Question about Calibre

[TheSmitty]

I have only a few hundred books and most are purchased amazon ebooks. I do not really know what Calibre is for but curious if it is something I should look into for some reason? If there is a post about what Calibre is and what use it provides I would love to know the link.

[radamo]

Here is a link to the Calibre forum here on MR: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/fo...play.php?f=166

I personally use it to manage my collection of ebooks. But I had a collection of epubs from before I moved to a Kindle and Calibre has been a fantastic tool to manage that collection and to "convert" my old epubs and load them onto my kindle.

If I only had Amazon books I am not sure how much value Calibre would add to me personally.

[dwig]

I began reading ebooks way back in the dim dark past (read: when the format choices were text, text, text & proprietary applications). I managed by few hundred or so ebooks manually.

At first, I began using calibre as a conversion tool and continued my manual folder based library "management" system. As I got more comfortable with calibre and as my library grew, I moved to using calibre library management functions. Now, with a TBR (To Be Read list) of well over 1000 ebooks, I need calibre's library search and sort functions to keep up with what I have and what to read next.

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by radamo

Here is a link to the Calibre forum here on MR: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/fo...play.php?f=166

I personally use it to manage my collection of ebooks. But I had a collection of epubs from before I moved to a Kindle and Calibre has been a fantastic tool to manage that collection and to "convert" my old epubs and load them onto my kindle.

If I only had Amazon books I am not sure how much value Calibre would add to me personally.

I buy only from Amazon pretty much and for me the value is backup and organization. I don't send the books from calibre to my kindles, I pull them from Amazon. But I like to have a backup of my books. One just never knows. I also put the stray book I get elsewhere on it. I much prefer to have everything on Amazon.

I don't do anything to the books, just back them up, maybe put a cover on if it doesn't have one and that is it. I have no clue how to work most of the features of calibre. But its neat to have them all sorted, mark them as read, all the tags. Its handy. And if I ever get locked out of my amazon account, at least I won't have to give up all my books. Not that I anticipate it, but again, one never knows.

Best thing for me is that calibre can be used by someone like me, that really has no clue about most of the features or all the fiddle stuff. I load them in, add some tags, put them in columns and that is it. That is about the extend of my knowledge. So I appreciate the makers designing it in such a way.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by TheSmitty

I have only a few hundred books and most are purchased amazon ebooks. I do not really know what Calibre is for but curious if it is something I should look into for some reason? If there is a post about what Calibre is and what use it provides I would love to know the link.

I started to use Calibre for backing up my books, when I got my very first e-reader (the majority of my purchases were from Amazon then). As Atunah said, one never knows what might happen. Later, when my library had grown to almost a thousand, I also started to use Calibre for managing my library, because I could not be sure otherwise what I had and what I hadn't. Sometimes I happened to buy the same book twice. With Calibre, a quick search is enough to show me whether I have the book or not. With the managing came editing metadata, adding custom tags and other information etc. When the Calibre editor was added to the program, I started to edit the formatting I did not like.

Nowadays I use Calibre for practically everything that's related to my e-book library. I make back-up copies of my library, sort the books into various categories, edit the metadata and add the custom information, edit the layout and formatting. I send all my books to my kindles from Calibre, never downloading anything directly from the store. That way I can be certain they look the way I want, have the series info, custom page numbers and all the other things I want in my books.

A total fan of Calibre here.

[Pizza_Cant_Read]

You can save all your books to your local hard drive and if you want, even convert them to epub in case you switch to a non-kindle ereader.

You can edit 'metadata' about the books in your library, allowing you to sort by series, ISBN, Amazon ID, or even tags such as "sci-fi" "fantasy" "mystery" "network security" "philosophy" "non-fiction" or whatever you you want.

It was a chore to create this meta-data, especially after I deleted my library once by accident but it is worth it. I have thousands of books and so collections are not very practical for me.

I use an mobile app called Calibre Companion which displays my library on a beautiful wooden bookshelf, allowing me to search or sort with any of the information it imported from calibre. I don't even need to organize my Kindle anymore, though for several dozen of my fiction series I did rewrite the titles to include series information "Shannara 01 - The Sword of Shannara". calibre provides what it calls 'plugboards' which allow you to automate this but I ended up doing it by hand because I was scared :P

It is just as powerful or more so than the software used in real life libraries to organize and search their collection. But also simple enough that anyone can use it for most basic tasks.

Anyhow, you should ask on the forum radamao linked to. Just wanted to vouch for calibre. It is the best thing since sliced bread, and my life would be hollow and empty without it.

[TheSmitty]

Thanks for all the info and opinions. It seems like something I need to get checked out. In preparation for doing something with it I spent hours last night on amazon in the content and devices section do the "download and xfer to USB" function on every book I have there. I reading about Calibre and stuff it apparently was the first step required since most of my content (if not all) is kfx files. Exhausting but it is done now. Going forward I can do it each time a buy a new book.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by TheSmitty

Thanks for all the info and opinions. It seems like something I need to get checked out. In preparation for doing something with it I spent hours last night on amazon in the content and devices section do the "download and xfer to USB" function on every book I have there. I reading about Calibre and stuff it apparently was the first step required since most of my content (if not all) is kfx files. Exhausting but it is done now. Going forward I can do it each time a buy a new book.

Just remember that calibre alone does not allow conversion of all your downloaded books until you remove the DRM. The plugin for that has nothing to do with calibre, it is simply made to work seamless together.

[ElspethB]

Most of the books I purchase I buy from Amazon; however, I'm not a fan of Kindle for Android. I use Calibre and Alf's plug-in to strip DRM and convert my Amazon purchases to epubs so that I can also read my books in Bookari on my phone or Samsung tablet. In addition, I'm particular about the formatting of my books, so I usually fix stuff up in Calibre's book editor and then sideload them to my e-ink Kindles.

[radamo]

Originally Posted by ElspethB

Most of the books I purchase I buy from Amazon; however, I'm not a fan of Kindle for Android. I use Calibre and Alf's plug-in to strip DRM and convert my Amazon purchases to epubs so that I can also read my books in Bookari on my phone or Samsung tablet. In addition, I'm particular about the formatting of my books, so I usually fix stuff up in Calibre's book editor and then sideload them to my e-ink Kindles.

I have never been successful at following the De-DRM process... I will have to do some more research on this. Maybe locate a better "how to"...

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by radamo

I have never been successful at following the De-DRM process... I will have to do some more research on this. Maybe locate a better "how to"...

The only howto you need is here: https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com

If the section about the plugin for calibre is not enough, there is a huge FAQ over there.

Still not enough? You will need to ask over there (not here on MR)

[radamo]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

The only howto you need is here: https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com

If the section about the plugin for calibre is not enough, there is a huge FAQ over there.

Still not enough? You will need to ask over there (not here on MR)

Thanks for that... (karma coming your way)... Thought I followed this one and "failed". But will give it another shot... I was having an issue on the Kindle PC app side I think. It may be a version issue.

[Leilani]

Originally Posted by radamo

Thanks for that... (karma coming your way)... Thought I followed this one and "failed".

Follow the directions step by step. I was unsuccessful for a while and finally went step by step and voila finally got it to work. It helps to read all the posts.


I've used Calibre since 2010 and as publishers have gone out of business - Fictionwise, Samhain, All Romance, Diesel, soon Loose-Id; Calibre is a good way to download your book purchases and have them even if the company is gone.