Exporting notes/highlights

[Buhaj47]

I was considering a Libra 2 as my next reader, but inability to sync notes from sideloaded books is a major drawback to me. I thought another way to preserve my notes and highlights would be to download them to my PC, and how does Kobo work in that space these days? I guess I could use Annotations in Calibre, but does it give any legible results?

Let's say I have some bookmarked pages and highlighted fragments, is there a way to export them to a file that would show the highlighted fragments along with my comments, plus remember other pages I just bookmarked? I guess there's no way to move a KEPUB file with the notes to another Kobo reader?

[davidfor]

I have to ask, did you search the forum? Because the answer is there and it isn't that long since it was discussed.

There are multiple ways to get the annotations from the device into other storages. Including a built-in but not officially supported way to export them to a file on the device.

There are also ways to copy the annotations to other Kobo devices. But, they are manual and have problems. Most of the discussions have been about how to move everything when upgrading the device. One of the techniques mentioned could be used to copy for just one book, but, it would be a pain unless someone automated it.

[polymerwitch]

I tried two methods:

1) Adding the config setting for exportHighlights=True. This adds a menu option to to export highlights. It worked ... except the highlights were truncated if they were more than a 140 characters are so.

2) I switched to solely using KOReader. While looking at how best to integrate KOReader with Calibre I found the KOReader Sync plugin. This plugin allows you to sync highlights, bookmarks, annotations, reading progress, reading status, and more into custom metadata fields in Calibre.

I decided to stick with the second option as I've really been enjoying KOReader for my sideloaded epubs.

[Buhaj47]

I searched the forum, but can you share how the output looks like, i.e. how the data looks when I export bookmarks and highlights/notes - be it via Kobo Utilities or KOreader Sync? I wonder how easy it is to read.

KOreader was mentioned, I hope its installation doesn't void warranty?

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[RobertJSawyer]

I'm a Kobo beta tester and just posted this note to the Kobo staff:

A few firmwares back, the "Export Annotations" feature was crippled, truncating exported highlights, rendering it essentially useless. I mentioned that here, and was told it would be fixed. But it's still broken in the latest firmware. Here's all I got in the exported file for a multi-paragraph purchased (not sideloaded) .kepub.epub ebook; just 304 bytes:

Ordinary Injustice

Surrency had little time to talk in detail to his clients, and so he often had limited information to use in their favor. It was thus difficult for him to bargain with prosecutors to secure a more lenient sentence, nor could he produce the ultimate trump card: a willingness to...

[Buhaj47]

Let me ask this way: is there a way to export highlights/notes to a PC where the user can later read the highlighted pages with comments or go to bookmarked pages in Calibre (or any other application)?

[polymerwitch]

Originally Posted by Buhaj47

I searched the forum, but can you share how the output looks like, i.e. how the data looks when I export bookmarks and highlights/notes - be it via Kobo Utilities or KOreader Sync? I wonder how easy it is to read.

KOreader was mentioned, I hope its installation doesn't void warranty?

Wysłane przez Tapatalka

I don't know about the warranty. I'm not sure.

Here is what the export looks like in Calibre. It's in markdown format so it will be formatted cleaner and the information about where it is in the book is hidden when rendered with markdown:

- Endings to be useful must be inconclusive. <!-- pos0: /body/DocFragment[17]/body/p[4]/span/i/text().301, pos1: /body/DocFragment[17]/body/p[4]/span/i/text().343, highlighted: True, chapter: THE EINSTEIN INTERSECTION, page: /body/DocFragment[17]/body/p[4]/span/i/text().301, datetime: 2021-11-17 20:22:29 -->
- There is no death. Only music. <!-- pos0: /body/DocFragment[12]/body/p[171]/span/text().558, pos1: /body/DocFragment[12]/body/p[171]/span/text().588, highlighted: True, chapter: THE EINSTEIN INTERSECTION, page: /body/DocFragment[12]/body/p[171]/span/text().558, datetime: 2021-11-16 22:30:01 -->
- I grunted. “You don’t make Branning-at-sea sound like a very nice place. Too many people, half of them crazy, and they don’t even know how to have an orgy.” I took up my blade. “I don’t have time for nonsense like that.” <!-- pos0: /body/DocFragment[12]/body/p[161]/span/text().0, pos1: /body/DocFragment[12]/body/p[161]/span/text().220, highlighted: True, chapter: THE EINSTEIN INTERSECTION, page: /body/DocFragment[12]/body/p[161]/span/text().0, datetime: 2021-11-16 22:26:17 -->
- I felt stone under the soles of my feet and then cold, smooth metal. I passed some leaves, blown here by what wind, that his hooves had ignited. They writhed with worms of fire, glowing about my toes. And for a moment the darkness was filled with autumn. <!-- pos0: /body/DocFragment[8]/body/p[150]/span/text().0, pos1: /body/DocFragment[8]/body/p[150]/span/text().254, highlighted: True, chapter: THE EINSTEIN INTERSECTION, page: /body/DocFragment[8]/body/p[150]/span/text().0, datetime: 2021-11-11 20:52:12 -->

As to your question about having it export to calibre and then show the highlights in the book on the computer, I'm not sure there is a solution to do that currently with sideloaded books.

[Buhaj47]

Thanks, these are highlights I guess. What about bookmarks, are they exported so that a relevant fragment can be found in Calibre?

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[polymerwitch]

Originally Posted by Buhaj47

Thanks, these are highlights I guess. What about bookmarks, are they exported so that a relevant fragment can be found in Calibre?

I'm not sure. I normally just do highlights, but it says it does. I would suggest just trying it as you can uninstall it afterwards. You can also check out the KOReader/Calibre forum topics as we are speaking more about those other solutions than the Kobo topic. But this system does seem to work 100% for me with the Kobo Libra 2.

[Buhaj47]

Yeah, that's the point, I'd like to check it before I get a Kobo

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[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Buhaj47

Thanks, these are highlights I guess. What about bookmarks, are they exported so that a relevant fragment can be found in Calibre?

No, or at least not at the moment. For the dogear bookmark, Kobo stores the location. The percentage into book or chapter is fetched by these methods. But, that isn't really enough to find the spot in the book. The bookmarks have changed and are now storing context for these. I haven't updated any of the tools to fetch this.

Edit:
Woops. I was thinking of the nickel. But, the post you seem to be referring to is for KOReader. If that is the case, I have no idea.

[polymerwitch]

Originally Posted by Buhaj47

Yeah, that's the point, I'd like to check it before I get a Kobo

It looks like bookmarks do show up, but I don't think they will be very useful. You can see it exists and what chapter it is in. If you name the bookmark in KOReader you can see that or it automatically uses the first few words on the page, but without inspecting the html in the epub I don't know that you'd be able to easily/quickly track down the page across devices. I suppose you could search for the few words it lists in the given chapter.

- in 5. Newcomb’s Problem <!-- datetime: 2021-11-06 10:27:02, page: /body/DocFragment[13]/body/div/p/text().0, chapter: 5. Newcomb’s Problem -->