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Calibre 8.0
- hd4 2y agoHope he will one day get round to fixing the issue where document file types in Windows 10 become associated with Calibre without being explicitly asked to do so.
- thawawaycold 2y agosounds more like a W10 issue?
- bheadmaster 2y agoNo, the issue is: > without explicitly being asked to do so You may argue that if you're installing Calibre, you want document file types to be associated with it, but it'd still be nicer if the user was given an option not to do that in the installer itself, instead of just overwriting whatever other file type associations user has had.
- benrutter 2y agoThat's more Windows 10 being annoying- but you can manually change file/app associations after the fact under Settings/Apps/Default-Apps!
- yzydserd 2y ago> Much improved Kobo support. calibre can now natively edit, view and convert KEPUB format files used by the Kobo. It also automatically converts EPUB to KEPUB when sending books to Kobo devices. Great to see improved Kobo support.
- Moosdijk 2y agoI used addon kobo support with calibre previously. It looks like they incorporated their functionality into the main app. Nice, but not game changing.
- neor 2y agoNever had issues with Kobo devices and Calibre. Is there any advantage to converting books to KEPUB format?
- cassianoleal 2y agoThere’s some extra stats when you open the book on the device. I _think_ that’s pretty much it though. AFAIK KEPUB is just ePub with bits of added metadata.
- mariusor 2y agoI think that for some reason they use different renderers, and the kepub one consumes less battery.
- inatreecrown2 2y agoI think you can get more format options with kepub, also page numbers are more accurate?
- wiredfool 2y agoSome ebooks that have extremely long chapters have very slow page turning performance towards the end of the chapter. (e.g. most of the Terry Pratchett Discworlds that are essentially one large chapter) There's probably an O(n^2) page break algo there which is fixed with the kepub format
- latexr 2y agoI’ve been converting to KEPUB[1] for years and two things I noticed immediately as I started doing so and still stick in my mind are more accurate page numbers and faster page-turning performance. Can’t really say anymore how much of a difference it is, since I always convert. [1]: https://pgaskin.net/kepubify/ https://pgaskin.net/kepubify/
- shinycode 2y agohttps://send.djazz.se https://send.djazz.se uses this under the hood and can be self hosted
- shiandow 2y agoOh I'll have to test that one. Turns out that the text justification kobo uses is very sensitive to the HTML structure.
- AdmiralAsshat 2y agoMost of the Kobo support was already extant in plugins, but their position was precarious because the plugin maintainer for many of those had passed away. For this release Kovid obsoleted many of those plugins by moving the functionality into the base application. He also has his own Kobo now, so he's able to take on that maintenance.
- Tepix 2y agoSo, given that the Kindle deadline has passed, is there still a way to liberate those files?
- JamesMcMinn 2y agoHaving switched to a kobo in the last week from a kindle, yes it is still possible, but involves a few steps, one of which can require an old version of the kindle for PC app. [1] I couldn't make it work on books already downloaded to my kindle - they had to be downloaded via the app - and since it requires an old version of an app that automatically tries to update, I'm not sure how long it'll be possible, so my suggestion is to dump kindle and Amazon if you every want to have any control over your books. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/kobo/comments/1jbsf2n/comment/mhwhxff/ https://www.reddit.com/r/kobo/comments/1jbsf2n/comment/mhwhx...
- gonzus 2y agoI can confirm this: I downloaded the old version of the app (on a Windows laptop), isolated it so that it would not auto-update, and then used it to download all my books (after the deadline had passed) and convert them with Calibre, which got rid of the DRM crap. You have to do both the downloading and the conversion on the same computer -- other than that, it worked perfectly for my more than 100 books.
- kokada 2y agoThanks, I didn't know about this change and it is too late to use the "official means". I have to setup my Windows again and do it eventually though.
- theshrike79 2y agoI depends on your ethical limitations. Do you want the _exact_ book file you've downloaded or just _a_ file of the book you purchased (a license to read)? For the latter, finding (main stream) ebooks isn't exactly hard, but it also isn't exactly legal. For example I buy physical copies of books, which I don't have the space for. Then I donate them away and "acquire" the ebook version to read and archive. If an author sells the ebook directly without Amazon (or Rakuten) as a middleman, I purchase it from them directly.
- piokoch 2y agoThis is one of those application that I love. Does it job well, nobody is trying to make interface "modern", that is use sweet colors, big squares everywhere with weirdo icons that you need to guess what they are supposed to mean. Starts fast, works fast, does not encourage me do buy some subscriptions, register somewhere, connect to some "service", just does it job perfectly. Unfortunately with every year there are less and less such applications, but they are still out there, e.g. SumatraPDF or KeePassXC.
- haunter 2y agoOBS is also a good example of that
- nntwozz 2y agoMumble too www.mumble.info
- 9dev 2y agoCalibre has the worst possible UI, it's just that nobody knows how to improve it. Icons are beyond meaningless, menus are nested and super-specific, functionality is hidden behind context menus and unintuitive click behaviour, hover title text is abused for option documentation. Calibre is an incredible piece of software, but of all the things it does great, the UI isn't one of them.
- shinycode 2y agoI agree I hate to use it because of that, super un-intuitive
- rout39574 2y agoI expect that a dozen humans coming to Calibre for the first time would articulate at least a half-dozen mutually conflicting perspectives on what would be "intuituve". I further expect that each of them would be mostly articulating "what I'm used to". If you unpack "Intuitive" it's mostly a tribal ingroup statement. The FOSS author has a choice: they can attempt to chase whatever UX rabbits are scared up by The Market, or they can try to make it straightforward to learn their tool, despite its differences from the momentary fashion. I think the Calibre dev's done an excellent job there.
- theshrike79 2y agoCalibre is IMO best used in a Docker container, set it up once and then forget it. Drop your books in a directory on your NAS, let Calibre pick them up from there and do your actual processing with Calibre-web.
- thawawaycold 2y agoI'm repeatedly telling myself to do that because I've ended up having multiple copies of the same documents scattered over different devices instead of centralizing my calibre instance. When I considered doing that on fated weekend I abandoned the idea under the impression of not having the possibility of sync reading position, annotations on PDFs and most importantly lacking the support for my e-book... though most likely I simply missed the finer details on how to do all of that
- theshrike79 2y agoI think you can use Calibre-web as a "store" for Kobo devices pretty easily (basically swap one URL in a config file on the device). I gave up on the synced reading position at the same time I sold my Kindle, but I can live with that. Getting stuff on the device is a bit of a hassle too, because I can't exactly go plug it in to my NAS, but exporting 50+ books to a directory and copying them manually takes a few minutes and I'm set for a year or more - so it's time well spent :D Having everything (except for comics) consolidated in one place is the main reason I tolerate Calibre's quirks and eccentricities. It's ... opinionated, but it's still by far the best tool available for the price.
- awill 2y agoIf true this would be a huge reason to get a kobo over a kindle. I use calibre and have owned multiple kindle and just plug in once every few months to copy books over usb.
- vincentkriek 2y agoKobo Sync as it's called in the documentation (https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web/wiki/Kobo-Integration https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web/wiki/Kobo-Integratio...) works very well, and is very easily enabled (updating a single line in a config file on the ereader that appears when you mount it on your computer). It will convert books to Kepub automatically and you can select to only sync certain shelfs.
- poulpy123 2y agoStill not possible to use your own directory architecture manifestly
- bayindirh 2y agoI don't find this as a grave problem, since I see the folder as an exposed database which I shouldn't muck with. What's your gripe about it?
- eviks 2y agoAn exposed database you can manage/navigate with better tools like your file manager or the Everything search engine without having to launch a much less frequently used app
- ajsnigrutin 2y agoAnd not just that, it's also future-proof, so if calibre ever "dies", and you find your old backups 10, 20 years after, you'll still be able to get all the books out! This is not true for many programs, even opensource, where data gets stored in many different obscure ways that cannot be retrieved/restored later, sometimes even if the software still exists (but is a few versions newer and doesn't recognize old formats anymore).
- bayindirh 2y agoMine is formatted as $AUTHOR/$BOOK_NAME/$FILES. I don't think it's very hard to navigate. If I use a find tool on that structure it can pinpoint any book, AFAICS. Note: This is what Calibre does after I import them via its front end. No secret sauce.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- skydhash 2y agoYou don't have too. You can actually script something out as the actual database is sqlite and the information is replicated inside each book folder.
- meerita 2y agoThe funny thing about Calibre, which I've been using since the beginning, is that the app always has updates—I think they release one almost every day.
- ReptileMan 2y agoNice to see. Although for the reading of the books itself I have moved to Thorium. Much smoother experience. And use Calibre for organizing. Their built in reader needs some love and attention. Edit: I meant Thorium Reader https://www.edrlab.org/software/thorium-reader/ https://www.edrlab.org/software/thorium-reader/
- thawawaycold 2y agoI'm looking up Thorium right now, I initially assumed you were referring to the homonymous browser (also their website feels organized a bit weirdly to me). Seems a solid option for epubs, admittedly the builtin calibre reader is a bit lackluster.
- mdaniel 2y agoThere was recently an LCP content extraction blog that targeted Thorium's Chrome Dev Protocol: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43378627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43378627
- diggan 2y agoI've been using the Kindle iOS application for reading ebooks for maybe 5-6 years at this point, but last month I archived+de-drm'd all my Kindle books via Calibre and have them stored locally now. Thanks Amazon for forcing me to do this sooner rather than later. But how do people consume these books on iOS today? I have yet to find any simple and not-get-in-the-way ebook reader for iOS, anyone have any recommendations?
- mouselett 2y agoHave you tried the built-in Books app on iOS? I find it to be a simple book reader that allows for ePub files to be opened from the Files app without having to sync them manually using something like a Mac.
- cassianoleal 2y agoSame. Either open directly from Files, or drag the books(s) you’re currently reading to it so it’s easier to open and find.
- diggan 2y ago> Have you tried the built-in Books app on iOS? I have not, I still consider myself a iOS newbie and tend to avoid the Apple software because of their lack of features and usefulness. But I'll give Books a try, didn't realize it let you read local files, thanks a lot for the recommendation! :)
- selykg 2y agoApple Books is actually pretty good if you have epub. I have used it a fair bit in the past (I now use a Kobo, or physical books primarily). But Apple Books was the best I found on iOS. There were some others that were pretty good but they seem to be unmaintained and/or do some weird things that I didn't particularly like so I went back to Apple Books.
- diggan 2y ago
- submeta 2y agoI absolutely love this app. It manages my whole digital library with hundreds of ebooks and pdf books. And its developer Kovid Goyal is very responsive. Have reached out to him several times in the forums, he answers questions, fixes bugs fast. And he releases updates every week I think. Zotero and Calibre are my most important tools for managing my digital books and reading material.
- walthamstow 2y agoZotero looks interesting, what do you use it for? Does it work in conjunction with Calibre?
- submeta 2y agoZotero‘s target group is researchers and academics. But I use it for managing, organizing, and syncing my pdf reading material. So I can read my content on the iPad. Calibre can’t do that. I use Calibre to manage my Kindle content. And to manage my ebooks and pdf books. So there‘s some overlap. I don’t like the reader of Calibre, I prefer reading on my Kindle or in the iPad. Hence Zotero. But Zotero is way more than that. You can collect / reference / read and highlight research papers and publications. You can add content via browser plugin or via the DOI number of an article. Super smooth UX.
- apexalpha 2y agoI've been using Calibre for years. First as library manager but now more as a sort of ffmpeg for e-books: any format I just throw in there and Calibre fixes it. Now I just host a deadsimple webserver in the folder with my files and browse to it on my Kobo, could not be easier.
- prox 2y agoI was looking for all kinds of sync software and stuff when I realised I could just use a local webserver. It’s kind of funny you don’t see the obvious sometimes.
- adhamsalama 2y agoCan this be done with Kindles?
- apexalpha 2y agoI don't know but the Kobo doesn't do anything special I just use the built in webbrowser and when I tap a file it downloads and imports it.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- xd1936 2y agoIs the author still weird about maintaining his own dependencies[1]? I haven't used this program in a while. 1. https://redd.it/9wodtq https://redd.it/9wodtq
- ronjouch 2y agoThis specific point about maintaining his own version of python2 to not move to python3 was addressed by Calibre contributors who did the job (that author didn't want to do) of migrating to python3.
- CodeyWhizzBang 2y agoI am very struck by this remark: "Kovid has stated numerous times that any patches which work towards python3 compatibility without hurting python2 functionality or performance would be happily accepted. Oddly enough, no one has ever taken him up on that, though a number of people have insisted it is very important that he himself do that work."
- yazantapuz 2y agoAs always, many complaints about the UI. I will say what I always say about Calibre: I love Calibre, and I double-love its user interface, maybe a little arcane, but free of modern ux nonsense.
- lxgr 2y agoCalibre is amazing, but I have one big gripe with it: In its default settings, both the main application and the ebook reader insist on modifying the source file even when only viewing it (to store the current page). I think I've even seen (self-published) ePubs getting contaminated with these annoying bookmark tags, and as a result had Calibre open them on some random page (presumably precisely the one at which the editor or author have closed it before deciding that it's now fit for publishing). Imagine VLC storing the current playback position in every audio or video file! I think not even iTunes does/did that, unless the user actively edits some metadata, and that wasn't very considerate with source files either. And then, on the other hand, Calibre does not automatically propagate actual metadata updates to the ePub file even after explicitly editing them in the library manager view – the one place where that's usually arguably user intent... (Except when opening and closing the book source editor without touching anything, because that rewrites the metadata at every opening time in its default settings, i.e. not at saving time! Make it make sense...) The most infuriating thing is that these decisions can all be overridden with some preferences – it just happens that the default is exactly the opposite of what I'd expect to happen. (The reader should not write things by default, but if it must, the metadata editor should damn well too.)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- devinprater 2y agoThank goodness for Calibre. I was able to convert my Kindle library into EPUB for reading on any device or app I want, since Kindle for Android is just awful with TalkBack. Instead of reading the book with TalkBack, if I want the book to automatically move on to the next page, I have to have system TTS read it, and when the screen locks, it can't move to the next page so just stops right there. It'd be much better if it either keeps the screen on, lets me read the book with TalkBack like it does for VoiceOver on iOS, or continues reading with the screen off. Then again, Google Play Books is even broken with TalkBack so that I can't swipe through a page (it just turns the page lol), so the bar isn't set high for reading apps for Android, from a blindness perspective anyway. So I just plop them into ElevelLabs reader cause it works well. And yes it's legal for blind people to do this, breaking DRM and such.
- squigz 2y agohttps://calibre-ebook.com/donate https://calibre-ebook.com/donate
- lukebuehler 2y agoQuestion for Calibre fans, what do you use to convert your ebooks to audio books or just general TTS? And, since managing your own (usualy de-DRMed) files is important to you, do you also feel like you want offline audio files? I'm asking because I'm working on an app for myself that converts my Calibre and Zotero books to clean mp3s for listening on my own. I also find that offline conversion results in much better quality TTS outputs instead of apps like ElevenReader or Speechify.
- fivestones 2y agoIs your app open source? What do you use for the offline conversion that gives you better quality than the ElevenReader app? Interested to try it out.
- scrollop 2y agoFor those that love books, have you seen Elevenlabs newish free Elevenreader mobile app? You can throw epbus/pdfs/documents/websites at it and it does TTS, so essentially an on-the-go audiobook creator. My favorite voice Is Sir Lawrence Olivier.
- veidr 2y agoI don't use this app, although I'm sure I will regret that once the ongoing WWIII actually destroys all undersea cables and sattellite links. But I always tune in to a thread about this app to read the brutal commentary about its UI. The juxtaposition of that and the app's complete dominance in its niche are always food for thought...
- n8henrie 2y agoDoes dedrm work with Calibre 8? I've refused to upgrade from 6 because I was afraid that 7 would break it (and dedrm -> epub -> email to kindle is 99% of my use of calibre).