Getting my Kobo books - how?

[abrogard]

Not sure I've got this in the right section, hope so.

I've got a couple of books I was silly enough to get from Booktopia and they finished up coming as part of this Kobo thing: the only way I can see them is to run Kobo and look at them there.

I can't see how to get them out of it: Kobo for desktop (I have no smartphones or Kindle readers etc.. everything I have is desktop).

Can Calibre help me with this? Somehow get those books out of this Kobo nonsense?

[DNSB]

Try installing the OBOK plugin which is part of the DeDRM package. Though I am wondering how books from Booktopia ended up in your Kobo library.

[abrogard]

Okay, I'll try. Maybe it's already there - I've got the ddrm installed? Booktopia steered me into the arms of Kobo. It was one of only two ways to 'get' and read the book as I understand the system. And I'm still not sure it is downloaded. For all I know I'm reading it off the web all the time..
How would I get the OBOK to see it? The only Kobo dirs I can identify are way down the directory structure. Point Calibre at one of them? /appdata/local/ etc.. ?

[davidfor]

Like @DNSB, I was baffled by the reference to Booktopia sending you to Kobo. But, it is an Australian store that uses Kobo to fulfil orders for ebooks. And their web-site points to the Kobo apps and devices for reading.

As @DNSB said, the Kobo desktop application will download the book. The Obok plugin is the way to get them from there to calibre. It will also remove the DRM if the book has DRM.

You should also be able to download the books from the Kobo store. When you sign in to the store, there should be an option to use the Booktopia account. Though, if you already have a Kobo account, you can link the Booktopia account to it from your account settings. When you have signed in, click "My Account" and then "Books". Your books should be listed. Click the three dots next to the book and click "Download". Books with DRM will need ADE to download. Books without DRM will download as an epub directly to where ever you want to put them.

Booktopia might also have a place to download the books. But, I don't have an account there to check.

[abrogard]

Thank you for that. I've made progress because of it and understand a little.

I've got adobe digital editions - I see it on my desktop. But calibre has simply imported a file called URLLink(3) which is the third book I downloaded from Kobo. they came down as 'url link' and win10 added the (1), (2), etc..

I just upgraded Calibre to the latest version right now. Got prompted. And I took a look and I don't see Ddrm on the list. Maybe it has dropped off. I'll look to reinstall it. Meanwhile I saw the Kobo addon by David Forrester - I think perhaps that's yourself?

So I installed it. And then I saw the Kobo Utilities. Should I install that?

Or seeing I want no truck with Kobo at all once I get this book (and the four that I found already there) should I cross them off and just reinstall DeDrm and leave it at that? Is there any problem installing numerous plugins like that?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by abrogard

Thank you for that. I've made progress because of it and understand a little.

I've got adobe digital editions - I see it on my desktop. But calibre has simply imported a file called URLLink(3) which is the third book I downloaded from Kobo. they came down as 'url link' and win10 added the (1), (2), etc..

I just upgraded Calibre to the latest version right now. Got prompted. And I took a look and I don't see Ddrm on the list. Maybe it has dropped off. I'll look to reinstall it. Meanwhile I saw the Kobo addon by David Forrester - I think perhaps that's yourself?

So I installed it. And then I saw the Kobo Utilities. Should I install that?

Or seeing I want no truck with Kobo at all once I get this book (and the four that I found already there) should I cross them off and just reinstall DeDrm and leave it at that? Is there any problem installing numerous plugins like that?

You need to open the .acsm file with ADE to download the ebook file. The Adobe Content Server Message file just tells ADE how to activate and download the ebook file, it is not the ebook file.

DeDRM is not an calibre supported plugin for what should be fairly obvious reasons. Check Apprentice Alf and Apprentice Harper for more information.

There are no problems with installing multiple plugins though some people go overboard. IMNSHO, installing a plugin should be done when you find a need for it and not simply because it sounded interesting.

[abrogard]

Thanks for that. Yep, I generally install no plugins at all I've just installed both of yours is all. I got two acm's down from Kobo and into calibre. But there's three more are supposed to be 'drm free epubs' and when I click 'download' nothing happens. I cleared the 'downloads' folder so I could see what appeared and nothing appears.
when I download, again, the acm's for the drm books they appear alright.
and when I search my hard drive for the book title or any part of it I find nothing.
I don't suppose your area of expertise covers that strange thing... ?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by abrogard

Thanks for that. Yep, I generally install no plugins at all I've just installed both of yours is all. I got two acm's down from Kobo and into calibre. But there's three more are supposed to be 'drm free epubs' and when I click 'download' nothing happens. I cleared the 'downloads' folder so I could see what appeared and nothing appears.
when I download, again, the acm's for the drm books they appear alright.
and when I search my hard drive for the book title or any part of it I find nothing.
I don't suppose your area of expertise covers that strange thing... ?

It may be the browser or its settings. Try to download with Firefox, for example (unless you already do?).

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by abrogard

when I download, again, the acm's for the drm books they appear alright.
and when I search my hard drive for the book title or any part of it I find nothing.
I don't suppose your area of expertise covers that strange thing... ?

The ebooks I download from Kobo don't show with a human readable title. Below are the filenames for a group of free ebooks that I downloaded for one of my nieces. Basically, they land in my downloads directory and I pick them based on the file date.

cdfeb9a7-d241-44d6-9e84-1e20b0279e7a-epub-c84588a2-939b-4c8d-8ba1-87a54e8728c6.epub
b498c0bd-373b-4dd4-99ee-a23ee6915978-epub-b9cc4b8b-6726-47b0-a1e0-1fc1cc88e3f5.epub
95423509-8375-4184-9854-4ecb1fb315bb-epub-b8058801-7a82-47cb-b225-a393d152d3cf.epub
f324f62d-c062-4f4c-879d-972b8ad82fe8-epub-bc090268-29b2-43dd-a6e4-ff989e89024a.epub
draft2digital_ipp-epub-d1bc4841-d4c1-48fe-b66e-21b51d9da0fb.epub

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by abrogard

Thanks for that. Yep, I generally install no plugins at all I've just installed both of yours is all. I got two acm's down from Kobo and into calibre. But there's three more are supposed to be 'drm free epubs' and when I click 'download' nothing happens. I cleared the 'downloads' folder so I could see what appeared and nothing appears.

For DRM free books, the epub file should be downloaded directly. But, what happens depends on your browser. As @DNSB said, the file name used can look like random characters.

when I download, again, the acm's for the drm books they appear alright.
and when I search my hard drive for the book title or any part of it I find nothing.
I don't suppose your area of expertise covers that strange thing... ?

For books with DRM, the ACSM file is downloaded. This has to be handled be ADE. On Windows, ADE will download the books into the "Digital Editions" directory inside the Documents directory. You can use ADE to send the book to the device when it is connected. Or, you can use DRM removal tools to allow you to read it elsewhere. The file names used usually match the title of the book.