How I Manage eBooks with calibre

[BeeTee-Ess]

Originally Posted by unboggling

...
His and Her outhouses? Luxury! We had to share one.
...

What's wrong with a spade, and digging a hole behind a tree? Some schools even got a sheet of hessian, to run from one tree to the next.

[unboggling]

Originally Posted by unboggling

I expanded abbreviations for genres, types, awards, source.... Abbreviations don't allow simple comparative searches between key words or phrases in (Comments, Series, or Title) and key abbreviated words or abbreviated phrases in for example (#genres)....

Abbreviations are back in. This past abbreviation-bereft month, I missed seeing at a glance all that metadata densely grouped in narrow columns. Sounding indicative of the full word or phrase, abbreviations are almost as human-readable and often more human-readable than full word or phrase — because without abbreviations I can't see at a glance metadata off to the right of the visible portion displayed in field box or column display, requiring an extra step of scrolling or cursor-hovering-for-tooltip. Also, comparative searches are still doable on those rare occasions I need them, with some attention to pairing abbreviation and full word/phrase.

Originally Posted by unboggling

...I generally ignore the code level (HTML/XHTML, CSS). My knowledge/skills there are at the low end of the learning curve. I fix formatting problems interfering with readability if they are quickly fixable, but for my purpose, reading books for enjoyment, I don't care if the underlying code is clean or not.

Fixing formatting problems with word-processor is a quick and easy baseline method — I do this in practical mode. But I am gradually learning to work at code level too, because it is more precise — I do this in learning mode.

In learning mode, I like using Edit Book. It helps a lot to read the Editing E-Books section of user manual first, and work with freshly downloaded retail book formats, not yet converted, without a multitude of formatting problems — rather than starting with known problem-plagued formats, which in hindsight was a mistake I made last month. Then remove unused CSS rules, check book, see what is what, refer to CSS and HTML tutorials as necessary, and fix things.

Those are generalities. I don't want to discuss specific formatting nuts and bolts in this thread, since the thread's scope is broader level. My bad — by asking specific nuts and bolts technical questions here a few weeks ago, I violated my own scope.

Originally Posted by BeeTee-Ess

What's wrong with a spade, and digging a hole behind a tree? Some schools even got a sheet of hessian, to run from one tree to the next.

Digging a hole in the woods with a spade is indeed an alternate method. ((Edit: deleted a paragraph examining potential hazards of that method. Though thread scope is broad, it is not quite that broad.))

[westofpecos]

Quick note of thanks (and a bump) to unboggling and all the other users who have contributed so much valuable information in this thread.

This would be a great sticky.

[unboggling]

Originally Posted by westofpecos

Quick note of thanks (and a bump) to unboggling and all the other users who have contributed so much valuable information in this thread.

This would be a great sticky.

You're welcome. Glad you found the thread useful.

[stalifero]

Help new to kindle and forum

I have borrowed a friends book from their kindle paperwhite to my paperwhite

I copied some books to a flash drive and then using calibre and using K4MobiDeDRM_v03.5_plugin.zip tried to convert them from azw3 format to mobi when I try to convert I get the error cannot convert the book is looked by DRM I also the enter my Kindle Serial Number into the plus in.

Also if a added the books onto my I phone using the kiddle apps through Itunes and added the file it worked

Any Ideas

[itimpi]

Forum policy does not allow for any help to be provided here on removing DRM and related issues. You need to ask where you got the plugin.

[unboggling]

Originally Posted by unboggling

... Fixing formatting problems with word-processor is a quick and easy baseline method — I do this in practical mode. But I am gradually learning to work at code level too, because it is more precise — I do this in learning mode.

In learning mode, I like using Edit Book. It helps a lot to read the Editing E-Books section of user manual first, and work with freshly downloaded retail book formats, not yet converted, without a multitude of formatting problems — rather than starting with known problem-plagued formats, which in hindsight was a mistake I made last month. Then remove unused CSS rules, check book, see what is what, refer to CSS and HTML tutorials as necessary, and fix things.

Since February 2014 I learned a lot more about XHTML tags and CSS. Now my preferred tool for fixing formatting problems is calibre's Edit Book. I noticed Sigil is alive again with v 8.0, but for my purposes Edit Book is most convenient.

Also, re quoted post, now I "beautify files" rather than "remove unused CSS rules", don't bother to "check book", and usually don't need to refer to tutorials anymore.

[LadyKate]

Originally Posted by copyrite

Problem is my ISP doesn't offer Usenet access anymore.

My better half probably would still be using the Apple IIe if it could be hooked up to the internet. Even at a creeping pace.

There are a lot of premium usenet providers at fairly low cost. For 2 gig a month as low as 2 or 3 dollars a month.

[please55]

Fantastic guide, thanks for sharing. I'm curious what system you used to organize your ideas.

Most of my questions are geared towards understanding your choices or clarify my thinking.

a) You set the series for individual books to (1)[1] for sorting reasons but it doesn't appear to be any different from leaving the field empty for that subset. So why?

b) Why not use tags at all? Genres fulfils the same purpose - so why not use tags & keywords for example? Why create two custom columns/fields entirely?

c) Why use " , " instead of " & " as separator for keywords and genre column? It causes the tag browser to break out "fn, sf" and "sf, fn" as two separate categories and the "sf" category won't bring up books tagged with "fn, sf" or vice versa. **Edit** I just figured out why I had that behaviour - I had checked "contains names" when creating that column. Don't understand why but that explains (c).

[unboggling]

Originally Posted by please55

Fantastic guide, thanks for sharing.

You're welcome.

Originally Posted by please55

I'm curious what system you used to organize your ideas.

Basic structure and functions of calibre; my ebook-related workflow.

Originally Posted by please55

Most of my questions are geared towards understanding your choices or clarify my thinking.

a) You set the series for individual books to (1)[1] for sorting reasons but it doesn't appear to be any different from leaving the field empty for that subset. So why?

"(1) [1]" announces that the series was previously checked/entered, rather than possibly previously forgotten to have been checked/entered.

Originally Posted by please55

b) Why not use tags at all? Genres fulfils the same purpose - so why not use tags & keywords for example? Why create two custom columns/fields entirely?

I like each column to address a specific attribute. For me discreet sets of attribute-specific metadata elements are more aesthetic, less confusing, easier to remember, and easier to isolate in search terms; than different sets mixed in one column. Otherwise it's just personal preference. [EDIT] calibre automatically enters the tags "News" and "Catalogs" in the Tags column; these metadata elements are publication types, so if I used Tags column for anything else it would be for types. Putting types in Tags seems more confusing than putting types in custom column Types.[/EDIT]

Originally Posted by please55

c) Why use " , " instead of " & " as separator for keywords and genre column? It causes the tag browser to break out "fn, sf" and "sf, fn" as two separate categories and the "sf" category won't bring up books tagged with "fn, sf" or vice versa. **Edit** I just figured out why I had that behaviour - I had checked "contains names" when creating that column. Don't understand why but that explains (c).

Right. Separator "&" is for Name columns such as Author(s).

[nixsee]

This sounds like a very useful guide, but I can't find it anywhere in the thread! Was it moved elsewhere?

[unboggling]

Sorry. I deleted it a few years ago.