Why use Calibre?

[TheSmitty]

That pretty much sums it up.

All my books (around 1,000) are currently from Amazon and read on Kindles or using Kindle app. But I do use Calibre for removing DRM so I have options in the future (more on that in a second). But other than that I do not understand the utility of Calibre. My Oasis 3 has 32gb of memory and has every book I have every bought on it. I use collections rather extensively and every book is in multiple collections so I can see my library in multiple ways.

Having mentioned all that above I will say that I have purchases a Kobo H20 Libre which arrives today. I did this on a lark out of boredom and wanted to check it out. Once I get it I know I can buy books on their store and I am sure that using Calibre I will be able to transfer some of my library to it.

Anyway, I have nothing against Calibre, in fact I read that so many people use it for book management that I fear I am missing out on something so I am curious why/how people use it.

[ametzler]

Originally Posted by TheSmitty

That pretty much sums it up.

All my books (around 1,000) are currently from Amazon and read on Kindles or using Kindle app. But I do use Calibre for removing DRM
[...]
Anyway, I have nothing against Calibre, in fact I read that so many people use it for book management that I fear I am missing out on something so I am curious why/how people use it.

If one is buying/getting books not only from Amazon Calibre provides a unified view of all books.

Calibre provides quick searching, and the option to add metadata (tags, series order) which Amazon's view lacks.

[stumped]

Originally Posted by TheSmitty

That pretty much sums it up.

All my books (around 1,000) are currently from Amazon and read on Kindles or using Kindle app. But I do use Calibre for removing DRM so I have options in the future (more on that in a second). But other than that I do not understand the utility of Calibre. My Oasis 3 has 32gb of memory and has every book I have every bought on it. I use collections rather extensively and every book is in multiple collections so I can see my library in multiple ways.

Having mentioned all that above I will say that I have purchases a Kobo H20 Libre which arrives today. I did this on a lark out of boredom and wanted to check it out. Once I get it I know I can buy books on their store and I am sure that using Calibre I will be able to transfer some of my library to it.

Anyway, I have nothing against Calibre, in fact I read that so many people use it for book management that I fear I am missing out on something so I am curious why/how people use it.

If your oasis breaks, now many hours would it take you to set all that up again, assuming you don't have copies in calibre?

Amazon has no sensible bulk solution for " put all my previous purchases onto my new device"

[Sirtel]

First, my library is not 1,000 books, but getting close to 20,000. No way would they all fit onto any one device. Besides, library management on Kindles and on the Amazon website is very poor, collections notwithstanding. In Calibre I can tag, sort, group and view my books in any way I want. Whenever I need to find out if I already have a book (which is pretty often), it takes only a couple of seconds in Calibre. And no, Amazon doesn't always let you know you already have it. If the ISBN has changed, it's listed as a new book and you won't get any notification.

Second, I buy my books from several vendors, not only Amazon. That's because prices elsewhere are often lower for my country (we have no Amazon store of our own). Again, without Calibre I'd be lost and would certainly have bought many duplicates.

Third, I want to edit the formatting in all my books to suit my taste.

Fourth, with a huge library it's much easier to load books to my reader from Calibre than it is to download them from Amazon.

I'm sure there are other reasons, but those four are the primary ones coming to mind.

[jhowell]

I use calibre to keep track of books I have previously read and books that I want to read. Many that I have read were on paper or library loans so I don't have a copy to put on a Kindle. Many that I want to read I also do not have an e-book for.

calibre allows me to sort and search my database far more quickly and easily than I could using the Kindle UI.

[DiapDealer]

Because you're a diddler or a dabbler. Because you buy multiple formats from multiple sources and want to put subsets of your collection on multiple devices. Because you want to tinker under the hood of your ebooks and change the formatting. Because you want to access your library from any web browser from anywhere. Because you can't help but continuously curate your library and its metadata. Because when changes come along that you want to embrace/incorporate, you want to be able to use batch processing to take advantage of them all at once. Because you don't want to have to bother putting your entire library on every new device you buy. Because you want to take advantage of third-party plugins to interact with external sites and/or services/processes/devices. Because you want to develop third-party plugins that can interact with external sites and/or services/processes/devices that no one has developed yet.

[stumped]

Also, for the unlikely event that you have a dispute with Amazon that ends with them closing your account. It can happen. E.g. you get hacked, Amazon says your fault not ours, you take them to arbitration, court, whatever because you are badly out of pocket. They blacklist you, bye bye books

[Atunah]

I use Calibre similar to the OP. I buy pretty much all books at Amazon, although I do have a few I had to convert. But I send those via sendtokindle from the calibre folder. Easier for me as I can't figure out how else to do it from calibre. My calibre skill doesn't go much further than having figured out how to backup my purchases. I do not use those files though to put on my kindles. I only use the regular ones direct from amazon. I too use collections extensively. I think I have like 47 or so. . There actually is no issue if the kindle breaks as someone pointed out.

Unless of course you have all calibre files on it and not amazon purchased books. But the OP did say they buy amazon books. Collections are all backed up in the cloud, as are the books of course. Nothing to do other than dowloading the books back on device as needed.

But there are a lot more uses for calibre than I have ever figured out what to do. And it is of course very useful for those that buy from different stores and do device shifting.

Reminds me I haven't backed up my purchases in a while. I keep pushing it off as its not something I like doing. I always have to figure out again how to work the program and I am not a fiddler. Just want to read. But I also don't want to lose my books in the unlikely event something happens to my amazon account.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by stumped

Also, for the unlikely event that you have a dispute with Amazon that ends with them closing your account. It can happen. E.g. you get hacked, Amazon says your fault not ours, you take them to arbitration, court, whatever because you are badly out of pocket. They blacklist you, bye bye books

Or exceed their secret returns limit or policy. No-one knows what it is, but you lose the Kindle account as well as being blocked from regular Amazon.

There is no appeal or procedure unless you are rich.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by TheSmitty

That pretty much sums it up.

All my books (around 1,000) are currently from Amazon and read on Kindles or using Kindle app. But I do use Calibre for removing DRM so I have options in the future (more on that in a second). But other than that I do not understand the utility of Calibre. My Oasis 3 has 32gb of memory and has every book I have every bought on it. I use collections rather extensively and every book is in multiple collections so I can see my library in multiple ways.

Having mentioned all that above I will say that I have purchases a Kobo H20 Libre which arrives today. I did this on a lark out of boredom and wanted to check it out. Once I get it I know I can buy books on their store and I am sure that using Calibre I will be able to transfer some of my library to it.

Anyway, I have nothing against Calibre, in fact I read that so many people use it for book management that I fear I am missing out on something so I am curious why/how people use it.

You can use Calibre to convert your Amazon purchases to ePub for reading on your Kobo. Also, Calibre works very well with Kobo. With Calibre, you can manage your eBooks very well. You can also edit eBooks and many other things.

[TheSmitty]

Thanks for all the reponses. I certainly use Calibre to backup my Amazon purchases, a process I do every month. I agree that you never know when Amazon might make a decision or even if I decide to take my toys and go home.
I played some more with it today by taking a couple of my books in Calibre which I loaded from purchased amazon books and tried out downloading metadata and stuff. I can see how much more powerful the meta data is than simple collections. How to use, sort, etc the meta data is the next area I will dive into. This could become an obsession. The previous post mentioned editing my ebooks, not sure what I would edit however?

Meanwhile, my Kobo arrived today and is awaiting my return home from work for me to start playing with it. It may further spur me on with diving into Calibre. I love my kindles but options are always nice.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by TheSmitty

The previous post mentioned editing my ebooks, not sure what I would edit however?.

Mistakes. Bad formatting such as undesired margins, line-spacing, etc...

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by TheSmitty

The previous post mentioned editing my ebooks, not sure what I would edit however?

People usually edit according to their preferences. Some want left-justified and some fully justified text; some want spaces between paragraphs, others abhor them; sometimes the publisher has specified too large line-height or margins; font sizes can vary considerably from book to book and some people don't want to constantly adjust them, so they remove any unusual body font sizes from the css.

If you're not fussy about such things, there's no need to edit.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You can use Calibre to convert your Amazon purchases to ePub for reading on your Kobo. Also, Calibre works very well with Kobo. With Calibre, you can manage your eBooks very well. You can also edit eBooks and many other things.

That was one reason I used Calibre, for that year I used a Kobo Glo. I bought a couple of books from Kobo, but found Amazon much better as a store.

[Tomk2]

I have barely scratched the surface of Calibre functionality. But one button save all my books to disk or file has to be the most important feature? And the more books you have , the more important?

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