Dealing with Kindle ebooks in calibre

[Sirtel]

I still occasionally buy an ebook from Amazon, but not many these days. As I've never bought my ebooks from a single seller, I've never had to switch. I just buy more books from others and less from Amazon. And the day DRM can no longer be removed by ordinary folks with no special knowledge about computers or coding is the day I've bought my last ebook from Amazon. I probably wouldn't manage to remove the DRM with the more esoteric methods like the new Android method, as I'm no IT person and the devs no longer post detailed instructions for fear of attracting too much attention. And I definitely don't want to use an OCR method, which will presumably result in several errors.

I'm not going to cry over this. I have plenty to read without Kindle exclusives, so I don't much care.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The day I can no longer easily enough download and remove the DRM from Amazon eBooks, I'm done with eBooks from Amazon.

Agreed. Over the years, the reason I have bought as many books as I have is due to the ease of removing the DeDRM. Once this process is too tedious, I'll move on to other vendors.

[xyzzy_foo]

Sats' new K4A method might still be useful for the "super-strong" KFX DRM, but for regular Kindle eBooks including published after April 22, 2025, it won't be necessary.
Check out my new K4A method.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by xyzzy_foo

For me, it's already over because KF8 version of Kindle eBooks after publishing April 22, 2025, are not easily obtainable.
I considered buying a PW1, but the image quality of KF8 files downloaded directly via Wi-Fi is unclear. At least with KFX on the KOA3, the images are terrible—black and white with low resolution.

I never bought image heavy eBooks from Amazon.

[xyzzy_foo]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I never bought image heavy eBooks from Amazon.

The difference between Western books and Japanese books is that while Western books consist mostly of text, Japanese books are quite graphic-heavy.
This is especially true for light novels, a subculture genre of fiction where illustrations are highly valued.

Even in nonfiction books, images including photographs frequently appear.
Additionally, Japan has many fixed-layout EPUBs, starting with manga and magazines, and sometimes even regular books are produced in fixed layout rather than reflowable format.

I'm not really a big fan of fixed-layout EPUBs, but EPUB as a format has hardly evolved in the past decade, which concerns me.

[darthyoda6]

Originally Posted by odamizu

You removed the book from your Kindle (not Calibre) and re-downloaded it to your Kindle (not Calibre), then imported the new Kindle file to Calibre?

(If you just removed the book from Calibre, then re-added it to Calibre, try removing it from your Kindle and downloading a fresh copy to your Kindle. Wait for each book to complete downloading before moving on to the next one. If that doesn't work, post in the KFX Input plugin thread as jhowell will likely be interested in this.)

ETA: The above applies to "regular" ebooks, not textbooks or other special cases where DeDRM doesn't work.

Yes, I removed it from the device & Calibre, re-downloaded the book and dragged & dropped it into Calibre. That method worked for every other new book that I dragged & dropped, as well as old books. It was just the one book that had issues.

As for the DeDrm keys, I assume they are entered correctly since all other books have no problems removing the drm.

[gbm]

For best results goto this post follow the directions in the section "Importing KFX books into calibre:" subsection "Importing from E-ink Kindle devices".

Connect the Kindle to your computer via USB, wait for the automatically started jobs to complete, click "Device" on toolbar to show available books, and select one or more books. Then either click "Add books to library" in the toolbar, drag them to the library icon, or right click and select "Add books to library".

bernie

Originally Posted by darthyoda6

Yes, I removed it from the device & Calibre, re-downloaded the book and dragged & dropped it into Calibre. That method worked for every other new book that I dragged & dropped, as well as old books. It was just the one book that had issues.

As for the DeDrm keys, I assume they are entered correctly since all other books have no problems removing the drm.

[Dal Bhat]

I was just looking at the Dictionaries tab at Amazon because there is one that I wish I had. Then I saw that I couldn't download it, like I did before with several others, all offered at no charge.

They have to be "delivered". Well, no, wifi is off for good on my Kindle, so I guess I'm out of luck.

What recourse do I have?


"

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Dal Bhat

I was just looking at the Dictionaries tab at Amazon because there is one that I wish I had. Then I saw that I couldn't download it, like I did before with several others, all offered at no charge.

They have to be "delivered". Well, no, wifi is off for good on my Kindle, so I guess I'm out of luck.

What recourse do I have?


"

If it was published before April 22, you could try an old version of Kindle for PC.

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by darthyoda6

Yes, I removed it from the device & Calibre, re-downloaded the book and dragged & dropped it into Calibre. That method worked for every other new book that I dragged & dropped, as well as old books. It was just the one book that had issues.

If you're willing to share the ASIN and/or book title & author, that might provide clues as to why this one book doesn't work.

[lkmiller]

If you are able to download the book to a Kindle Touch (which would be in older non-kfx format) and DeDRM it, then I would think a copy from the Paperwhite should be a decryptable kfx. In fact, I believe the tougher kfx drm books aren't available to any E-ink Kindles -- only the mobile apps, Fires, and Kindle for Mac.

[Dal Bhat]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

If it was published before April 22, you could try an old version of Kindle for PC.

Amazon shows me this installer:

KindleForPC-installer-2.7.70978.exe

Where do I find an "old" one?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Dal Bhat

Amazon shows me this installer:

KindleForPC-installer-2.7.70978.exe

Where do I find an "old" one?

An old version of K4PC will not download any eBooks published on April 22, 2024 or later. So you are better off using your Kindle to download the eBooks.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

An old version of K4PC will not download any eBooks published on April 22, 2024 or later. So you are better off using your Kindle to download the eBooks.

They only want to download a dictionary.

You can find old installers by googling them, and version 2.4.0 can be downloaded here. With the latter, you also need the deDRM 10.0.9 or alpha and the KFX Input plugin.

[Dal Bhat]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

They only want to download a dictionary.

You can find old installers by googling them, and version 2.4.0 can be downloaded here. With the latter, you also need the deDRM 10.0.9 or alpha and the KFX Input plugin.

That didn't work. After installing, I configured it to be the default device. Then went to Content on it and then Dictionaries. Picked the one I wanted and said to deliver it, but the setup only showed me my Kindle. K4pc was never offered as a destination.