What's the best way to set up a Kobo and organize books?

[Rizla]

I'm awaiting a Kobo Glo HD. I'm used to Sonys and a rooted Nook ST. I'm au-fait with Calibre and am used to moving books around via Dropbox.

1) Should I beware allowing the device to upgrade firmware? I appreciate Kobo has yet to become like Amazon, but in any case, should I let it upgrade? Should I keep wifi off? Am I able to downgrade firmware if I choose to? I suppose I'll have to register the device too.

2) How to organize books? I assume I can't just organize and access book via directories, and that I will have to do it via Calibre tags. In that case, how to a move books from Calibre to Dropbox to the Kobo and still use collections?

Thanks up front. Any other tips would be appreciated.

[booklover6]

Well, first I had to look up "au-fait."

1) No worries. Easy to upgrade or down grade, usually. You do have to register, unless you use a hack to get around that. You never have to turn wifi on. I usually register via the desk top app, when I need to do so.

2) Everything you need to know is here.

I don't use Dropbox with my Kobo. I use Calibre to add, delete, and manage everything.

Since you are used to using Calibre to organize your Sony, you will find it is just as easy with Kobo, although the steps are a little different.

[MGlitch]

I doubt Kobo will go the Amazon root, though you can currently downgrade your devices firmware to the version it was released with, you just have to download the firmware files, there's a handy post here with links to many of them (I believe all the current devices and various firmware versions).

I find using Calibre is the best method, using the method detailed here really makes it easy. I've set up Collections as Kobo calls them for genres, and for the series.

Kobo doesn't navigate by folders, though you could install KOreader which does. Personally I found the built in reader to work very well.

[PeterT]

Remember that in many ways, the Kobo collections are more powerful than folder based, in that a book can belong to as many collections as you want.

The only missing ability is the ability to have a hierarchy of collections, but as long as you don't mind seeing all collections in the main list, you can end up with a scheme like

• Discworld All books in the Discworld series
• Discworld - Witches Just the books in the Witches sub-series
• Discworld - Death Just the books in the Death sub-series

[Rizla]

When sending books via Calibre and using collections, I've always sent them to the Sony via Calibre and a USB cable. I'm not sure how I could do that via wifi and the dropbox page on the Kobo browser, and still maintain the tags I set up in Calibre.

I prefer organizing by directories, so I might go koreader, though I'll only be reading epubs and kepubs on it. Do people like koreader?

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by booklover6

Well, first I had to look up "au-fait."

No hyphen, but apart from that, it's standard English, mate

[Ken Maltby]

I consider myself "people". (But then so do my dogs, and the squirrel who thinks it owns anything it can find in my backyard.) I like Koreader on my AuraHD. I like having an organized listing of books to browse through, when looking for my next read. If I want I could also use the search engine in Koreader's File Manager, or search the calibre library on my PC and download that to my device, from my device.

I like to browse when I don't know what book I might want to read next. If I know the book I want, the directories and folders structure makes it easy to find. The structure makes both browsing and going directly to a specific book, simple.

With Koreader you can use either or both calibre generated folders or your own, and both can be hidden from Nickel's processing.

I read .epub (not kepub), .pdb, .pdf, .mobi, and others in Koreader.

But as I keep saying you can try it out without effecting the stock readers, it is just an additional reader, not a replacement. (I don't use the stock readers anymore, so for me Koreader has replaced them, but that is by choice.)

There is a thread somewhere that describes how to setup a calibre OPDS server on your Dropbox account. Koreader has OPDS support. There are also reports that Dropbox is dropping accounts that use an OPDS server, if copyrighted material might be served to the public, that way.

Luck;
Ken

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by Rizla

No hyphen, but apart from that, it's standard English, mate

I would have thought French, but I'm only a poor Spanish woman

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Rizla

When sending books via Calibre and using collections, I've always sent them to the Sony via Calibre and a USB cable. I'm not sure how I could do that via wifi and the dropbox page on the Kobo browser, and still maintain the tags I set up in Calibre.

I prefer organizing by directories, so I might go koreader, though I'll only be reading epubs and kepubs on it. Do people like koreader?

You're out of luck. There is no way do what you want over WiFi. The calibre driver works by looking at the metadata in the library and updating the database on the device. There is currently no other way to do this. And downloading a book over WiFi always puts it into the root directory of the book partition. So, you won't have any advantage using KOReader.

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by davidfor

You're out of luck. There is no way do what you want over WiFi. The calibre driver works by looking at the metadata in the library and updating the database on the device. There is currently no other way to do this. And downloading a book over WiFi always puts it into the root directory of the book partition. So, you won't have any advantage using KOReader.

With Koreader you can access the caliber library via WiFi, using OPDS, when ever the calibre Content server is active. Koreader lets you set the folder you want to use to download the file to. (You can of course then move the file to a different folder of your choice, using the long press options in Koreader's File Manager.)

If you use calibre to place and maintain a file structure on your Koreader equipped device, it will place its "metadata.calibre" file in the root of the selected location. The best way to do this may be to disable the calibre Kobo driver/plugin and use "Connect to folder". -Or- you can connect calibre to your Koreader equipped device using calibre's "Start wireless device connection" and the Koreader "Calibre wireless connection" option, and setup the calibre device options that way.

Koreader works with calibre in a number of ways, not just wirelessly. The USB connection to a folder/directory on your device, is just one. When you have calibre build its file structure and make its metadata.calibre file, you can use the Koreader "Find a book in calibre catalog" option to search using the calibre tags, series, and other metadata. (There is also a normal search function for the File Manager.)

Luck;
Ken

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Rizla

1) Should I beware allowing the device to upgrade firmware? I appreciate Kobo has yet to become like Amazon, but in any case, should I let it upgrade? Should I keep wifi off? Am I able to downgrade firmware if I choose to? I suppose I'll have to register the device too.

You can downgrade firmware to the version the device was released with. If you do a factory reset, it will return to that version as part of the reset. As for wifi, I leave it off most of the time since I tend to sideload all my epubs from Calibre and kepubs using the Kobo desktop app.

Registration? There is a database hack to avoid registration. Or you can just invent an email address since Kobo does not seem to check if you have used a valid email address. At one time, I used ima.pseudonym@somewheres.org and it was accepted.

Originally Posted by Rizla

2) How to organize books? I assume I can't just organize and access book via directories, and that I will have to do it via Calibre tags. In that case, how to a move books from Calibre to Dropbox to the Kobo and still use collections.

Sideloaded books are sent to my external uSD card but I don't bother with collections anymore. I find searching by title, author or series works for me. You can use davidfor's KoboUtilities to generate collections from Calibre tags and send them to your Kobo.

If you are attached to organizing by directory, you can use alternative reading software such as koreader. Koreader will use the calibre database to allow searching. For the most part though unless you have a large collection of ebooks in non-epub format, I find koreader to be of limited value.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

I would have thought French, but I'm only a poor Spanish woman

Well, it was borrowed from French but it's considered English now. Such is the nature of English.

A couple of the quotations I love about the English language:

"And you know what English is? English is the result of Norman men-at-arms trying to make dates with Saxon barmaids, and no more legitimate than any of the other results."
—H. Beam Piper, "The Other Human Race"

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
—James D. Nicoll

“Not only does the English Language borrow words from other languages, it sometimes chases them down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and goes through their pockets looking for loose grammar and vocabulary."
— Eddie Peters

There is some dubiousness about the third quotes origin.

[murg]

Originally Posted by DNSB

There is some dubiousness about the third quotes origin.

Nothing dubious about it.

Clearly, it pursued the second quote down an alleyway, beat it unconscious and rifled its pockets.

[Rizla]

Many thanks for the replies. Ill start stock but I'm sure Ill move to Koreader and import books via Dropbox and move them round via the Koreader file manager. I dont need to use Calibre to organize books, only convert them. Its because of such flexibilty that I ordered the new glo hd, that and the hi-def screen and uniform light and low price

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by murg

Nothing dubious about it.

Clearly, it pursued the second quote down an alleyway, beat it unconscious and rifled its pockets.