Paperwhite 5 or Libra 2?

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by frquixote

Absolutely agree! I migrated from the PW3 and love the tighter Calibre integration I have with Kobo Libra 2.

Would you be willing to explain a bit about what "tighter Calibre integration" means for a newbie? I just got a Libra 2, but I don't know how the Calibre experience differs between Kobo and Kindle devices. What new features did you get?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Would you be willing to explain a bit about what "tighter Calibre integration" means for a newbie? I just got a Libra 2, but I don't know how the Calibre experience differs between Kobo and Kindle devices. What new features did you get?

Automatic metadata and collection management. Once you've set it up in the Calibre settings, Calibre will automatically update the metadata and sort the books into collections on your Kobo, every time you connect the Kobo to Calibre. To update metadata on a Kindle you'd have to delete and resend the books in question, and any collection management on a Kindle must be done manually, unless the Kindle is jailbroken.

You can also back up the database of your Kobo with Calibre, so that things like reading status won't get lost if you reset your Kobo for some reason.

[Aleron Ives]

I hope you will forgive the novice questions, but how does that differ from merely dragging and dropping e-books onto the Kobo, since it shows up as a simple USB drive? As I understand it, you can copy/paste e-books onto the device manually, and the Kobo will update its databases automatically to add the new books when you unmount it, right?

Originally Posted by Sirtel

You can also back up the database of your Kobo with Calibre, so that things like reading status won't get lost if you reset your Kobo for some reason.

Does using Calibre for this purpose differ from simply copying:

.kobo/BookReader.sqlite
and
.kobo/KoboReader.sqlite

(or the entire .kobo folder) to your PC for safe keeping, and then replacing them later after resetting your Kobo?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

I hope you will forgive the novice questions, but how does that differ from merely dragging and dropping e-books onto the Kobo, since it shows up as a simple USB drive? As I understand it, you can copy/paste e-books onto the device manually, and the Kobo will update its databases automatically to add the new books when you unmount it, right?

If you change the metadata later (title, author, series), you won't have to delete and resend the books. Calibre will automatically update the metadata on your Kobo the next time you connect it. Calibre will also sort the books on your Kobo into collections, you won't have to do it manually on the device.

Of course, if you don't use Calibre to manage your library, then there won't be any difference whether it's a Kindle or a Kobo. Dragging and dropping via the file explorer works the same way on both. But you cannot change the book data on the device without deleting and re-copying the files.

[Aleron Ives]

Thanks for the help. Since I only have one book, I didn't know what Collections were, so I found Kobo's help page for that. I guess my library has a ways to go before I'd need to consider organising it with Calibre.

[Colonel Cathcart]

not only collections, but also series.