What e reader reads books from kobo and kindle without conversion?

[Sandra1414]

Hi
What e-book reader reads without conversion both kindle and kobo books?

Secondly, is it possible to combine libraries from kindle online and kobo online to one library or at the very least create an integrated list of all books from both sites?

Thanks,
Sandra

[Sirtel]

Without conversion: none of them.

As to your other question, of course it's possible. If you want them all instantly readable, you'll have to remove the DRM.

Most people use Calibre for library management, but some prefer their own filesystem.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Without conversion: none of them.

You can of course get eInk Android tablets on which both the Kindle and Kobo apps can be installed, allowing both to be read.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You can of course get eInk Android tablets on which both the Kindle and Kobo apps can be installed, allowing both to be read.

Yes, but from what I've read here on MR, the reading experience isn't particularly good, as those apps are not optimized for eink. Still, if one is dead set against conversion for some reason, it's an option.

[mobama]

Originally Posted by Sandra1414

What e-book reader reads without conversion both kindle and kobo books?

If you mean the books as they are in the Kindle and Kobo apps, then you need an Android or iOS device with those apps.

If you mean .mobi and .epub files, then almost all ereaders can open such files, except Kindle devices shun .epub files.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by mobama

If you mean .mobi and .epub files, then almost all ereaders can open such files, except Kindle devices shun .epub files.

99% Kindle books are not .mobis these days, but azw3 or kfx. No ereader besides Kindle would read these natively.

[mobama]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

99% Kindle books are not .mobis these days, but azw3 or kfx. No ereader besides Kindle would read these natively.

I didn't know this. Luckily I have not bought any ebooks from Amazon. I have refrained from it precisely because Amazon does not tell what the format is and whether there are any devious protection measures that make the file unportable. I refuse to buy when I have no idea what I am buying.

But Calibre software (which I do not use) would be able to handle azw3 and kfx?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by mobama

But Calibre software (which I do not use) would be able to handle azw3 and kfx?

Yes (for the kfx format you'd need the kfx plugins). The azw3 format is already quite old and Calibre has supported it for years.

[barryem]

These days converting is trivial. I can download a book from Amazon and have it on my Nook or Kobo in less than a minute. And it's just as easy to bulk convert a bunch of books at the same time.

Barry

[BookCat]

Most of the public domain books which I have in Calibre are in both epub and azw3. I download the epub version then convert it to azw3, which works well on my PW2. An epub works on the Kobo readers.

Of course you could always convert books to txt files, which will work on both readers, but not optimally. You may need to strip the drm if they're commercial books.

[mobama]

Originally Posted by barryem

These days converting is trivial. I can download a book from Amazon and have it on my Nook or Kobo in less than a minute. And it's just as easy to bulk convert a bunch of books at the same time.

Barry

Is it trivial also for those who are about to do it for the first time?

Besides, I know that to convert e.g. a Word document to an html takes less than a minute. However, to clean up all the mess in the source code, such as to remove the font definitions, correct blockquotes, etc. takes forever.

There are use cases when it's easiest to have an app that simply opens the file, whatever the format. I'd be happy to have something like X-plore file manager with its file viewers installed on every device.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by mobama

Is it trivial also for those who are about to do it for the first time?

Besides, I know that to convert e.g. a Word document to an html takes less than a minute. However, to clean up all the mess in the source code, such as to remove the font definitions, correct blockquotes, etc. takes forever.

There are use cases when it's easiest to have an app that simply opens the file, whatever the format. I'd be happy to have something like X-plore file manager with its file viewers installed on every device.

It depends on what one's needs are. Do you read mostly traditional books, in 2 or 3 different formats at most, and want the best reading experience you can get? Then nothing beats converting your books to the format best supported by your reader. Or do you work with many different files and documents, in many different formats? Then indeen your best option is to get an Android reader on which you can install different apps.

As the OP mentioned Kindle and Kobo books, I'd guess he/she belongs in the first group. Unfortunately we don't know why he/she is against converting the books.

[BookCat]

mobama: You are making very heavy weather of converting your books. Let's say you have a Word document which is mostly text and you want to convert it to read on a Kobo: rename the Word doc to an rtf (Calibre prefers this), then add it to Calibre.

Go to the metadata icon, click, and make sure the title etc is what you want. If you want the book to have blurb attached, click 'download metadata' and choose; then choose a cover.
Click okay.

Go to the Convert icon. I tend to convert individually. Choose the format to convert to - for Kobo this would be epub. I tend to ignore "Look and Feel" and "Heuristic Processing" because I don't understand them and things work fine anyway, but I do check "Page Setup" to ensure that it's set for the right device, for the sake of this example, Kobo. Then go to "Structure Detection" and click 'Insert Metadata at Start of Book'. At this point I'll just hit OK.

I'm sure that there's lots of other intricate stuff which could be done, but I don't find this necessary. The above takes a few moments (unless the book is particularly long) and the result is usually good. I'm usually converting epub to azw3, but the same would apply to a mostly text rtf to epub.

If I'm wrong, some helpful peep will come along and say so.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mobama

Is it trivial also for those who are about to do it for the first time?

Besides, I know that to convert e.g. a Word document to an html takes less than a minute. However, to clean up all the mess in the source code, such as to remove the font definitions, correct blockquotes, etc. takes forever.

I’ve converted hundreds - probably over 1000 by now - books from Kindle format to ePub and vice versa over the years. The number which have required any sort of clean-up after conversion I could count on the fingers of one hand. Conversion using Calibre is easy and reliable.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I’ve converted hundreds - probably over 1000 by now - books from Kindle format to ePub and vice versa over the years. The number which have required any sort of clean-up after conversion I could count on the fingers of one hand. Conversion using Calibre is easy and reliable.

I've had the same experience, though I prefer to distinguish between "need to cleanup" and "want to cleanup". Out of my several thousand conversions, "need" has been very rare. The vast majority are prefectly readable after conversioin. That said, there have been a few hundred that I've chosen to cleanup to bend their typography to my preferences.