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Calibre Version 1.0 Released After 7 Years of Development
Calibre is a feature-laden, open source e-book manager; many readers mentioned in light of the recently posted news about Barnes & Noble's Nook that they use Calibre to deal with their reading material. Reader Trashcan Romeo writes with some news on its new 1.0 release, summing it up thus: "The new version of the premier e-book management application boasts a completely re-written database backend and PDF output engine as well a new book-cover grid view."
I've used Calibre for awhile now and it's an impressive piece of software. I've been meaning to for awhile but I finally went ahead and made a donation.
Full disclosure: I'm drunk and I'm always more generous when I'm drunk.
Also, you should see The World's End - great movie.
I also tried converting from PDF to EPUB. Sometimes the PDF isn't in a good condition and I get a very poor EPUB. If that happens, I convert PDF -> RTF, clean up and spell check in MS Word, then RTF -> EPUB.
This has let me fix over-large graphics, incorrect page breaks, constant spelling problems from the OCR, and font problems.
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So far you had to import all of your files into calibre, it can't reference external files. So it is pretty much unusable for importing larger existing libraries, and you get locked in.
Almost everything you said is NOT true.
Import into Calibre is simply drag and drop, or select from a file browser, and you can keep your existing library. Once in Calibre the file are easily Exported. Further you can use them in place, right out of the Calibre directory, because the files stay in what ever format you wish.
You can even keep your ebooks in multiple formats, because it converts between multiple virtually flawlessly. It fetches covers and metadata and its just a joy to use.
I've dragged and dropped my entire ebook collection into it. Most of them I converted to epub, but in a few cases I retained the existing format as well. It handles it all. It has an export function that will export any given format, all formats, all formats with metadata and covers. Its just a stupendous piece of work. (Yeah, I sent him $50 some years ago).
There is no lock in. Its the most versatile program for ebook management I've ever seen.
And, yes, if you hunt around you will be able to find third party DRM removal plugins, so when your old DRM device dies, or your old format with DRM goes out of use, you can convert to almost any other format and leave the DRM behind.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Library sync is still a major problem, because it becomes virtually impossible once you start adding books to different libraries.
While calibre /can/ run in server mode, which in theory could very much eliminate the need for synchronizing libraries, the web frontend isn't quite as good as the normal calibre UI, so I don't like the option too much.
Right now, I'm keeping my primary calibre library on a netbook, I don't add books in any other library, and I synchronize other libraries by simply copying from the netbook.
That said, calibre is nevertheless THE all-in-one solution for everything I need to do with e-books, and it's truly excellent.
"unless you want to take the time to manually change everything back."
Preferences -> Saving Books to Disk -> Save template. The default is {author_sort}/{title}/{title} - {authors}
Select All
Save to disk
I don't know the command line equivalent off the top of my head
Like "Calibre Companion" ???
Yes, but you can tell it to size the pdf pages exactly to the size of your device's screen. So then the pdf fits perfectly onto the device, and there is no need to alter the flow of the text due to the width of the device.
if the author wanted to be rewarded for his work he should charge be charging a fee for the program. Simple as that.
It's only "simple as that" if one has knowledge of only one economic model and is unaware of the studies showing higher overall revenue via the model Kovid is using (effectively executed, of course).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
In this case, it means that all files are only accessible through calibre and not through the file system.
Nonsense.
The ebooks in the Calibre library are store as common eBook formatted files, and can be accessed by simply looking for them with your file browser. You can search them with your desktop search facility, click them to open them for reading with your favorite ebook reader.
Because the files are simply FILES, you can point your favorite ebook reader at the directory and it works perfectly.
Please stop spreading fud.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.