New to Ebooks, some questions!

kokoshmusun · 05-31-2010, 01:59 PM

Hi,
I'm a newbie Sony Reader PRS-600 user. I got a few questions that I thought you guys might help with:

1) I use Linux (Ubuntu) so I didn't bother using the Sony software, I also don't really buy ebooks. I just drag & drop .pdf files. However, I've recently found out about Calibre (an ebook software) and noticed that I can convert .pdf to many other format. I think Sony's preferred/native format is EPUB. My question is, is there any advantage of using EPUB over PDF? Or is it okay that I just continue to use pdf. Likewise, if I'm not converting anything, why would I use Calibre? I don't really like the way it stores books into subdirectories, so I'd rather not use it (and just stick to another reference manager, like Bibus) unless there is some advantage that I haven't found out about yet.

2) I've noticed that the reader has begun taking longer and longer for processing highlighting. I think it's slower in larger documents. What's the reason for this and what's the solution?

3) I'd love to somehow see the highlights that I made on the reader on my linux desktop. I've noticed some people have been trying to do something like this (see: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...ghlight&page=6) but it was a bit technical. Is there any way you know of to do this?

Sorry if that's a lot. I appreciate the time you take to help me out, in advance. Happy to have discovered this forum.
Cheers!

Worldwalker · 05-31-2010, 02:26 PM

I have a 505, so I can't help much with the highlighting questions, but to answer #1:

The advantage of epub over pdf is that pdf is really designed for the printed page. It has problems resizing/reflowing for a 6" screen. Quality ranges from okay to bad to "OMG kill it with fire!" I understand it's slightly better with the 600, but not to the point of reliable usability. Remember that the whole point of pdf is to make a standard-sized page (8.5x11 or A4) look exactly the same no matter what and where it's displayed. For obvious reasons, that doesn't work so well when you've got a fraction of the "paper" size to work with.

Why would you use calibre? Simple: it organizes your books. I have a big long rant down in the calibre support forum (by the way, there's both a Sony forum and a calibre forum here) where I try to explain it from a user's perspective: read this.

The reason you don't like how calibre stores books is you're using the filesystem for metadata. Which works to a point, but it's terribly inadequate (that's why they invented databases). With calibre, you avoid that issue entirely and use metadata for metadata. The files don't matter; you just ignore them. Go read that post I linked and you'll understand. Calibre is about organizing ebooks, not about organizing files.

Why use calibre? Because if you want to select, for example, all your SF (but not fantasy) books by David Weber that are from the Baen Free Library (i.e., that you can pass on to a friend) but weren't co-written with Eric Flint, so you can send them to an SF-loving, Flint-disliking friend ... you can do that with a few clicks. You can organize books by series (including their number in that series), by multiple authors, by genre, by publication date, by source ... in short, by just about anything else you can think of. All at once.

Then once you've selected them, you can do things with them. Upload them to your reader (main memory or card). Export them to send them somewhere. Convert them to a different format. Bulk-edit their metadata (handy for adding new tags). Whatever you want to do with them -- without being limited by the filesystem, or trying to remember whether you filed that book under "Weber" or "Flint".

Trying to use calibre as a file manager works about as well as trying to use the filesystem as a library manager. It works, kind of, but that's not what it's for. Use it as a library manager and you'll see why we calibre fanatics are so fanatical.

GraceKrispy · 05-31-2010, 09:15 PM

ha! you lost me on the third word of question #1... but welcome to mobile read!

Roger Parkinson · 05-31-2010, 09:48 PM

A fellow Ubuntu user. I've noticed that the Kobo reader they have just started selling here in NZ comes with support for Windows and MAC. Not a word about Linux. Sigh. But I'm guessing that drag and drop will work, especially based on this information (yes, I know you're not using a Kobo, but I can extrapolate). Linux usually handles anything actually.

Verencat · 05-31-2010, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Parkinson

A fellow Ubuntu user. I've noticed that the Kobo reader they have just started selling here in NZ comes with support for Windows and MAC. Not a word about Linux. Sigh. But I'm guessing that drag and drop will work, especially based on this information (yes, I know you're not using a Kobo, but I can extrapolate). Linux usually handles anything actually.

Kobo is testing a desktop app for Linux. You might be interested in this thread.

Worldwalker · 05-31-2010, 11:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Parkinson

A fellow Ubuntu user. I've noticed that the Kobo reader they have just started selling here in NZ comes with support for Windows and MAC. Not a word about Linux. Sigh. But I'm guessing that drag and drop will work, especially based on this information (yes, I know you're not using a Kobo, but I can extrapolate). Linux usually handles anything actually.

If drag and drop will work, then calibre will work.

jgaiser · 05-31-2010, 11:34 PM

Ubuntu, Calibre and PRS-600 play together just fine. Along with Kindle and Nook.

(Another Ubuntu user...)

rebarnmom · 06-01-2010, 01:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GraceKrispy

ha! you lost me on the third word of question #1... but welcome to mobile read!

I'm glad you said it first Grace!
"What she said!"

And ditto on the "Welcome to MobileRead!" You shouldn't have any trouble finding your answers here from those more techie than me! I don't know why but Ubuntu sounds like a tribe in Africa.

thafrogggg · 06-01-2010, 01:27 AM

I have been using caliber for a little more than a week. When I first started using it, I too was disconcerted with the way it handled files. I almost stopped using it after one day, but once I played around in the GUI and was able to edit the metadata to have the books organized by Author/Series/Book Number, I began to see how Caliber really shines.

Like worldwalker said earlier. If you wanted to share a group of books (that are legally allowed to be shared), you can group them while in Caliber, then export them, in preparation to send to a friend. It is actually a lot easier than having to search through multiple directory trees.

The only thing you have to do in order to make this really easy is to edit the book information, I.E. the metadata when adding the book to your Caliber library, and all that takes is a couple of mouse clicks to have Caliber search online at the database that is like the IMDB for books. It is very easy.

As for your other two questions, they look to be specific to the 600 so I am not able to help with that.

In any event, I hope you enjoy your reader. Even with the things I wish Sony had done better, I really like my 505.

rogue_librarian · 06-01-2010, 01:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thafrogggg

If you wanted to share a group of books (that are legally allowed to be shared), you can group them while in Caliber, then export them, in preparation to send to a friend. It is actually a lot easier than having to search through multiple directory trees.

Yes, but I'd still like the option to leave my books where they are and only store symlinks in that directory. Or, for that matter, just do it in the database without having to move books physically.

Worldwalker · 06-01-2010, 05:15 AM

Calibre does leave your files where they are. It just makes its own copies that it can have exclusive access to. Pretend those don't exist, if you like, and do whatever you like with your original files.

I spent about five years (yes, a lot of that prior to getting a dedicated ebook reader) using the filesystem to organize my books. It took me a bit to get used to calibre. The real breakthrough, as I've described it here, was understanding that calibre organizes books, not files.

In the time I've been on MobileRead, I think I've seen one person who actually did have a critical functionality problem with calibre's file organization -- he used some program for managing citations of scientific literature that had its own idea of how files of said papers/books ought to be organized. But for all the rest of us, it's a matter of habit. We're used to thinking of books as the computer files that represent them. But just as those files are really an abstraction of data really stored by track and sector, books in calibre are an abstraction of files. An abstraction of an abstraction.

Yes, there are occasionally things that someone needs to do to data on a physical level (say, if you're writing a disk defragging program). But most of us don't; we're fine with files. The same thing is true of calibre: there are some people, like the fellow with the citations and the attitude problem, who really do need a specific file organization. But most of us don't; we're fine with books.

Why do you need to access your ebook files directly?

(no, that's not a sarcastic question; if I know what you are doing, I might be able to explain how it can be done -- possibly more efficiently -- in calibre).

rogue_librarian · 06-01-2010, 05:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Calibre does leave your files where they are. It just makes its own copies ...

Yes, it does that; your're correct, of course. I'd still be given the option for it not to. Storage space is cheap these days, it's true, but I still see no need to keep those files in duplicate.

Quote:

Why do you need to access your ebook files directly?

My filenames follow a certain naming convention, they include a small taxonomic signature (like Dewey, only totally different). It allows me to quickly find any book I'm looking for; faster even than with a full text search.

But this is probably getting off topic here ...

Roger Parkinson · 06-01-2010, 05:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rebarnmom

I'm glad you said it first Grace!
"What she said!"

And ditto on the "Welcome to MobileRead!" You shouldn't have any trouble finding your answers here from those more techie than me! I don't know why but Ubuntu sounds like a tribe in Africa.

Ubuntu is indeed an African (more specifically Bantu) word described here. The Ubuntu operating system is a distribution of Linux. Remember there is no Microsoft or equivalent behind Linux. Anyone can package it up into an easy to install distribution which includes some mix of utilities like email etc. Ubuntu is one of those and it seems to be doing well. It sure is easy to install and arguably simpler to use than Windows XP (I haven't used anything more recent). When I changed over I timed my machine. It ran 7x faster.

Worldwalker · 06-01-2010, 05:58 AM

You think this is topic drift? You haven't seen topic drift!

I'm seriously not being deliberately obtuse here (semiconscious, yes) but I'm not understanding what it is that you're doing that means you need to access your ebooks outside of calibre.

The need to keep duplicates of the files is simple: one set lives inside of calibre's "black box". Just imagine that it's a ginormous database and the files are being stored in some kind of ebook-specific BLOBs, and pretend they're not human-accessible at all.

Coops · 06-01-2010, 06:16 AM

Calibre is great.... all the Sony software is laughable. (The first sony Bookstore I 'used' - well, tried to - didn't even have a back button for browsing through the bookstore.)

I use many PDf's on my 505 - I've made them from Text files, usually - Using Word on a Mac. I've set up my own Word template for it, with a page size of 9.1 by 12.3 cm, and after several trials to pick a suitable font and size for me (my eyes ;-) ) decided on Gill Sans, font size 11. Gill Sans is built in to Macs, and is a decent font for viewing both on LCD/Laptop and also on e-ink, and prints on paper nicely too. Seems to have a decent thickness and clarity - 11 just suits me best as i still have a bit of astigmatism.

Can't resize really, but that's why i took some time decide what size suited me.

Mac simply prints to PDF from Word... and there it is.

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05-31-2010, 01:59 PM	#1
kokoshmusun Member Posts: 13 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2010 Device: Sony PRS-600	New to Ebooks, some questions! Hi, I'm a newbie Sony Reader PRS-600 user. I got a few questions that I thought you guys might help with: 1) I use Linux (Ubuntu) so I didn't bother using the Sony software, I also don't really buy ebooks. I just drag & drop .pdf files. However, I've recently found out about Calibre (an ebook software) and noticed that I can convert .pdf to many other format. I think Sony's preferred/native format is EPUB. My question is, is there any advantage of using EPUB over PDF? Or is it okay that I just continue to use pdf. Likewise, if I'm not converting anything, why would I use Calibre? I don't really like the way it stores books into subdirectories, so I'd rather not use it (and just stick to another reference manager, like Bibus) unless there is some advantage that I haven't found out about yet. 2) I've noticed that the reader has begun taking longer and longer for processing highlighting. I think it's slower in larger documents. What's the reason for this and what's the solution? 3) I'd love to somehow see the highlights that I made on the reader on my linux desktop. I've noticed some people have been trying to do something like this (see: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...ghlight&page=6) but it was a bit technical. Is there any way you know of to do this? Sorry if that's a lot. I appreciate the time you take to help me out, in advance. Happy to have discovered this forum. Cheers!

05-31-2010, 02:26 PM	#2
Worldwalker Curmudgeon Posts: 3,085 Karma: 722357 Join Date: Feb 2010 Device: PRS-505	I have a 505, so I can't help much with the highlighting questions, but to answer #1: The advantage of epub over pdf is that pdf is really designed for the printed page. It has problems resizing/reflowing for a 6" screen. Quality ranges from okay to bad to "OMG kill it with fire!" I understand it's slightly better with the 600, but not to the point of reliable usability. Remember that the whole point of pdf is to make a standard-sized page (8.5x11 or A4) look exactly the same no matter what and where it's displayed. For obvious reasons, that doesn't work so well when you've got a fraction of the "paper" size to work with. Why would you use calibre? Simple: it organizes your books. I have a big long rant down in the calibre support forum (by the way, there's both a Sony forum and a calibre forum here) where I try to explain it from a user's perspective: read this. The reason you don't like how calibre stores books is you're using the filesystem for metadata. Which works to a point, but it's terribly inadequate (that's why they invented databases). With calibre, you avoid that issue entirely and use metadata for metadata. The files don't matter; you just ignore them. Go read that post I linked and you'll understand. Calibre is about organizing ebooks, not about organizing files. Why use calibre? Because if you want to select, for example, all your SF (but not fantasy) books by David Weber that are from the Baen Free Library (i.e., that you can pass on to a friend) but weren't co-written with Eric Flint, so you can send them to an SF-loving, Flint-disliking friend ... you can do that with a few clicks. You can organize books by series (including their number in that series), by multiple authors, by genre, by publication date, by source ... in short, by just about anything else you can think of. All at once. Then once you've selected them, you can do things with them. Upload them to your reader (main memory or card). Export them to send them somewhere. Convert them to a different format. Bulk-edit their metadata (handy for adding new tags). Whatever you want to do with them -- without being limited by the filesystem, or trying to remember whether you filed that book under "Weber" or "Flint". Trying to use calibre as a file manager works about as well as trying to use the filesystem as a library manager. It works, kind of, but that's not what it's for. Use it as a library manager and you'll see why we calibre fanatics are so fanatical.

05-31-2010, 09:15 PM	#3
GraceKrispy It's Dr. Penguin now! Posts: 3,909 Karma: 4705733 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: (USA) Device: iPad mini, Samsung Note 3, Sony PRS-650 (rarely used now)	ha! you lost me on the third word of question #1... but welcome to mobile read!

05-31-2010, 09:48 PM	#4
Roger Parkinson Zealot Posts: 143 Karma: 108036 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Auckland, New Zealand Device: Samsung Galaxy S	A fellow Ubuntu user. I've noticed that the Kobo reader they have just started selling here in NZ comes with support for Windows and MAC. Not a word about Linux. Sigh. But I'm guessing that drag and drop will work, especially based on this information (yes, I know you're not using a Kobo, but I can extrapolate). Linux usually handles anything actually.

05-31-2010, 11:34 PM	#7
jgaiser Omnivorous Posts: 3,283 Karma: 27978909 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Rural NW Oregon Device: Kindle Voyage, Kindle Fire HD, Kindle 3, KPW1	Ubuntu, Calibre and PRS-600 play together just fine. Along with Kindle and Nook. (Another Ubuntu user...)

06-01-2010, 01:27 AM	#9
thafrogggg Rabid Book Weasel Posts: 84 Karma: 1678 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: Acer Iconia A500 Tablet (lovin' it!!)	I have been using caliber for a little more than a week. When I first started using it, I too was disconcerted with the way it handled files. I almost stopped using it after one day, but once I played around in the GUI and was able to edit the metadata to have the books organized by Author/Series/Book Number, I began to see how Caliber really shines. Like worldwalker said earlier. If you wanted to share a group of books (that are legally allowed to be shared), you can group them while in Caliber, then export them, in preparation to send to a friend. It is actually a lot easier than having to search through multiple directory trees. The only thing you have to do in order to make this really easy is to edit the book information, I.E. the metadata when adding the book to your Caliber library, and all that takes is a couple of mouse clicks to have Caliber search online at the database that is like the IMDB for books. It is very easy. As for your other two questions, they look to be specific to the 600 so I am not able to help with that. In any event, I hope you enjoy your reader. Even with the things I wish Sony had done better, I really like my 505.

06-01-2010, 05:15 AM	#11
Worldwalker Curmudgeon Posts: 3,085 Karma: 722357 Join Date: Feb 2010 Device: PRS-505	Calibre does leave your files where they are. It just makes its own copies that it can have exclusive access to. Pretend those don't exist, if you like, and do whatever you like with your original files. I spent about five years (yes, a lot of that prior to getting a dedicated ebook reader) using the filesystem to organize my books. It took me a bit to get used to calibre. The real breakthrough, as I've described it here, was understanding that calibre organizes books, not files. In the time I've been on MobileRead, I think I've seen one person who actually did have a critical functionality problem with calibre's file organization -- he used some program for managing citations of scientific literature that had its own idea of how files of said papers/books ought to be organized. But for all the rest of us, it's a matter of habit. We're used to thinking of books as the computer files that represent them. But just as those files are really an abstraction of data really stored by track and sector, books in calibre are an abstraction of files. An abstraction of an abstraction. Yes, there are occasionally things that someone needs to do to data on a physical level (say, if you're writing a disk defragging program). But most of us don't; we're fine with files. The same thing is true of calibre: there are some people, like the fellow with the citations and the attitude problem, who really do need a specific file organization. But most of us don't; we're fine with books. Why do you need to access your ebook files directly? (no, that's not a sarcastic question; if I know what you are doing, I might be able to explain how it can be done -- possibly more efficiently -- in calibre).

06-01-2010, 05:58 AM	#14
Worldwalker Curmudgeon Posts: 3,085 Karma: 722357 Join Date: Feb 2010 Device: PRS-505	You think this is topic drift? You haven't seen topic drift! I'm seriously not being deliberately obtuse here (semiconscious, yes) but I'm not understanding what it is that you're doing that means you need to access your ebooks outside of calibre. The need to keep duplicates of the files is simple: one set lives inside of calibre's "black box". Just imagine that it's a ginormous database and the files are being stored in some kind of ebook-specific BLOBs, and pretend they're not human-accessible at all.

06-01-2010, 06:16 AM	#15
Coops Zealot Posts: 129 Karma: 77756 Join Date: May 2009 Device: Kindle Oasis, Sony T3 backup	Calibre is great.... all the Sony software is laughable. (The first sony Bookstore I 'used' - well, tried to - didn't even have a back button for browsing through the bookstore.) I use many PDf's on my 505 - I've made them from Text files, usually - Using Word on a Mac. I've set up my own Word template for it, with a page size of 9.1 by 12.3 cm, and after several trials to pick a suitable font and size for me (my eyes ;-) ) decided on Gill Sans, font size 11. Gill Sans is built in to Macs, and is a decent font for viewing both on LCD/Laptop and also on e-ink, and prints on paper nicely too. Seems to have a decent thickness and clarity - 11 just suits me best as i still have a bit of astigmatism. Can't resize really, but that's why i took some time decide what size suited me. Mac simply prints to PDF from Word... and there it is.

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