Downloading Books From Kobo

[conan50]

Looking for an alternative to buying books at Amazon and having to convert them to Epub. If I buy a drm-free book at Kobo can I download it directly and just load it on a tablet and read it in Moon+ or Fbreader?

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by conan50

Looking for an alternative to buying books at Amazon and having to convert them to Epub. If I buy a drm-free book at Kobo can I download it directly and just load it on a tablet and read it in Moon+ or Fbreader?

Yes.

If you want, try it out on a free DRM-free book such as this one (if it is available in your geographic region, if not find another one), it works exactly the same for purchased DRM-free ebooks.

[conan50]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Yes.

If you want, try it out on a free DRM-free book such as this one (if it is available in your geographic region, if not find another one), it works exactly the same for purchased DRM-free ebooks.

Thanks!
That book didn't work (US), but I found another that did. I hope Kobo can hang in there with Amazon, they are pretty much the last choice to buy ebooks besides Amazon. I tried Google Books, but found their library not very robust.
Thanks again!

[GeoffR]

One thing to watch for is that some publishers use DRM when selling through retailers, but sell the same books DRM-free from their own site. Soho Crime is one example.

[Josieb1]

I hate to hijack this thread but is there a way to tell DRM free from Adobe epubs before buying on Kobo. I tend to only find out when I got to my library after purchase.

[conan50]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

One thing to watch for is that some publishers use DRM when selling through retailers, but sell the same books DRM-free from their own site. Soho Crime is one example.

Good to know.
Thanks!

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

I hate to hijack this thread but is there a way to tell DRM free from Adobe epubs before buying on Kobo. I tend to only find out when I got to my library after purchase.

Look in the book details at the bottom of the page where the publisher name is, one of the details is "Download options". For ePubs this will be something like EPUB2 (Adobe DRM), or EPUB3 (DRM-free), etc.

[conan50]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

I hate to hijack this thread but is there a way to tell DRM free from Adobe epubs before buying on Kobo. I tend to only find out when I got to my library after purchase.

Hopefully someone who knows more can confirm, but this book for instance has drm-free down in the book details:
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/eb...book-of-swords

[conan50]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Look in the book details at the bottom of the page where the publisher name is, one of the details is "Download options". For ePubs this will be something like EPUB2 (Adobe DRM), or EPUB3 (DRM-free), etc.

Thanks, you beat me to it by a minute
But can you tell me if Epub3 is common on Kobo? I see that some Android ereader apps can't read Epub3.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by conan50

Thanks, you beat me to it by a minute
But can you tell me if Epub3 is common on Kobo? I see that some Android ereader apps can't read Epub3.

They are not very common from what I buy, in three years and more than 300 books bought from Kobo I have only got one EPUB3 so far, but then I buy mainly backlist and some publishers seem to be switching over to EPUB3 for their new books, so they will surely become more common in the future.

[conan50]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

They are not very common from what I buy, in three years and more than 300 books bought from Kobo I have only got one EPUB3 so far, but then I buy mainly backlist and some publishers seem to be switching over to EPUB3 for their new books, so they will surely become more common in the future.

That's cool.
I'm debating buying myself a Kobo Aura for Christmas. I like the idea of a micro sdcard, and that it reads epubs and mobi.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Look in the book details at the bottom of the page where the publisher name is, one of the details is "Download options". For ePubs this will be something like EPUB2 (Adobe DRM), or EPUB3 (DRM-free), etc.

Apologies, I'm not the most observant

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by conan50

That's cool.
I'm debating buying myself a Kobo Aura for Christmas. I like the idea of a micro sdcard, and that it reads epubs and mobi.

Epub, yes. The mobi support is not all that great unless you are reading old Mobipocket books. Most of Amazon's modifications to the mobi format are not supported. My personal preference is to convert to epub using Calibre and then clean up with Sigil. Though Calibre's editor is very usable now, I'm used to Sigil and haven't seen any compelling reasons to switch.

[conan50]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Epub, yes. The mobi support is not all that great unless you are reading old Mobipocket books. Most of Amazon's modifications to the mobi format are not supported. My personal preference is to convert to epub using Calibre and then clean up with Sigil. Though Calibre's editor is very usable now, I'm used to Sigil and haven't seen any compelling reasons to switch.

Thanks. Yes I've done that as well. I have found some Kindle books will not convert to Epub either because of being too large or the formatting. I have converted a few in Calibre to text format, then formatted them in Sigil. But some Kindle books are too large or have too much formatting, not many, but a few. I've converted everything I could to Epub this summer. I plan, as much as possible, to only buy DRM-Free Epubs from now on.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

I hate to hijack this thread but is there a way to tell DRM free from Adobe epubs before buying on Kobo. I tend to only find out when I got to my library after purchase.

Next time, start your own thread, please.

There's no polite reason to hijack someone else's thread, especially when you admit that you're doing exactly that.


Don
(Moderator)