Frequently Asked Questions - Page 23

mike_bike_kite · 04-02-2010, 01:45 PM

I'm just looking to buy an ereader and was trying out the various recommended bits of software (ie calibre). I see you can view documents and you can also state what type of ereader you have in the convert process which is great. I just wondered whether it would be possible to alter the viewing facility so the popup window mimicked the device you've selected ie it looks a bit like a nook or a kindle etc. This would allow users to try out different ereaders and get a feel for what suits them. It's currently nearly impossible to try out all (actually any) of the current readers and it would make potential users feel more confident when making a purchase.

It doesn't need to be an exact copy but it would be good to implement the next page button, different fonts, the screen refresh rate, any flicker etc. I guess it also should only show documents that can be read by that type of reader.

Perhaps it might then be possible to get a kick back from the ereader suppliers.

PS I currently use a Nokia N800 to read ebooks but this isn't in your list of supported devices.

kovidgoyal · 04-02-2010, 01:48 PM

For a true clone you would have to implement the same algorithms for rendering as the devices use. calibre's viewer uses a completely different approach, it doesn't reproduce pages for example.

You can use the N800 with calibre. Just plug it in and it should be detected

mike_bike_kite · 04-02-2010, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

For a true clone you would have to implement the same algorithms for rendering as the devices use. calibre's viewer uses a completely different approach, it doesn't reproduce pages for example.

You can use the N800 with calibre. Just plug it in and it should be detected

I don't think it would need to be anywhere near a true clone - it would just need to show you roughly what you'd see on screen if you were using that device. Keep in mind many folks like me have never seen an ereader in the flesh and therefore have no idea of what a page might look like on a Sony 505 screen or a DX screen. Most of the stuff would be parametrised ie screen size, refresh rate, gray levels etc.

I'll start playing with my N800 then.

A stunningly quick response by the way!

Mike

kovidgoyal · 04-02-2010, 11:42 PM

Well apart from grayscale and DPI otherwise the layout and such are more or less similar.

rbruce1314 · 04-03-2010, 06:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

You can use the N800 with calibre. Just plug it in and it should be detected

Does this apply to the Nokia 5800XM too, or is that 'work still in progress'?

kovidgoyal · 04-03-2010, 07:30 AM

Never even heard of the 5800XM

rbruce1314 · 04-03-2010, 07:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Never even heard of the 5800XM

the Nokia 5800 ExpressMusic?? Sorry, I thought all the world knew about it with all the fuss (positive and negative) being posted about it.....

Anyway, I've posted the 2 requested debug logs to the calibre site as a new ticket, so if you haven't seen it yet kovidgoyal you soon will

.

Thanks for a brilliant setup by the way!!

Lady Fitzgerald · 04-22-2010, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelJLucasWV

Just curious, anyway for a layman to have Calibre delete the original ebook on my hard drive when it adds the book to its library? There's no reason to keep both copies on my hard drive, and it would make it a LOT easier for me to remember what i have moved already. (i have MANY ebooks to move and fix the metadata for. Sorry if this is covered already, OR if this is a daft question. I'm still learning.

A workaround would be to move a group of, say, 10 or 20 books to a temporary folder and load them into Calibre from there. Once Calibre has done its thing and you are confident you don't need the original files anymore, you can delete the contents of the temporary folder.

PSL · 04-30-2010, 08:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Before asking a question about calibre, please check the list of Frequently Asked Questions in the User Manual.

I took ChineseUnionGig5.prc and used Calibre to generate both epub and pdf files. The pdf file kept the Chinese characters well but lost the index hyperlink (although it kept the blue hyperlink color) the epub file seemed keeping the hyperlink ( although it might point to different locations) but lost the Chinese Characters to ???
I don't know if anyone especially Calibre can help.

Sony 900 ereader

drouse · 04-30-2010, 08:51 AM

Hello,

First off, let me just say that Calibre is a fantastic program - I support visually impaired students, and Calibre has been a great way of encouraging them to read more, as the user interface is simple, and the text enlargement for books and news lets them read with ease.

However, the only issue I have is that the main GUI has text that is too small for them to read. I appreciate that for most this is a complete non-issue, but if there were a way to enlarge all the information shown on the home page, Calibre would become a real benefit to the visually impaired.

It seems there is some scope for this to be addressed in a future version - I noticed that under the general preferences button, there are options for button size in the toolbars under the 'Interface' tab. These only give three sizes - small, medium and large. If there were an option to even further increase the default text size for ALL the text on the main page of Calibre (and by that I mean information such as book titles, authors, text in the information box in the bottom left corner, etc.) then it would be of a huge benefit to the students.

Does this sound like something that could be implemented in a future version?

-Dan

kovidgoyal · 04-30-2010, 09:33 AM

As far as I know, calibre should be using whatever font size is set by the desktop environment to render text in the main GUI. So if you make your basic font sizes larger, that should make the fonts in calibre larger as well.

Starson17 · 04-30-2010, 10:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

As far as I know, calibre should be using whatever font size is set by the desktop environment to render text in the main GUI. So if you make your basic font sizes larger, that should make the fonts in calibre larger as well.

There are limits on how large the fonts can be. They are too small for me, even when set to maximum, for use on my 13 foot away TV screen. I assume he knows about the magnifier programs, some of which are built into Windows, and others being built into mouse drivers. I use both at various times, and my eyes are good.

drouse · 05-01-2010, 06:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Starson17

There are limits on how large the fonts can be. They are too small for me, even when set to maximum, for use on my 13 foot away TV screen. I assume he knows about the magnifier programs, some of which are built into Windows, and others being built into mouse drivers. I use both at various times, and my eyes are good.

Yes, we use magnifiers on the school's computers - Lunar principally. They work well enough for magnification, it's simply an ease-of-use issue. I will play around with the default font, but as you say, I reckon the biggest available font will be geared towards people without visual impairment. It's an annoyance, but one that, ultimately, our students can live with with the use of magnifier programs and low-vision aids.

Thank you, Kovid, for such a swift response, and clarification on the issue.

-Dan

eboyhan · 05-09-2010, 04:56 AM

Well, I've read through all 23 pages of this, your web "frequently asked questions" page, and skimmed the user manual. I haven't found an answer to what I'm looking for; so I guess I'll just ask.

I have a Kindle DX which I've had for about seven months now -- during that time I have managed to acquire a couple of hundred e-book titles, and maybe as many personal documents of varying lengths (most in PDF format). Before I acquired the Kindle I had managed to accumulate over 1000 printed books, which I was managing using a web-based system called GuruLib.

GuruLib is based on ISBN numbers, worked well for me, but has not been very well maintained, and because many e-books (especially those acquired from the Amazon Kindle store) do not have ISBN numbers (they have Amazon internal ASIN numbers), it is not easy to keep track of an e-book library using GuruLib.

So, I have been fiddling around a bit with Calibre, and it seems to do a perfectly fine job of library management for e-books (and for that matter a whole variety of other electronic documents -- like CHM files). However, I believe that there is little or no support in calibre for keeping track of metadata only for printed books, which might be entered using their ISBN number (followed by a query to Amazon, or some electronically accessible library site to get the rest of a book's metadata). Am I right in this assumption? And would you be interested in providing support for such a facility?

I'm desirous of having a single facility that could keep track of my complete book library whether in print or electronic form.

itimpi · 05-09-2010, 05:09 AM

The way I catalog paper books in Calibe is to add new ones using the option to add an empty book entry (i.e. one with no ebook attached).

I then set the metadata using the Edit metadata facility (in your case you could provide the ISBN and use that to retrieve details from the web). I then add a PAPER tag so I know this entry described a paper book.

Would this meet your requirements?

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04-02-2010, 01:45 PM	#331
mike_bike_kite Digitally confused Posts: 500 Karma: 1500000 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: London, UK Device: KPW, K2i, Nexus 7 32gb, Kobo Mini	I'm just looking to buy an ereader and was trying out the various recommended bits of software (ie calibre). I see you can view documents and you can also state what type of ereader you have in the convert process which is great. I just wondered whether it would be possible to alter the viewing facility so the popup window mimicked the device you've selected ie it looks a bit like a nook or a kindle etc. This would allow users to try out different ereaders and get a feel for what suits them. It's currently nearly impossible to try out all (actually any) of the current readers and it would make potential users feel more confident when making a purchase. It doesn't need to be an exact copy but it would be good to implement the next page button, different fonts, the screen refresh rate, any flicker etc. I guess it also should only show documents that can be read by that type of reader. Perhaps it might then be possible to get a kick back from the ereader suppliers. PS I currently use a Nokia N800 to read ebooks but this isn't in your list of supported devices.

04-02-2010, 01:48 PM	#332
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,374 Karma: 27230406 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	For a true clone you would have to implement the same algorithms for rendering as the devices use. calibre's viewer uses a completely different approach, it doesn't reproduce pages for example. You can use the N800 with calibre. Just plug it in and it should be detected

04-02-2010, 11:42 PM	#334
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,374 Karma: 27230406 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Well apart from grayscale and DPI otherwise the layout and such are more or less similar.

04-03-2010, 07:30 AM	#336
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,374 Karma: 27230406 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Never even heard of the 5800XM

04-30-2010, 08:51 AM	#340
drouse Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2010 Device: Sony PRS-600	Hello, First off, let me just say that Calibre is a fantastic program - I support visually impaired students, and Calibre has been a great way of encouraging them to read more, as the user interface is simple, and the text enlargement for books and news lets them read with ease. However, the only issue I have is that the main GUI has text that is too small for them to read. I appreciate that for most this is a complete non-issue, but if there were a way to enlarge all the information shown on the home page, Calibre would become a real benefit to the visually impaired. It seems there is some scope for this to be addressed in a future version - I noticed that under the general preferences button, there are options for button size in the toolbars under the 'Interface' tab. These only give three sizes - small, medium and large. If there were an option to even further increase the default text size for ALL the text on the main page of Calibre (and by that I mean information such as book titles, authors, text in the information box in the bottom left corner, etc.) then it would be of a huge benefit to the students. Does this sound like something that could be implemented in a future version? -Dan

04-30-2010, 09:33 AM	#341
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,374 Karma: 27230406 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	As far as I know, calibre should be using whatever font size is set by the desktop environment to render text in the main GUI. So if you make your basic font sizes larger, that should make the fonts in calibre larger as well.

05-09-2010, 04:56 AM	#344
eboyhan PandaMuse Posts: 104 Karma: 104 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Florida Device: kindle dx, kindle touch SO, kindle fire, kindle fire hd8.9	Well, I've read through all 23 pages of this, your web "frequently asked questions" page, and skimmed the user manual. I haven't found an answer to what I'm looking for; so I guess I'll just ask. I have a Kindle DX which I've had for about seven months now -- during that time I have managed to acquire a couple of hundred e-book titles, and maybe as many personal documents of varying lengths (most in PDF format). Before I acquired the Kindle I had managed to accumulate over 1000 printed books, which I was managing using a web-based system called GuruLib. GuruLib is based on ISBN numbers, worked well for me, but has not been very well maintained, and because many e-books (especially those acquired from the Amazon Kindle store) do not have ISBN numbers (they have Amazon internal ASIN numbers), it is not easy to keep track of an e-book library using GuruLib. So, I have been fiddling around a bit with Calibre, and it seems to do a perfectly fine job of library management for e-books (and for that matter a whole variety of other electronic documents -- like CHM files). However, I believe that there is little or no support in calibre for keeping track of metadata only for printed books, which might be entered using their ISBN number (followed by a query to Amazon, or some electronically accessible library site to get the rest of a book's metadata). Am I right in this assumption? And would you be interested in providing support for such a facility? I'm desirous of having a single facility that could keep track of my complete book library whether in print or electronic form.

05-09-2010, 05:09 AM	#345
itimpi Wizard Posts: 4,553 Karma: 950151 Join Date: Nov 2008 Device: Sony PRS-950, iphone/ipad (Marvin/iBooks/QuickReader)	The way I catalog paper books in Calibe is to add new ones using the option to add an empty book entry (i.e. one with no ebook attached). I then set the metadata using the Edit metadata facility (in your case you could provide the ISBN and use that to retrieve details from the web). I then add a PAPER tag so I know this entry described a paper book. Would this meet your requirements?

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