4 ms·

Calibre is great, if you configure it properly. By default, converting books to another format will change the layout! Destroying the original formatting by de

Calibre is great, if you configure it properly. By default, converting books to another format will change the layout! Destroying the original formatting by default is unacceptable behaviour to be honest, so user beware. For Kindle, I suggest using the KindleUnpack plugin instead; which can extract the EPUB file embedded in the AZW/KF8 format file losslessly for use with EPUB based readers without having to worry about Calibre's conversion messing up the formatting.

drakenot 7y ago
Any tips for what settings to change to prevent the destructive behavior you mentioned?
- maskros 7y ago
  The most destructive behavior is the default Look & Feel settings. If you uncheck "Remove spacing between paragraphs" and the "Insert blank line between paragraphs" settings, Calibre will leave most formatting as-is. These settings can be useful in cleaning up badly formatted files, but should not be used carte blanche on all input files, especially those that don't have problems. You'll lose niceties like the first paragraph in a chapter not having text-indent, etc. Generally it's better to use the "Edit book" feature on EPUB files and manually fix up the CSS if the styling is not to your liking. Converting with Calibre also hard-codes @page margins which overrides most e-Ink reader software's margin settings; so if I do end up using Calibre to convert to EPUB, I always have to edit it afterwards to remove these hard-coded margins in the CSS.
AdmiralAsshat 7y ago
I've heard people complain about Calibre's EPUB conversion utility, but I've never seen anyone do a deep-dive to explain exactly why it's bad. Is it comparable to the HTML-soup that Microsoft Word spits out when you export a Word doc to HTML? FWIW, I still heed those warnings, and so I still hold on to the de-DRM'd AZW file even after I convert it to EPUB.
- ses1984 7y ago
  I don't know why it's bad, but I know the end result is poorly laid out. It's always super obvious I'm reading something passed through calibre conversion, because accent marks will be missing, intra chapter breaks will be missing, punctuation is messed up, etc.
  - freddie_mercury 7y ago
    Er, pretty much by definition, when it does a good job you wouldn't know it had been passed through calibre conversion. So how do you count up those "successes" and measure them against the "failures" to determine whether, on a probabilistic kind of basis, it does a good or bad job?
    - ses1984 7y ago
      Good point, in my case I've only done about 10 books and I can remember each one, 100% converted wit obvious problems.
- billfruit 7y ago
  For me the most obvious mangling the converting process is doing is inconsistent paragraphing, some times a single paragraph in original splits into two at an arbitrary place after conversion, and vice versa, seriously disrupting the readability.
  - harshreality 7y ago
    What format are you starting with? That doesn't happen if you start from a modern, flowed (kf8) format with proper markup. Calibre tends to preserve all markup. It might add some trivial css fixups in some cases, but usually that's only when tags it thinks are important have no associated css already. There are two reasons I can think of for why you'd get broken paragraph separation. First, the markup in the kindle version (if it's old style mobi, or really badly generated kf8) could be broken, so when calibre tries to split into multiple files to prevent single (x)html files from being too big, it can't tell where paragraphs are so it might split in the middle of a paragraph. Second, you might be converting a pdf or azw4 (essentially a pdf) to epub, in which case you'll get paragraph breaks across pages. You shouldn't convert those formats to epub without extensive editing.
Tomte 7y ago
How do I start with Calibre and Kindle? I've tried several times, but I cannot understand the UI. How do I list books on my Kindle? How do I list books in my account? It's all very byzantine.
- Tijdreiziger 7y ago
  To put EPUB (or AZW3/MOBI) files on your Kindle: - Open Calibre - 'Add' your EPUB file(s) (top left button) - Connect your Kindle via USB - Select the book(s) you want to send - Click 'Send to device' (it's one of the buttons at the top) - If you get asked to convert your book, choose AZW3 (it's newer than MOBI) - Done ---------- To view the books on your Kindle: - Connect your Kindle via USB - Click 'Device' (at the top) Note 1: If you want to be able to put your books on a different Kindle, you need the DeDRM plugin [1] Note 2: If you want to be able to convert your books to EPUB to use with a non-Kindle e-reader, you need the KFX Input plugin [2] Note 3: KFX is not a great input format, if you don't have moral reservations it's better to 'obtain' the books you paid for from the internet in EPUB format. ---------- To view the books on your Amazon account: This is not possible using only Calibre. You need to install Kindle for PC/Mac and get the files from its storage directory. The notes above apply, i.e. it's probably better to just obtain EPUBs from the internet. ---------- In my opinion, it's not really worth it to back up books from your Kindle, you're better off obtaining the EPUBs off the internet. If you want to put those EPUBs on your Kindle, that's where Calibre shines. This is also great if you don't want to support Amazon and their lock-in scheme. Just buy your books in EPUB from any online retailer and use Calibre to put it on your Kindle. Note that some publishers apply Adobe DRM to EPUBs (which you can break using DeDRM [1]), but there are also many EPUBs using only a watermark (aka 'social DRM'), which is not DRM. [1] DeDRM: https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/drm-removal-tools-for-ebooks/ https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/drm-removal-t... [2] KFX Input: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=291290 https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=291290
  - submeta 7y ago
    > In my opinion, it's not really worth it to back up books from your Kindle Use-case: I have bought books from other vendors, converted them to epub format, copied them via Calibre onto my Kindle reader. - I made lots of annotations in those books on my Kindle reader. Does it not make sense to back those books up?
jxdxbx 7y ago
I had no idea that an EPUB file was embedded in the weird Amazon formats. I mostly agree that you want to avoid "transcoding" an EPUB. But the formatting on some official EPUBs is so bad that I like to use readers that can override the built-in formatting. I like to choose the font, spacing, hyphenation, and justification myself. (Full justification and hyphenation are my bugbears--I think they are never appropriate on smaller screens, as they lead to large rivers and too many words broken up, but are fine on large ones.)
- kranner 7y ago
  You could unpack the ePubs, edit the CSS and repack it; and then they would work with all readers.
- jhbadger 7y ago
  There isn't an EPUB "embedded" in Kindle formats. The Kindle format is based on the pre-Kindle Mobipocket format (that's why unDRMed Kindle books often have an extension of .mobi). EPUB didn't even exist when this format was created. Making an EPUB (or any other format) from a Kindle book involves converting, which is always going to introduce changes in formatting. People can argue that one program or another does a better job at doing it, but there's no way around it.
  - MrGilbert 7y ago
    That's partly correct. Quote from the KindleUnpack Github[1]: - MobiPocket and early Kindle version 7 or less ebooks are unpacked to the original html 3.2 and images folder that can then be edited and reprocessed by MobiPocketCreator. - Kindle Print Replica ebook are unpacked to the original PDF and any associated images. - Kindle KF8 only ebooks (.azw3) are unpacked into an epub-like structure that may or may not be a fully valid epub depending on if a fully valid epub was originally provided to kindlegen as input. NOTE: The generated epub should be validated using an epub validator and should changes be needed, it should load properly into Sigil and Calibre either of which can be used to edit the result to create a fully valid epub. - Newer Kindle ebooks which have both KF8 and older versions inside are unpacked into two different parts: the first being the older MobiPocket format ebook parts and the second being an epub-like structure that can be edited using Sigil [1]: https://github.com/kevinhendricks/KindleUnpack https://github.com/kevinhendricks/KindleUnpack
wuschel 7y ago
Here is another approach to extract your books from their horrible proprietary and closed Kindle Cloud Reader. Fortunately someone reverse engineered the SQL based format [1]. [1] https://gist.github.com/yangchenyun/a1c123935d82f5e25d57 https://gist.github.com/yangchenyun/a1c123935d82f5e25d57
harshreality 7y ago
Converting ebooks doesn't destroy formatting unless you convert to a formatting-limited format like mobi or rtf as an intermediate step. kf8 and epub are roughly equivalent.
- maskros 7y ago
  The default settings to remove/add spaces between paragraphs amounts to destroying the original formatting. KF8 is a proprietary wrapper around a regular EPUB file.
  - harshreality 7y ago
    I don't think that's the default. I just reverted to default settings when trying to convert a mobi to epub, and the options to remove/insert paragraphs, linearize tables and several other obvious unwanted modifications are all disabled.
    - maskros 7y ago
      If true, that's excellent news! I've carried around my custom Calibre settings for several years now, so I don't really know what is the default anymore. Back when I started using Calibre, the default settings were not ideal, and most Calibre converted files I've seen in the wild have used the old defaults.
shorts_theory 7y ago
I'm pretty surprised. I've used Calibre's inbuilt EPUB -> AZW3/MOBI converter for hundreds of books to left-align them for my Kindle. The only books where the formatting was messed up were the ones in which the EPUB wasn't formatted properly in the first place. I'm also interested to know more about why Calibre destructively converts EPUBs instead of making a copy to work on instead. Do you have any sources for how this works?
darkpuma 7y ago
mobi<->epub conversion is rarely problematic in practice. However mobi is not a wrapper around epub as some are claiming. They merely have low impedance mismatch.

drakenot 7y ago

Any tips for what settings to change to prevent the destructive behavior you mentioned?

maskros 7y ago
The most destructive behavior is the default Look & Feel settings. If you uncheck "Remove spacing between paragraphs" and the "Insert blank line between paragraphs" settings, Calibre will leave most formatting as-is. These settings can be useful in cleaning up badly formatted files, but should not be used carte blanche on all input files, especially those that don't have problems. You'll lose niceties like the first paragraph in a chapter not having text-indent, etc. Generally it's better to use the "Edit book" feature on EPUB files and manually fix up the CSS if the styling is not to your liking. Converting with Calibre also hard-codes @page margins which overrides most e-Ink reader software's margin settings; so if I do end up using Calibre to convert to EPUB, I always have to edit it afterwards to remove these hard-coded margins in the CSS.

AdmiralAsshat 7y ago

I've heard people complain about Calibre's EPUB conversion utility, but I've never seen anyone do a deep-dive to explain exactly why it's bad. Is it comparable to the HTML-soup that Microsoft Word spits out when you export a Word doc to HTML? FWIW, I still heed those warnings, and so I still hold on to the de-DRM'd AZW file even after I convert it to EPUB.

ses1984 7y ago
I don't know why it's bad, but I know the end result is poorly laid out. It's always super obvious I'm reading something passed through calibre conversion, because accent marks will be missing, intra chapter breaks will be missing, punctuation is messed up, etc.
- freddie_mercury 7y ago
  Er, pretty much by definition, when it does a good job you wouldn't know it had been passed through calibre conversion. So how do you count up those "successes" and measure them against the "failures" to determine whether, on a probabilistic kind of basis, it does a good or bad job?
  - ses1984 7y ago
    Good point, in my case I've only done about 10 books and I can remember each one, 100% converted wit obvious problems.
billfruit 7y ago
For me the most obvious mangling the converting process is doing is inconsistent paragraphing, some times a single paragraph in original splits into two at an arbitrary place after conversion, and vice versa, seriously disrupting the readability.
- harshreality 7y ago
  What format are you starting with? That doesn't happen if you start from a modern, flowed (kf8) format with proper markup. Calibre tends to preserve all markup. It might add some trivial css fixups in some cases, but usually that's only when tags it thinks are important have no associated css already. There are two reasons I can think of for why you'd get broken paragraph separation. First, the markup in the kindle version (if it's old style mobi, or really badly generated kf8) could be broken, so when calibre tries to split into multiple files to prevent single (x)html files from being too big, it can't tell where paragraphs are so it might split in the middle of a paragraph. Second, you might be converting a pdf or azw4 (essentially a pdf) to epub, in which case you'll get paragraph breaks across pages. You shouldn't convert those formats to epub without extensive editing.

Tomte 7y ago

How do I start with Calibre and Kindle? I've tried several times, but I cannot understand the UI. How do I list books on my Kindle? How do I list books in my account? It's all very byzantine.

Tijdreiziger 7y ago
To put EPUB (or AZW3/MOBI) files on your Kindle: - Open Calibre - 'Add' your EPUB file(s) (top left button) - Connect your Kindle via USB - Select the book(s) you want to send - Click 'Send to device' (it's one of the buttons at the top) - If you get asked to convert your book, choose AZW3 (it's newer than MOBI) - Done ---------- To view the books on your Kindle: - Connect your Kindle via USB - Click 'Device' (at the top) Note 1: If you want to be able to put your books on a different Kindle, you need the DeDRM plugin [1] Note 2: If you want to be able to convert your books to EPUB to use with a non-Kindle e-reader, you need the KFX Input plugin [2] Note 3: KFX is not a great input format, if you don't have moral reservations it's better to 'obtain' the books you paid for from the internet in EPUB format. ---------- To view the books on your Amazon account: This is not possible using only Calibre. You need to install Kindle for PC/Mac and get the files from its storage directory. The notes above apply, i.e. it's probably better to just obtain EPUBs from the internet. ---------- In my opinion, it's not really worth it to back up books from your Kindle, you're better off obtaining the EPUBs off the internet. If you want to put those EPUBs on your Kindle, that's where Calibre shines. This is also great if you don't want to support Amazon and their lock-in scheme. Just buy your books in EPUB from any online retailer and use Calibre to put it on your Kindle. Note that some publishers apply Adobe DRM to EPUBs (which you can break using DeDRM [1]), but there are also many EPUBs using only a watermark (aka 'social DRM'), which is not DRM. [1] DeDRM: https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/drm-removal-tools-for-ebooks/ https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/drm-removal-t... [2] KFX Input: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=291290 https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=291290
- submeta 7y ago
  > In my opinion, it's not really worth it to back up books from your Kindle Use-case: I have bought books from other vendors, converted them to epub format, copied them via Calibre onto my Kindle reader. - I made lots of annotations in those books on my Kindle reader. Does it not make sense to back those books up?

jxdxbx 7y ago

I had no idea that an EPUB file was embedded in the weird Amazon formats. I mostly agree that you want to avoid "transcoding" an EPUB. But the formatting on some official EPUBs is so bad that I like to use readers that can override the built-in formatting. I like to choose the font, spacing, hyphenation, and justification myself. (Full justification and hyphenation are my bugbears--I think they are never appropriate on smaller screens, as they lead to large rivers and too many words broken up, but are fine on large ones.)

kranner 7y ago
You could unpack the ePubs, edit the CSS and repack it; and then they would work with all readers.
jhbadger 7y ago
There isn't an EPUB "embedded" in Kindle formats. The Kindle format is based on the pre-Kindle Mobipocket format (that's why unDRMed Kindle books often have an extension of .mobi). EPUB didn't even exist when this format was created. Making an EPUB (or any other format) from a Kindle book involves converting, which is always going to introduce changes in formatting. People can argue that one program or another does a better job at doing it, but there's no way around it.
- MrGilbert 7y ago
  That's partly correct. Quote from the KindleUnpack Github[1]: - MobiPocket and early Kindle version 7 or less ebooks are unpacked to the original html 3.2 and images folder that can then be edited and reprocessed by MobiPocketCreator. - Kindle Print Replica ebook are unpacked to the original PDF and any associated images. - Kindle KF8 only ebooks (.azw3) are unpacked into an epub-like structure that may or may not be a fully valid epub depending on if a fully valid epub was originally provided to kindlegen as input. NOTE: The generated epub should be validated using an epub validator and should changes be needed, it should load properly into Sigil and Calibre either of which can be used to edit the result to create a fully valid epub. - Newer Kindle ebooks which have both KF8 and older versions inside are unpacked into two different parts: the first being the older MobiPocket format ebook parts and the second being an epub-like structure that can be edited using Sigil [1]: https://github.com/kevinhendricks/KindleUnpack https://github.com/kevinhendricks/KindleUnpack

wuschel 7y ago

Here is another approach to extract your books from their horrible proprietary and closed Kindle Cloud Reader. Fortunately someone reverse engineered the SQL based format [1]. [1] https://gist.github.com/yangchenyun/a1c123935d82f5e25d57 https://gist.github.com/yangchenyun/a1c123935d82f5e25d57

harshreality 7y ago

Converting ebooks doesn't destroy formatting unless you convert to a formatting-limited format like mobi or rtf as an intermediate step. kf8 and epub are roughly equivalent.

maskros 7y ago
The default settings to remove/add spaces between paragraphs amounts to destroying the original formatting. KF8 is a proprietary wrapper around a regular EPUB file.
- harshreality 7y ago
  I don't think that's the default. I just reverted to default settings when trying to convert a mobi to epub, and the options to remove/insert paragraphs, linearize tables and several other obvious unwanted modifications are all disabled.
  - maskros 7y ago
    If true, that's excellent news! I've carried around my custom Calibre settings for several years now, so I don't really know what is the default anymore. Back when I started using Calibre, the default settings were not ideal, and most Calibre converted files I've seen in the wild have used the old defaults.

shorts_theory 7y ago

I'm pretty surprised. I've used Calibre's inbuilt EPUB -> AZW3/MOBI converter for hundreds of books to left-align them for my Kindle. The only books where the formatting was messed up were the ones in which the EPUB wasn't formatted properly in the first place. I'm also interested to know more about why Calibre destructively converts EPUBs instead of making a copy to work on instead. Do you have any sources for how this works?

darkpuma 7y ago

mobi<->epub conversion is rarely problematic in practice. However mobi is not a wrapper around epub as some are claiming. They merely have low impedance mismatch.