Dealing with Kindle ebooks in calibre

[tamhas]

Originally Posted by texasnightowl

I'm not sure what mangled titles and unknown authors you are seeing? Or how you imported?

These are the titles and author in the Kindle as seen in the device tab of Calibre. The titles are readable, often have text besides the title, and often include the mobi-asin. Well more than half the authors are "Unknown", even though other books by that author are in Calibre. I need to import the book to Calibre, Edit Metadata, and then go back to the device tab to Match in order to get a reasonable title and author in the Device tab.

B&W covers are a pain.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by tamhas

These are the titles and author in the Kindle as seen in the device tab of Calibre. The titles are readable, often have text besides the title, and often include the mobi-asin. Well more than half the authors are "Unknown", even though other books by that author are in Calibre.

It is likely that the cached metadata on the device is messed up. That can happen if the device was connected to an older version of calibre or if the proper plugins were not installed the first time the device was connected.

You should try attaching the Kindle without calibre running, locate the “metadata.calibre” file in the root folder on the device, and delete it. The next time calibre starts it will re-read the book metadata.That should fix most or all of the books.

[cyraxote]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Calibre can import from a connected Kindle:
After jobs = 0, click on Device view (not Device column).
Find a book. right click and add to Library.
Now select Library!
The book is then apparently not on the Kindle. However check all the Calibre metadata and copy the Calibre Title.
Then in Device view select the book and paste or type the Library title into search. Then on Device menu, "Update Metadata".
Go back to library view and the added book now has a tick in Device Column.

I tried to do this, but got lost after "check all the Calibre metadata..." I think perhaps the instructions assume greater familiarity with Calibre than I have, or I'm being hopelessly literal about the instructions. (Also, my device menu has "Update cached metadata on device"; is that the same as "Update Metadata"?)

In any case, I sent a book to my Kindle from Amazon and copied it to my Calibre library by right-clicking and choosing "Add books to library." I then deleted the download from the Kindle and attempted to send it back to the device. I got a window (wasn't clear to me how to insert a screencap in the message here but it's attached) asking "Autoconvert the following books before uploading to the device? [Yes] [No] [Show details...]

If I click "No," no file is copied. If I click "Yes," the KFX file is converted to an AZW3 file and is sent to the Kindle. (They don't look exactly the same on the Kindle, but the differences are minor.)

So I guess my question is this: Is Calibre unable to send the KFX file back to the Kindle without converting it?

Thanks.

[cyraxote]

Also, I noted that the feature where I can see passages highlighted by other users works with the books downloaded directly from Amazon, but not with the converted book uploaded by Calibre. Is that related to the conversion, or ...? Are there other such features that don't work with this process?

Thanks again.

[tamhas]

Originally Posted by jhowell

You should try attaching the Kindle without calibre running, locate the “metadata.calibre” file in the root folder on the device, and delete it. The next time calibre starts it will re-read the book metadata.That should fix most or all of the books.

For the most recent years, I have done the match book to library thing so that the titles and authors now read reasonably. If I delete the metadata.calibre file and it doesn't fix, may I not lose all that work?

Should I perhaps rename the file instead of deleting so that I can put it back if it doesn't fix?

[tamhas]

As for the missing collection name in Digital Content, turns out that I named the new collection "Short Stories" on the Kindle and apparently the website doesn't like embedded blanks, so renaming it "ShortStories" on the Collections page has made everything nice.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by tamhas

For the most recent years, I have done the match book to library thing so that the titles and authors now read reasonably. If I delete the metadata.calibre file and it doesn't fix, may I not lose all that work?

Yes, but you will hopefully be better off overall.

Originally Posted by tamhas

Should I perhaps rename the file instead of deleting so that I can put it back if it doesn't fix?

Yes, good idea.

[PaulBenn]

Thanks to all your help, I have got Calibre working with KFX files!

I updated KFX and DeDRM plugins to their latest version but still got an error. In looking at instructions again I realised I hadn't done what I was supposed to do when running in debug mode i.e. I hadn't deleted the offending book and re-imported it. When I did this correctly, I saw in the debug log that there was an error was with the KFX import. In looking at the log and the error messages, I realised I should have imported the book directly from my Kindle. What I had done was to locate the relevant KFX file, copy it to my laptop and then import that. Once I imported the file directly from my Kindle this last problem was solved.

(Hangs head in shame for not reading instructions properly and books the course 101 Reading Instruction!)

Thanks again, everyone, for their help

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

DeDRM also runs when you view an eBook. So you can view an eBook that has DRM without having to add it to your calibre library.

Curious - Can one annotate a DRM infested book… in the calibre viewer?

BR

[lkmiller]

Are the annotations in a seperate file? Then yes. If not, then no.

[booksies]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

That's true, unfortunately. If you've bought an older version and Amazon doesn't offer an updated one, you cannot even buy the new version with the same account you used to buy the old version.

Amazon Customer service. There was one book that was supposed to be able to be updated per author's IG post, but instead it was published with new ISBN or something (so "completely new" and unrelated). I reached out to CS and they had me to "return" the OG Kindle book, which allowed me to buy the new book and they credited me the price difference because I made a stink about it (new version cost more, it was the same book just updated).

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by booksies

Amazon Customer service.

I only get offered a phone call (Amazon UK). But it has a synthesised voice that asks you for the three digit code that is spoken, but the 1st digit is never clear, so after 2 attempts they hang up.

How do you contact CS?

[svenlind]

Method 3: eink Kindle

If you have an eink Kindle and are able to download ebooks directly to your Kindle via WiFi, it is possible to then connect the Kindle to a computer via USB cable and import the ebook file (.kfx, .azw3, .azw, .mobi) from Kindle into calibre.

If your Kindle was released in 2013 or later running firmware v5.6.5 or newer, you will get mostly KFX (older books may result in older formats, like .mobi). Make sure you have the KFX Input plugin installed.

If you have a pre-2013 eink Kindle running firmware older than v5.6.5, you will get mostly KF8 (older books may result in older formats, like .mobi). More info on older Kindle models and their usefulness in obtaining KF8 from jhowell: here

Allow me to elaborate a little on this method.
With the Kindle connected to the computer. In Calibre select Device-->Show the books in the main memory of the device.

Then select the books that you want to add. Right Click and select Add books to library.

[User11235]

A BIG thank you to everyone, from the people at Calibre to all the various plugin developers, and to all y'all here on MobileRead.com

I rarely use the Kindle store anymore -- I much prefer my Kobo and the Kobo store -- but sadly there are still a couple of authors/series I like that are only available on Kindle, so I have an old Kindle eInk device I bought cheap on eBay for specifically this reason

Anyway, just had to deal with one such book, and with the now-removed download option the only way I could figure out how to get it was with y'all's help... And for anyone else who needs this, I'm going to brain-dump what I did that finally worked here...

- I removed all the books off my Kindle (there were only a couple, I never use it except for this)

- I plugged my Kindle into my PC and deleted the two files with the ".calibre" extension ("metadata.calibre" and another one, I forget the filename now)

- I restarted the Kindle (I checked for updates, but there weren't any)

- I updated Calibre to the latest version

- I installed the "KFX Input" plugin, which I'd never had nor needed before... link: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=291290

- I updated my deDRM plugin (which already had my device's serial number in it) to the latest pre-release version... This part is key: You have to go to their GitHub releases page specifically, because the latest official release is 10.0.3, so the latest alpha version 10.0.9 is hidden everywhere except on the releases page, link: https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools/releases

I was then able to download the book on my Kindle, plug the Kindle into my PC, start Calibre, click on the Devices tab/button, and right-click the book and choose "Add book to library"... And then it was added successfully (though with the black+white cover) and unlocked and ready to convert to a real format (KEPUB, with the "KEPUB Output" plugin, link: https://github.com/jgoguen/calibre-kobo-driver/releases)

Maybe not all of those steps are strictly necessary, but it's what I ended-up doing in the half-hour or so I was trying to get my book imported and unlocked, and maybe something here will help someone else...

Cheers!

[joondez]

odamizu you are the goat. Followed the info you put and got it working. Sharing my details:

• Device: Paperwhite 10th Gen
• Kindle app for PC version: 2.4.0 (70904) aka 2.4.70904
• Calibri version: 7.26 (latest)
• De-DRM plugin version: DeDRM_tools_10.0.9

All this could have been avoided if my Amazon device could simply read the book that I bought from Amazon...but I got the "The item is not compatible with this device." How could it not be compatible? I literally bought the book from you, Amazon. Thank god for everyone else here otherwise I'd be fighting for a refund right now