Sony, kindle or kobo?

[bcgirl]

Originally Posted by ApK

Cool! (See, it was secretly our job to keep you from making a decision so you wouldn't buy one yourself before xmas....)

Let us know if you need any help with Calibre or getting stuff from other ebook stores!

Thank you ApK, yes I would like to have a bit of help. Just trying things out now, like trying to see if the books I have on my Mac can be transferred to my Sony ereader. I just installed Calibre software and have no clue how this works. I can watch the demo and go from there but first, is this software I would need? Also my Kobo books on my iPad, could I transfer these to my ereader? All this is not really necessary as I am purchasing books soon (wifi) from Sony store because that would be the easiest I think? BTW, library books goes way better on the Sony than my iPad.

[sonyreaderfan]

Originally Posted by bcgirl

Thank you ApK, yes I would like to have a bit of help. Just trying things out now, like trying to see if the books I have on my Mac can be transferred to my Sony ereader. I just installed Calibre software and have no clue how this works. I can watch the demo and go from there but first, is this software I would need? Also my Kobo books on my iPad, could I transfer these to my ereader? All this is not really necessary as I am purchasing books soon (wifi) from Sony store because that would be the easiest I think? BTW, library books goes way better on the Sony than my iPad.

There's no need to purchase books twice. Kobo books can be read on Sony since they both use the same DRM (Adobe Digital Edition). To transfer Kobo books to Sony

- Register your Sony reader to the same name and password as your Kobo account. That's because Sony and Kobo will share the Adobe Digital Edition account.
- Go to the Kobo account and click download to download all the Kobo books. Transfer them manually to the Sony reader. I like to use drag-n-drop to the file directory instead of using the the Sony software. Other people prefer to use Calibre to transfer contents.

Alternatively, this seems to be what savvy members do. Strip all the downloaded/purchased books of the DRM. (Google Apprentice Alf.) Then you can put them on the reader without regards to how it is registered. (Because there are weird limitations, like a limit on numbers of device registered.) Also if you look for threads on how to put Kindle books on Sony readers (or other epub readers), it involves stripping Kindle drm and using Calibre to convert to epub.

[bcgirl]

Originally Posted by sonyreaderfan

There's no need to purchase books twice. Kobo books can be read on Sony since they both use the same DRM (Adobe Digital Edition). To transfer Kobo books to Sony

- Register your Sony reader to the same name and password as your Kobo account. That's because Sony and Kobo will share the Adobe Digital Edition account.
- Go to the Kobo account and click download to download all the Kobo books. Transfer them manually to the Sony reader. I like to use drag-n-drop to the file directory instead of using the the Sony software. Other people prefer to use Calibre to transfer contents.

Alternatively, this seems to be what savvy members do. Strip all the downloaded/purchased books of the DRM. (Google Apprentice Alf.) Then you can put them on the reader without regards to how it is registered. (Because there are weird limitations, like a limit on numbers of device registered.) Also if you look for threads on how to put Kindle books on Sony readers (or other epub readers), it involves stripping Kindle drm and using Calibre to convert to epub.

Cool, I logged in my Kobo account on my Sony PRS-t1 and downloaded my purchased books. Really easy! Thanks sonyreaderfan, did not know it was that easy and simple! Btw, do I or would I need Calibre software, what will it do for me? Is this only for Amazon ebooks?

[sonyreaderfan]

Originally Posted by bcgirl

Btw, do I or would I need Calibre software, what will it do for me? Is this only for Amazon ebooks?

People use Calibre instead of Sony software to manage their ebook collection because it's easier and more powerful than the Sony software. If most of your books are purchased from Sony or Kobo then you wouldn't really need Calibre. But Calibre is useful for your putting your own materials on the reader. Most of the materials on my reader are not store bought books. This is how I and others use Calibre:
(Note:Calibre doesn't work for library books.)

- A lot of people use Calibre to have the flexibility to getting books from BN and Amazon to the reader. (Removing drm and conversion.) Really, without DRM you are free to shop anywhere. People also use it to put their third party drm-free books on their readers.

- I use Calibre to manage a lot of the PDFs to put on the reader. Using Calibre, I can change the metadata (title, author for example) of the PDFs so I can sort them correctly.

- I like to download articles from web sites to read to my reader (aka timeshift web reading). It's easier on the eye. The service I use is instapaper.com. It's a service that lets you save web sites and then download them as epubs. I actually download them as .mobi format - Kindle's format - and then use Calibre to convert it to epub because the .mobi format comes out better. I use Calibre to transfer it to the Reader.

Example: reading Nytimes.com, I see a lot of interesting article on the front page. I open the articles and then save them using Instapaper and put them in a folder called Frontpage. I then download the Frontage folder as an epub (or mobi). It's like I have a book of all the front page articles.

One cool thing that Calibre does is that you can give content tags. Sony will automatically use the tags to put the content in a collection. For example if I tag the Frontpage epub as 'News' the Frontpage epub will automatically be put into the News collection. If the collection doesn't exist it will be created.

There are a lot of cool features of Calibre I don't know about. For example, you can automate downloading from Instapaper (I just download manually). You can also automate downloading of RSS feed into the reader. (I don't know how to do that).

- If you convert Kindle to epub, there are a lot of control over the look and feel of the epub. Same for importing epubs. You can embed your own fonts for example.

Hope this helps. I highly recommend looking into Calibre. It has a good epub manual that'll help you get started.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by bcgirl

Cool, I logged in my Kobo account on my Sony PRS-t1 and downloaded my purchased books. Really easy! Thanks sonyreaderfan, did not know it was that easy and simple! Btw, do I or would I need Calibre software, what will it do for me? Is this only for Amazon ebooks?

If you organize all your ebooks in Calibre, they will be in a special Calibre Library on your computer that the program sets up. This Library can be accessed from the T1 using another program called Dropbox. Once you have this set up, your entire library of ebooks will be a short download away from reading on your T1.

Here's where the directions are:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/combine...access-ebooks/

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Harmon

If you organize all your ebooks in Calibre, they will be in a special Calibre Library on your computer that the program sets up. This Library can be accessed from the T1 using another program called Dropbox. Once you have this set up, your entire library of ebooks will be a short download away from reading on your T1.

Here's where the directions are: http:

//www.makeuseof.com/tag/combine-dropbox-calibre-universal-access-ebooks/

bcgirl, Calibre can do a lot more than that, but folks tend to use the small handful of features that is important to them.
I keep all my ebooks and similar docs in Calibre for storage and organization.
I can drop a new file in from any of my computers and the all go to the same library. I use it to search and update metadata tags for the various PD stuff I find on the Internet, and I use it to automatically convert books between formats for my Kindle or my Sony. It can also email books to my Kindle for me, so I never have to plug the Kindle into the computer. Also, a little Alf will tell you that with 3rd party plug-ins, Calibre will transparently facilitate stripping DRM, enabling you to easily to buy from Amazon/Kobo/B&N etc and read on any device.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by sonyreaderfan

People use Calibre instead of Sony software to manage their ebook collection because it's easier and more powerful than the Sony software. If most of your books are purchased from Sony or Kobo then you wouldn't really need Calibre. But Calibre is useful for your putting your own materials on the reader. Most of the materials on my reader are not store bought books. This is how I and others use Calibre:
(Note:Calibre doesn't work for library books.)

- I like to download articles from web sites to read to my reader (aka timeshift web reading). It's easier on the eye. The service I use is instapaper.com. It's a service that lets you save web sites and then download them as epubs. I actually download them as .mobi format - Kindle's format - and then use Calibre to convert it to epub because the .mobi format comes out better. I use Calibre to transfer it to the Reader.

I use the Instapaper epub button and just download the file directly to a T1 folder I keep in Dropbox. I have a routine set up in which I collect articles over the course of a day, and then send them off to Dropbox at the end of the day.

(Note: there's a glitch of some sort currently involving Dropbox and Sony, such that the first & last articles in the epub download appear to be empty when read on the T1. I get around this by keeping a couple of old articles in my Unread folder, so that I can put one at the top of the list, and one at the bottom, before I upload the file.)

But if I were to adopt your procedure, I think I would be able to set up an Instapaper collection in Calibre, and sync that separately to Dropbox for access from my T1.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by ApK

bcgirl, Calibre can do a lot more than that, but folks tend to use the small handful of features that is important to them.
I keep all my ebooks and similar docs in Calibre for storage and organization.
I can drop a new file in from any of my computers and the all go to the same library. I use it to search and update metadata tags for the various PD stuff I find on the Internet, and I use it to automatically convert books between formats for my Kindle or my Sony. It can also email books to my Kindle for me, so I never have to plug the Kindle into the computer. Also, a little Alf will tell you that with 3rd party plug-ins, Calibre will transparently facilitate stripping DRM, enabling you to easily to buy from Amazon/Kobo/B&N etc and read on any device.

I've never tried out the email option in Calbre. I gather that you email your mobi books from Calibre to your free.kindle.com account, and then download them when you sync your Kindle.

Apart from accessing my entire ebook library from my T1 via the T1 browser and Dropbox, I often just go to the original file in the Calibre library, duplicate it, and just move that one file to Dropbox to download on the T1. I tried doing this with my Kindle, but Kindle doesn't play well with Dropbox.

[HarryT]

I find the most valuable feature of Calibre to be its metadata editor. Books often have very messed-up metadata (eg, specifying the author's name as "firstname lastname", rather than "lastname, firstname"). The ability to regularise a book's metadata when I add it to my library is very useful indeed.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by bcgirl

Totally surprised when i got an ebook reader for Christmas today! No comparisons or questions, it is a....SONY PRS-T1 with a cover with light! Am sooooo sooo happy but most of all totally surprised that my hubby bought this weeks ago!

Woohoo, welcome and enjoy it. I know I love mine, and I tell my husband daily. I got mine a week before Christmas!

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Harmon

I've never tried out the email option in Calbre. I gather that you email your mobi books from Calibre to your free.kindle.com account, and then download them when you sync your Kindle.

Yes, though 'syncing' isn't really needed. If I'm connected to wifi, the stuff just downloads automatically.

Apart from accessing my entire ebook library from my T1 via the T1 browser and Dropbox, I often just go to the original file in the Calibre library, duplicate it, and just move that one file to Dropbox to download on the T1. I tried doing this with my Kindle, but Kindle doesn't play well with Dropbox.

Though I haven't needed to do so much, I can just access my library on my local system by port forwarding my router through to Calibre's content server.

ApK

[bcgirl]

Originally Posted by spindlegirl

Woohoo, welcome and enjoy it. I know I love mine, and I tell my husband daily. I got mine a week before Christmas!

So do I, telling him how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Sony (and my hubby!) I love the red one but I got a black one. There was no red one available. But then he gave me the (last) red cover with light! Such a great gift!

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by ApK

Though I haven't needed to do so much, I can just access my library on my local system by port forwarding my router through to Calibre's content server.

You made that up, didn't you? 8)