sealbeater/ebooks/uncertain/Mrs Humphry Ward/Mrs Humphry Ward - The Testing of Diana Mallory (2006) [9781846377792].epub

[barryem]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Barry, you and I do the same thing. Except I then back up my Ebooks folder from my external hard drive to Google drive and (once a week or so) I sync to a second external drive.

I have too many for Google Drive. I do keep copies of the books I'm likely to read in the next year on Dropbox. I also back up my books, in my case about once every month or two. Usually to a fairly high capacity thumb drive.

Barry

[barryem]

Originally Posted by skb

I've been buying and reading ebooks since...forever. The books (and the company) I bought in 10BC for my Palm disappeared and in some cases, I had to purchase again. Also, different readers had different formats (I remember LIT* and PRB at least?). Now, everything goes into Calibre and it's just there and always available.

I think people who only read a book once and never revisit or re-read a book would struggle to find usefulness in Calibre, but for serial offenders er, readers such as myself, it is completely invaluable.

That's happened to me a couple of times. Not many people remember in the MS-Dos days when B&N got into the ebook business. It was just after Microsoft Reader came out. I think it was Dos days. It's been so long I'm not sure now. Anyway I bought several books from them and read them but I'm also a re-reader and I knew I'd want to read a few of them again. Then they announced they were going out of the business and we had 30 days to download our books before they would become unavailable. i did but a few weeks later I replaced my PC. I wasn't able to download their app, which I hadn't considered, and my books were now useless.

A lot of people lost a lot more than I did. Some people had hundreds of books, many of which they hadn't read yet. I had 2 or 3 dozen, probably, and I'd read them all once. I only re-bought about 5 of them in other formats later. It taught me a big lesson.

I also lost books when one of the other sellers went out of business. I didn't get any notice although others did and by the time I heard about it they were gone. Again, I'd read them all and this time there were only 5 or 6 books. I can't recall but it might have been Ereader.com. Not sure.

At this point I probably have well over a thousand books that I've already read at some time and plan to read again. Quite a few of those I've read many times. I've read "The Good Earth" and "The Egyptian" and "Peyton Place" at least every 4 or 5 years since the mid 1950's. Actually the list is a lot longer that but it probably doesn't need to be recited here.

Barry

[jj2me]

Another small but nice thing especially for when you have more than one e-reader, is that when you plug in one of your e-readers, there's a column that says (IIRC) "On device" which displays checkmarks next to the books in your Calibre library that are on that device.

It's just such a smart program. Drag your e-book onto Calibre, it'll format it for your default reader and store its copy somewhere else (not disturbing the original), even removes DRM if you've done the plug-in dance via Apprentice Alf. Then it's smart when transferring books to your e-reader, by default doing an intelligent conversion if needed.

[HLS]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

You have to download the books to your computer, then you can add them inside Calibre (using the "add book" button).
Unless they've got DRM, you should immediately be able to view them via Calibre.
And as soon as you plug in an eBook reader, Calibre should recognize it, so you can transfer the books to it (right click, "send to main memory").

The benefit of it is mainly to have a central library of all your books,
instantly knowing which are on your reader right now (as soon as you plug in the reader, a new column appears in the library to show which books are on the device),
and of course, the far most important to me, being able to convert books from all sources and (with help from Apprentice Alf) get rid of DRM.
Also nice, it does offer good sorting/searching.
You can have it download new covers too - useful since some books, for whatever reason, don't have the cover that is shown in the shop.

I regularly buy books from Kobo and Amazon. I read them on my inkBook which is from neither.
(Note: I do have to install Adobe Digital Editions and an older Kindle for PC version to actually GET the books. But once I have the file, Calibre does the rest.)

'
'I guess I need to play with it. I plugged my oasis in and nothing happened lol

[HLS]

Looks like I am getting my kindle loaded. Can I make the books compatable to a nook?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by kcladyz

Looks like I am getting my kindle loaded. Can I make the books compatable to a nook?

Yes you can. There's some learning to do though. You need to download your Amazon books, learn about Apprentice Alf to strip the DRM and convert the books too epub. It sounds daunting, but it's not. I buy most of my books from Amazon. Downloading them, removing the DRM and converting them can be done in a minute or so.

You may want to download an older version of Kindle For PC. That's likely the fastest way to download a bunch of books at once.

We can guide you if you really are interested.

[disconnected]

Originally Posted by kcladyz

I hear talk of this program here so I downloaded it. How do I add my oasis books and Nook books to it? Also what are the good uses for it? I do not see the point but maybe someone to open my eyes to the benefits. Thank you.

Getting started with Calibre can seem like way more trouble than it’s worth if you don’t see a pressing need for it.

The other side of that is that if and when the pressing need arises you’ll really wish you’d taken the trouble before acquiring multiple incompatible ereaders and thousands of books (with a surprising number of accidental duplicates ) from various living and dead bookstores, with different formats and DRM schemes.

The good news is that once you’ve set it up Calibre doesn’t require much effort to maintain. You can always add in more of its advanced features as needed. It took me about six years to finally get around to learning just enough about plugboards to be able to have my series books listed in order on my ereaders; in actuality I just learned enough to find an example to copy, but it works really well.

I became addicted to ebooks soon after buying my first Pocket PC in 2000. It wasn’t until 2011 that I suddenly woke up to the new world of agency pricing and realized that I had about a thousand ebooks in various formats that would sooner or later be unreadable. It took me a few weeks, but I managed to install Calibre (with the necessary plugins from Alf) and rescue almost all of my ebooks.

Since then I’ve bought thousands more ebooks, most of which I would not have been willing to buy if Calibre didn’t exist. I can comparison shop and buy from multiple places, I almost never accidentally buy duplicates, and I have lots of backups. I can browse through my whole library in one place; I can sort or search or turn on the cover browser and just graze.

I think about all that whenever I send my annual donation. Kovid and unpaid but appreciated apprentices.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

We can guide you if you really are interested.

Moderator Notice
Note that detailed discussion of the mechanics of DRM removal is still not allowed on MobileRead. We don't want MobileRead to turn into a support site for DRM removal tools.

[JustinThought]

Okay, I just had to jump in here. I also enjoy Calibre, but maybe not as much as the previous posters. I use Calibre as my only e-book reader on the PC.

However, I don't use it otherwise for managing the storage of my e-books. I tried it, but because I am very particular about the nomenclature and folder structure of my disk storage, and Calibre is very dogmatic about the same thing--and they don't agree--I go with my own management system, such as it is.

It's the same thing with the creation/modification of my e-books. Originally, I was using Calibre to create e-books, and I have to say, it makes what could be a very difficult process extremely easy. But again, I have certain desires regarding the structure/layout of the internal workings within the book, so I have learned to edit e-books using another tool available here on this forum.

But, as you can see from the above comments, I seem to be in a minority of one. Calibre should definitely be the first stop for anyone who is interested in taming their e-library.