Glo Working with annotations

[kobome]

Hi,

I'm thinking about buying a Kobo Glo, but since I have to buy it online, I tought I ask you happy owners a few questions first so I don't have to send it back in case I don't like what I see.

I plan to read a lot of non-fiction books, and I like to extensively mark text passages, add comments and add markers to interesting sections. This does certainly add up over time, I'd estimate I'm talking about at least a few dozen notes, comments and markers per book (estimating b/c I don't own an e-reader so I have to translate my use of dead trees into the world of charged particles).

How does this work with the Kobo Glo? I have watched a couple of review videos on youtube, so I do have a general impression of how to add notes and annotations and so on, but how do I work with them?

• Can I get a good overview about all annotations etc. I made so I can quickly jump to a particular marker, or do I have to skip to all notes to find the one I need?
• Can I get an overview about all annotations I made in all the books on the device?
• Can I search for certain phrases or keywords over my whole library on the device, or at least in the currently open book?
• If the Kobo Glo can not do this, are you aware of an electronic ink reader that can?

Thank you very much for your help, it is quite difficult for a newcomer to get a decent overview of what's on the market.

[sos_sifou]

It works pretty well! And it's easy to use :-)

Yes you can browse your notes and highlights on multiple pages with a simple swap (from the oldest to the newest) and you can click on the note or the highlight to go to the page where you made it.

Yes you can search in books using the search fonction

Yes you can get all your annotations using a plug-in in calibre (exporting the html file containing all your annotations)

Hope this helps!
If i said something stupid or wrong, please correct me.

[paola]

I don't have a glo, but I presume the annotation functions are the same across all devices, though I could be wrong.

In terms of what you can do with a book, you can bookmark pages, and you can highlight parts of texts. You can add comments (notes) to these highlights. One negative point is that you cannot highlight text across a page: so if the paragraph you are interested in goes over the page, you'll have to reduce the font so that the whole bit that interests you fits in a single page, and then highlight. There may be better ways, but this is the only one I know.

Coming to your questions:

1. within a book you can call the list of annotations - if you have many, it will go over various screens. Once in the list of annotations, you can either jump to the corresponding page in the book, or you can simply read the text you have highlighted. If you have also annotated it, you will see your note on top. Even if you have several pages, it does not take long

2. I don't think you can see all the annotations in the book, as they are accessed from within each book; but again, I do not know for sure.

3. you can search for text in the book you are reading (I think this is a pretty basic function all e-readers have), but you cannot search specifically for annotations - I don't know of a reader that does.

4. sorry, no idea (I mean: other ereaders, including sony I think, as well as Onyx's M92 and Pocketbook 913 and 903, allow for free-hand annotation, something you cannot do on a Kobo. But if this is importanto for you, perhaps a tablet is better.

There are other things you can do on the Kobo with annotations, however. First of all, you can send them to Calibre (though if you are new to ebooks perhaps you don't know Calibre); secondly, you can use Tshering "annotation extractor" (works on windows only). This is very nice, because it creates a txt file of your annotations - you could then create a larger file containing all of your annotations, perhaps separated by book, and put it on your device. So you could search your annotations there, it will be some sort of index file.

There is also a feature to create a catalogue of your books, linking to them, with Calibre - perhaps one could ask in the appropriate forum if any kind soul has thought about creating a plugin that extracts annotations from calibre (after one has sent them) and creates a book with them where they link back to the proper page in the original book.

[kobome]

Alright, thank you very much, this certainly helps.
I will see where I can get a good deal and then order a Glo, it does sound promising :-)

Again, thanks.

[henriquemaia]

Annotations function on Kobo for research is not very good.

Yes, you can mark the passages.
Yes, you can find them easily on the book you're reading.
Yes, you can search words/passages on a book.

No, you cannot search them globally.

But...
You can't highlight passages across pages.

The way most people do is to change the font size in order to get the whole text on the same page to highlight. It works, but in a very dirty way (as it breaks the fluidity of text reading/marking).

Also, it's not easy to export the highlights/notes for further use. Not very helpful for a resarcher.

This has been my experience so far.

But, regardless, I consider the flaws "bugs", and I like my kobo glo (I'm a heavy highlighter nonetheless).

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Dexter_10

- Spam deleted - MODERATOR .

Firstly, your URL is wrong. But, the other post you made has the correct URL.

Did you read the thread? It is talking about extracting annotations from an eReader device. The site you didn't point to correctly states "Drag & Drop your annotated PDF here". That will not help with the problem being discussed here.

[Shopaholic]

@davidfor the post you're replying to is a spammer.

[RobertJSawyer]

henriquemaia, the newest firmware -- 3.2.0 -- apparently DOES allow highlighting passages across multiple pages. I'm travelling, and haven't installed the new firmware yet, but that's reportedly a feature of it.

That said, I have to say mark-up/annotation is still an area in which Kobo needs work. Kindle does a better job, and makes it way easier to save/export your annotations, and use them with other services, such as Evernote. This is the one area in which I think Kindle is superior to Kobo; I do a lot of research reading, and find Kobo's highlighting feature really sub-par.

Now, Kobo could fix it without too much work. Rather than (or in addition to) letting me post highlighted text to Facebook (which Kobo seems to think is a great feature), they should let us post highlighted text to our Evernote accounts; that would help a lot.

Still, Kindle's "Popular Highlights" feature is an amazing tool, and Kobo has nothing like it. Turn it on on your Kindle, and your book is automatically marked up with the passages most frequently highlighted by other users (and a little number indicating exactly how many other users have highlighted this passage); great for doing a quick run through a research work to find the nuggets buried within.

I do tons of nonfiction research reading (as fodder for the science-fiction novels I write), and my current system -- which is easier than it sounds -- is this: on my Kobo, I highlight as normal, but I have used the hack that turns on screen captures when you press the power button. The current screen (including the highlighting) is saved as a PNG graphic in the Kobo's root directory. I then batch convert those PNGs to graphic PDFs, stack them into a single document per book, and upload those to Evernote. Evernote does OCR on the graphics (quite reliably, and it has no trouble OCRing the highlighted passages), and then I can search my highlights in Evernote, and even see an exact image of the whole page containing the original highlight.

But that's a complex workaround to get somewhere close to the sort of functionality Kindle offers out-of-the-box in terms of making, exporting, and using highlights.

Rob

I agree with you Robert, Kobo's annotation ability (lack of) is one of its major downfalls, and like you, I've had to develop my own "system" to make up for Kobo's limitations.

My system is actually pretty simple: I highlight text on my Kobo, and take corresponding notes in my pocket Moleskine. After finishing the book, I transfer my highlights (using Kobo Utilities) and type up my notes into Evernote.

Does the screenshot hack work on the Aura?

[RobertJSawyer]

UnicornSalesman, yes, the screenshot hack works on all Kobos -- but I wouldn't do it unless you're using a Sleepcover (because it takes over the function of the physical power button), and you won't have any other way to turn the device off or put it to sleep.

If you add the following lines below to the "Kobo eReader.conf" file, when you press the power slider it will take a screenshot (there's no feedback to let you know that it's happened -- just trust that it has; all it takes is a quick press/slide of the power switch). The screenshot will be saved as a PNG in the root directory of the device.

[FeatureSettings]
Screenshots=true