Calibre VS. Calibre Portable

[dunawaysm]

Okay I am new to the Calibre world but can't find anywhere that explains what is the differences between the two. Is Portable for use on Tablets? Any help would be appreciated

[PeterT]

Portable is a self-contained installation that can run from a USB stick or flash-card with NO installation required on a computer.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by dunawaysm

Okay I am new to the Calibre world but can't find anywhere that explains what is the differences between the two. Is Portable for use on Tablets? Any help would be appreciated

Only if they run regular W7 (or 8)

Portable:
for when you don't OWN (keep) the computer (Library, school)
for when you don't have rights to install SW (Library, school, work)
for those weird cases where the regular Calibre refuses to function (unresolved system Interactions)
or you just want to be able to carry your library around and use it on any Windows computer

[dunawaysm]

Many Thanks for the information!

[dwig]

Originally Posted by theducks

Only if they run regular W7 (or 8)

Portable:
for when you don't OWN (keep) the computer (Library, school)
for when you don't have rights to install SW (Library, school, work)
for those weird cases where the regular Calibre refuses to function (unresolved system Interactions)
or you just want to be able to carry your library around and use it on any Windows computer

or...

... when you have a Win8 (nor RT) or Win7 tablet with rather small main storage "drive" (e.g. my Dell Venue 8 Pro / 32gig) and want to save space on "drive" C: and install to a transient expansion card (e.g. the 32gig that I keep in the DV8P's Micro-SD slot). This has the secondary advantage of allowing me to move the card to my desktop machine and do large scale library processing (big imports, multiple conversions, editing, ...) on the library and then return the card to my tablet for reading.

[BetterRed]

@dunawaysm A common reason for installing portable versions of programs in preference to installed versions is to avoid the Windows Registry. That rationale doesn't apply to calibre, because the installed versions don't use the registry. All configuration data is stored in the %USERPROFILE%\Appdata\Roaming\calibre folder, which can be relocated via an environment variable setting.

The portable version is the 32bit build, that's to ensure can be used on any windows computer - public access computers are often 32bit. The major difference between the 32bit and 64bit builds is that the 32bit build may fail to convert some very large books due to memory limits.

There are also issues regarding location of libraries - the portable version anticipates they will be located within in the "Calibre Portable" folder. Accessing libraries elsewhere works fine - but its a tad inconvenient.

BR

[fidvo]

I've been using the portable version for years, and so far I've only found two issues:

1. The installer doesn't set up shortcuts automatically. That's expected behavior, and I don't run Calibre from a shortcut anyway.

2. The individual components aren't meant to be run separately. For example, if I preview a book with ebook-viewer.exe before I decide whether to add it permanently to my library, the viewer uses default settings (screen size, etc) instead of how I set it up in Calibre.

For me, at least, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. I keep Calibre on a portable hard drive, which goes pretty much everywhere I go (I'm a computer geek). My library is always accessible any time I'm at a computer.