Forma Sorry state of annotations on Kobo Forma

[Kicweed]

I don't like sounding bitter, but honestly I am. The current experience of highlighting text, adding notes, and most importantly exporting them is so unreliable and unfriendly that it discourages me from reading the books I want. For me, half the process of reading a book is about keeping notes on what I'm reading.

1. Newly highlighted text is not saved
2. Existing highlighted text is removed inexplicably from whole books (I've lost annotations from two finished books by now)
3. Exporting annotations is a laborious and per-book process, requiring access to a PC
4. Exported annotations are in an unstructured format, with minimum additional data (chapters, dates etc)
5. Comments, requests and bug reports go unanswered by Kobo (in this forum, in GitHub and in Kobo's support channels). We're left trying to figure out things on our own and come up with hacky workarounds.

As it stands, I'm trying to find a way to take photos of my Forma's screen and OCRing them on my phone. To me it feels possibly more reliable than how things are currently supposed to work.

I've tried using @davidfor's excellent Annotations plugin via Calibre and it was great while it worked. Alas, at some point, something, somewhere went wrong and the process broke irreparably. I thought I'd be better off keeping it as simple as possible, avoiding any and all dependencies in my process. Still, not even the simplest, on-device workflows are reliable.

I only wish some of this frustration reaches someone at Kobo and they decide to do something about it.

[Quoth]

There is IMO no use for annotations other than on a PC (or similar) and per book. I use the "Kobo Utilities" in Calibre and it's fine.

If newly highlighted text & note isn't saved, then your database may be corrupt. Either restore a backup (made via Calibre or directly) or Factory Reset to rebuild the database. Then make sure you are on a recent Firmware. Some old versions have annotation bugs.

Alas, at some point, something, somewhere went wrong and the process broke

The "Annotations" plug in on Calibre fetches ALL the books. I don't have a use for that. The only reason it might not work is if the Kobo Forma database is corrupt.

The epubs and kepubs work slightly differently.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Kicweed

1. Newly highlighted text is not saved
2. Existing highlighted text is removed inexplicably from whole books (I've lost annotations from two finished books by now)
3. Exporting annotations is a laborious and per-book process, requiring access to a PC
4. Exported annotations are in an unstructured format, with minimum additional data (chapters, dates etc)
5. Comments, requests and bug reports go unanswered by Kobo (in this forum, in GitHub and in Kobo's support channels). We're left trying to figure out things on our own and come up with hacky workarounds.

As it stands, I'm trying to find a way to take photos of my Forma's screen and OCRing them on my phone. To me it feels possibly more reliable than how things are currently supposed to work.

If you're not getting new highlights saved, and old annotations etc are being removed it sounds like your Kobo's database is corrupt.

Kobo themselves do not, to my knowledge, actively support exporting annotations. Rather it's a functionality of third party additions via Calibre or otherwise.

This forum is not, and has never been officially associated with Kobo in any way what-so-ever. Occasionally Kobo staff may comment on threads here but it is generally not in an official capacity unless they note otherwise in the specific post.

I've found the few times I used their support for technical issues that it was responsive, it wasn't always ideal but given that the folks you're going to speak to are entry level customer support the job got done. Though for non-technical issues their support has a more spotted history.

As to github, the folks looking at that are unlikely to be the ones who can affect change, looking through the comments, including yours, they seem largely to be feature requests/enhancements. The devs working on Kobo's software aren't going to be able to confirm, deny, etc anything to do with those features. I mean they could maybe say "your request has been read" but that's really a nothing statement.

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by Kicweed

I don't like sounding bitter, but honestly I am. The current experience of highlighting text, adding notes, and most importantly exporting them is so unreliable and unfriendly that it discourages me from reading the books I want. For me, half the process of reading a book is about keeping notes on what I'm reading.

1. Newly highlighted text is not saved
   
2. Existing highlighted text is removed inexplicably from whole books (I've lost annotations from two finished books by now)
   
3. Exporting annotations is a laborious and per-book process, requiring access to a PC
   
4. Exported annotations are in an unstructured format, with minimum additional data (chapters, dates etc)
   
5. Comments, requests and bug reports go unanswered by Kobo (in this forum, in GitHub and in Kobo's support channels). We're left trying to figure out things on our own and come up with hacky workarounds.
   

As it stands, I'm trying to find a way to take photos of my Forma's screen and OCRing them on my phone. To me it feels possibly more reliable than how things are currently supposed to work.



I've tried using @davidfor's excellent Annotations plugin via Calibre and it was great while it worked. Alas, at some point, something, somewhere went wrong and the process broke irreparably. I thought I'd be better off keeping it as simple as possible, avoiding any and all dependencies in my process. Still, not even the simplest, on-device workflows are reliable.



I only wish some of this frustration reaches someone at Kobo and they decide to do something about it.

I agree with Kicweed and McGlitch. Your annotations are not behaving as they should. Try going to the home menu>Settings. Tap on “Repair”, which is to the right of “Repair your Kobo account”.

If this doesn’t fix your problem, then go back into Settings and tap on “Factory reset”. This will wipe your Kobo clean, and then you’ll need to re-log back in with your Kobo account. I have seen sideloaded books survive a factory reset, but you’ll most likely lose them. If this doesn’t fix your Kobo annotations problem, you may need to call customer support or pop back in here and let us know how it’s going.


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[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Kicweed

I don't like sounding bitter, but honestly I am. The current experience of highlighting text, adding notes, and most importantly exporting them is so unreliable and unfriendly that it discourages me from reading the books I want. For me, half the process of reading a book is about keeping notes on what I'm reading.

1. Newly highlighted text is not saved

Any time that highlights have not been saved for me it is because of problems in the book. This most often happens when I put a book on the device a a kepub without first doing the transformation to kepub. There have been issues with the transformation that can cause issues with bookmarking, but, again, they tend to be issues in the source book that prevent the transformation from happening properly.

[*] Existing highlighted text is removed inexplicably from whole books (I've lost annotations from two finished books by now)

The only reason I can think of this happening is that you replaced the book on the device without making sure the book wasn't seen as a new book. In that case, the book details, including the annotations, are removed from the database and the book is added as a new book. This is intended be behaviour.

• Exporting annotations is a laborious and per-book process, requiring access to a PC
• Exported annotations are in an unstructured format, with minimum additional data (chapters, dates etc)
• Comments, requests and bug reports go unanswered by Kobo (in this forum, in GitHub and in Kobo's support channels). We're left trying to figure out things on our own and come up with hacky workarounds.

Firstly, as others have mentioned, MR is not an official support forum for Kobo devices. Kobo has absolutely no official presence here. And very little unofficial presence. The thread you posted in is simply a place for people to discuss changes they would like to see. Similarly, I think the Github repository is mainly there because of the open source licenses. For any changes they make, they will need to publish them. The annotations support is in nickel, with is proprietary software. The source for that isn't available. Raising issues on Github about nickel doesn't really make sense.

I did read your post. Honestly, you lost me with the title: "Improved Native Annotations Export". There is absolutely no official supported way of exporting annotations from a Kobo device. Hence, you cannot improve it. The method that is in the firmware was probably put there by a developer to help with testing. It might have been an experiment in what could be done. At this point, you just have to hope that Kobo doesn't decide to do a cleanup and remove it.

As it stands, I'm trying to find a way to take photos of my Forma's screen and OCRing them on my phone. To me it feels possibly more reliable than how things are currently supposed to work.

You can turn the screenshot function on and use those instead.

I've tried using @davidfor's excellent Annotations plugin via Calibre and it was great while it worked. Alas, at some point, something, somewhere went wrong and the process broke irreparably. I thought I'd be better off keeping it as simple as possible, avoiding any and all dependencies in my process. Still, not even the simplest, on-device workflows are reliable.

I checked your posts for any reports of issues. I am pretty sure that what you have reported has been fixed and released. I'm sure I worked out the sorting issue, but, I didn't include it in the release notes. Are you saying the current release doesn't work? Or maybe one of the beta's released since.

I only wish some of this frustration reaches someone at Kobo and they decide to do something about it.

If you want Kobo to do something, tell them. Tell them what you want and why. They do listen, and they do make changes based on what they are told.

[RobertJSawyer]

"Kobo themselves do not, to my knowledge, actively support exporting annotations. Rather it's a functionality of third party additions via Calibre or otherwise."

True, they don't actively support it, but it's available via the firmware. In the file "Kobo ereader.conf," under [FeatureSettings], add this, and you'll get a menu option for any book to export all the highlighted passages to a text file:

ExportHighlights=true

[RobertJSawyer]

Kobo's handling of annotations and highlighting is abysmal. The former is so hard to do on the slow E Ink keyboard, I almost never bother. For the latter, though, I've long used this system. Since I have a Sleep Cover, the power switch is no longer needed, so in "Kobo ereader.conf," I have this line:

Screenshots=true

I then highlight any passage I wish (or not, if I want a whole page) and take a screen shot by pressing the power button; these are saved, one per screen, as .png files in the device's root directory. When done with a book, I copy all of those files into my Evernote account.

Evernote automatically performs OCR on the screenshots -- and it works just fine, even if some or all of the text in the screenshot is highlighted and/or is in italics -- and makes them full-text searchable. I then use Evernote's search functionality to find highlights I want across all my exported highlights from all books.

A sample is attached; as you can see, this method preserves the highlight and the appropriate citation: the work it came from and the place in that work.

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by davidfor

If you want Kobo to do something, tell them. Tell them what you want and why. They do listen, and they do make changes based on what they are told.

Informative as ever, David.

I’ve read on this forum before that we can report to Kobo, but I’ve not found the relevant link on their website. I suspect its location has changed from where others recommended I look last time. Do you know where the reporting link is currently?



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[Cootey]

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

Since I have a Sleep Cover, the power switch is no longer needed, so in "Kobo ereader.conf," I have this line:

Screenshots=true

I then highlight any passage I wish (or not, if I want a whole page) and take a screen shot by pressing the power button; these are saved, one per screen, as .png files in the device's root directory. When done with a book, I copy all of those files into my Evernote account.

I’ve been a Kobo user for many years, but have never dug into tweaking the .conf files. Where do I put this useful hack? I placed it under [ApplicationPreferences] with no luck.

Also mentioned was putting ExportHighlights=true under [Feature Settings], but that doesn’t exist in my “Kobo eReader.conf”

Is there a tutorial out there that lists these hacks and where to place them in the current “Kobo eReader.conf“ file?


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[RobertJSawyer]

Hi, Cootey. Both of these settings go under the hearing "[FeatureSettings]" (not "[ApplicationsPreferences']"):

[FeatureSettings]
Screenshots=true
ExportHighlights=true

If a given setting doesn't exist at all, just add it. For some values, there's no entry initially.

This is another good one; it'll give you a switch on the home screen to switch between portrait and landscape modes (if you don't already have a [DeveloperSettings] heading, just add that, too, as a new section after the "[Browser]" section):

[DeveloperSettings]
ForceAllowLandscape=true

The general documentation on all of this is here:

https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kob...ration_Options

All best wishes!

Rob

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

The general documentation on all of this is here:

https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kob...ration_Options

All best wishes!

Rob

Thank you, Rob. That link was just what I needed.

I finally got the screenshot feature to work when I concatenated “Feature Settings” to “FeatureSettings”.

~Dˢ



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[gilster]

Rob, this is brilliant, and solves a major Kobo problem for me. Many thanks!

[RobertJSawyer]

Cootey -- glad you got it working, and sorry I accidentally put an extra space in there; space is kinda my business (I write science fiction ), so sometimes it sneaks into things it shouldn't.

I've edited my original post, just so no one else will have to correct the error.

Gilster, my pleasure!

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Cootey

I’ve read on this forum before that we can report to Kobo, but I’ve not found the relevant link on their website. I suspect its location has changed from where others recommended I look last time. Do you know where the reporting link is currently?

There is a feedback link on every page of the store. There are several links behind that to report different problems.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by davidfor

There is a feedback link on every page of the store. There are several links behind that to report different problems.

If you’re using an Adblock extension such as ublock the feedback thing may be blocked. This was the case some years ago it might have changed but I’d be surprised if it had.