4.8 KiB
Calibre
Calibre is a cross-platform, free and open-source software suite for e-book management. It supports various formats aswell as conversion between them.
Usage
Adding a Plugin
A plugin by a third party can be added by selecting a .zip archive - usually
named <plugin name>_plugin.zip - under Preferences, Plugins, Load plugin from
file.
Exporting Books
Books can be exported by selecting them and pressing Save to disk.
After selecting a path the books will be saved there.
Preferences for this can be set under Preferences and Saving books to disk.
Especially the creation of separate image and metadata files are often of
interest.
The template defines the path structure of the saved books.
A simple template that will create the following structure is
{author_sort:re( &,;)}/{title}/{authors}_-_{title}.
thomas_schickinger;_angelika_steger/diskrete_strukturen_2/thomas_schickinger_&_angelika_steger_-_diskrete_strukturen_2.pdf
This assumes the sort author names and sort titles are set as described in the following section.
In the same view only the boxes Save cover separately, Save metadata in a separate OPF file and
Save data file as well should be unchecked.
All others are used to ensure a lowercase directory and file name without special characters.
Changing the Default Author and Title Sort
Under Preferences and Tweaks the corresponding settings to change the title
and author sort name can be found.
Author sort name algorithm defines the author sort name.
By setting author_sort_copy_method = 'copy' the author sort name is the same
as the author name.
After this setting has been changed right click Authors in the navigation bar
on the left side and press Manage Authors.
Then press Recalculate all author sort values for the change to take effect.
Control sorting of titles and series in the library display defines the sort
titles.
Setting title_series_sorting = 'strictly_alphabetic' will use the standard
title and wont make articles of titles suffixes.
Afterwards select all books, right-click and select Edit metadata in bulk
under Edit metadata.
Then check the box update title sort and press Ok to update all sort titles.
This entry is based on two posts on mobileread - one regarding the sort author name and the other regarding the sort title.
Changing the Cover of a Book
Changing covers of a book can be done by editing the metadata available via the right-click menu.
However this is not enough in some cases.
.pdf in contrast to .epub files won't save the cover just by this action.
After changing the cover in the metadata screen .pdf files have to be converted to correctly
display the cover since the first page of such a file is generally considered the cover.
An alternative to this is the PDF Cover Plugin which allows the insertion of the cover before all
other pages without an extra conversion.
Please note that it prepends the cover and does not delete any pages.
Transfer Books to a Device
To transfer books to a device connect a e-reader to the computer.
After a while calibre should recognize the device which will be apparent by the appearance of
additional buttons on the top menu like the Send to device- and the Device-Button.
First make sure only the formats you want will be transfered.
This can be done by selecting Device, File formats and checking the formats as needed.
Afterwards select the books and press Send to device to start the process of transfering the
devices.
Alternatively only specific formats of the books can be send to the device by selecting
Send specific format to and Main memory under the Send to device menu.
If there are books that contain series metadata make sure to disconnect the e-reader once and
reconnect it.
Afterwards select Update cached metadata on device under Device to update the metadata
including the series.
Finally disconnect the device.
KEPUB Format
The .kepub format is a format that is similar to a normal epub but has some performance
improvements for Kobo devices.
It is recommended to convert .mobi and .epub files to a .kepub file before
transfering it to a Kobo device.
For this the Plugin KePub Output by Joel Goguen can be added can be
installed.
Afterwards books can be converted the normal way, but now the output format .kepub is available.
Additionally the Kobo Touch Extended plugin is recommended to use since it makes sending books to
Kobo e-readers easier.
Finally KePub Metadata Reader and KePub Metadata Reader make it possible to read and write
metadata to .kepub files which is especially useful.