Calibre instructions

[RockdaMan]

I'm checking out Calibre again due to the influence of this thread.

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

I'm checking out Calibre again due to the influence of this thread.

I've used calibre for a couple of different things...and enjoyed it for all of them. I started out using it purely for conversions. I was using Book Collector for my book management (what little management I was doing, anyway) at the time. But I found that there was no easy way to add a bunch of books to it, and plus, it's a paid program .

So, I decided to try calibre for cataloguing/sorting out the mess I had. After a false start (do NOT point calibre to a folder and tell it to "add all" unless your metadata is impeccable, which mine was decidedly NOT), and two weeks of sorting, tagging, editing metadata and deciding one library vs. multiple libraries, I had an invaluable resource.
I can now see at a glance what I have, when I got it, where it's at in a series, when it was published, and any amount of other useful information. I won't lie to you, it took some work to get it here, but it has been MORE than worth it, multiple times over. It's still a work in progress (since I keep acquiring books, and don't plan to ever stop), but between "info at a glance" and using it to manage content on my Sony, I couldn't live without it, now.

[Loosheesh]

Originally Posted by phenomshel

I've used calibre for a couple of different things...and enjoyed it for all of them. I started out using it purely for conversions.

That was start for me also; as soon as I got my Kindle 6 months ago, I got calibre and used it only for conversions.

I used to manage my ebooks in a spreadsheet (and only the 400+ Amazon books). Recently, I was researching the News Feed feature and decided to look at the Intro video on the calibre site - best thing I ever did. One 4-day weekend later, I had close to 1400 ebooks fully metadata'ed to my liking and I'm loving it. Also, I really appreciate the Catalog feature, and the improvements made to it in the last 2 releases.

[jukin]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

Well, if you're silly then so am I. I've spent entirely too much time getting "just the right" book cover, despite the fact that I rarely even see the covers except when working in Calibre. I haven't made my own yet for the missing ones, but that's only because it's hard using Gimp on this laptop. For now I've been using the ones that Calibre generates if I can't find one on the internet.

Guilty of this also. Where I can't find just the right cover or size of cover via Calibre, I use Google search, choose display as images and then pick just the image and size I want. I often spend hours managing my Kindle content with Calibre. It sad I suppose but quite fulfillng.

I actually had oral surgery just before Christmas and was unable to eat anything except yogurt for about a week. I can state with question that messing around with Calibre and my Kindle (1200+ books) kept me sane during that week (that and the odd cigarette).