Calibre – E-Book Management
calibre-ebook.comThis counts as a dupe because the most recent discussion was less than a year ago. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.
Calibre 5.0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24586455 - Sept 2020 (267 comments)
Calibre 4.0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21156482 - Oct 2019 (302 comments)
The Calibre Content Server - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14568146 - June 2017 (140 comments)
Announcing Calibre 2.0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8212885 - Aug 2014 (98 comments)
Calibre version 1.0 released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6271090 - Aug 2013 (121 comments)
Calibre and Project Gutenberg: Liberate Your eReader. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3750807 - March 2012 (18 comments)
Calibre is great. There’s a real lack of good quality ebook software and Calibre is an essential do-everything toolkit.
The interface, however, is like some incredible piece of outsider art, gloriously free of best practice, convention or accepted wisdom.
As a UX designer it gave me some trouble at first, but now I’ve genuinely come to appreciate it. There’s no way the interface could be ‘improved’ by conventional standards of aesthetics or usability without losing the thing that makes it special in the first place.
Calibre's UI is an artifact from a superior and more civilized time, IMHO
Extremely functional and just a little bit incomprehensible. Compared to modern UI/UX which just slaps me with how stupid it thinks I am
> Compared to modern UI/UX which just slaps me with how stupid it thinks I am
Because most average users of any software absolutely fall in that bucket. My mom can use the Facebook app on her phone just fine, but I wouldn't even dare to suggest that she try to convert an eBook on Calibre and transfer it to her Kindle.
I earnestly think it's motivation and there's this societal pressure that software "is too hard." Just like your mom can use the Facebook app just fine. I have trouble using it, I'm worried anything I type into a box will turn into a public post with notifications going into everyone's inbox, and I've also mostly avoided it for over a decade. My grandmother over a decade ago figured out how to buy a webcam, install it, and use the software when grand kids were born.
Can we have apps for smart people?
Sure, emacs or CLI?
Or Blender, or the GIMP, or FLStudio, or AutoCAD, or Visual Studio, or Lightroom (Classic), or Filezilla, or Photoshop, or or or or...
And while you might think that the above obviates my argument, when was the last time something new came out? All the best software we have nowadays is old, designed before current standards
Yes, why did the world have to stop making apps for power users? Why can't both groups coexist?
Because the lifecycle of a modern startup is:
- Deliver a minimum viable product, maximally optimized for signups ("growth")
- Work on it until you can brag about a nice, consistent, exponential growth curve
- If you haven't run out of money and burned by this point, you get acquired and win the startup lottery
- The product gets shut down
There's no place in this lifecycle to develop a product to its full potential.
And yet, Facebook app is actually more complex (and arguably, chaotic and ever changing) UI - but she handles it fine. So does everyone.
Both things can be true - a person can prefer a more complicated and feature rich UX, while most people prefer a simpler UX that doesn't provide as much control.
You can definitely have a simple to use UI that still has all the same complex functionalities of an esoteric one. The more advanced features will just be more hidden away. To me, the only real advantage to an esoteric UI like calibre is the ability to do things faster and easier once you have learned it.
But honestly, for that i prefer a CLI.
Im sure she could do it with detailed screenshots and instructions
It reminds me a bit of something you would find running on solaris in the 90s.
> Extremely functional and just a little bit incomprehensible.
lol, that is what everyone should aim for (I'm not being sarcastic).
spoiler; most users are stupider then that ui/ux thinks you are.
> The interface, however, is like some incredible piece of outsider art, gloriously free of best practice, convention or accepted wisdom.
That was a wonderful way to put it. Excellent writing.
The UI is not the only weird part of it, probably the least weird one.
What I miss are first-class attachments (i.e. code archives and CD/floppy images) support, raw file naming (without automatic romanization of non-ASCII alphabets), flat storage (without creating a separate folder for every book). Using a Calibre-managed library from outside of Calibre (i.e. on a PocketBook reader) feels quite unnatural.
Another thing I always wanted is a simple viewer app without library management features. Like Adobe Acrobat Reader but for ePub and other book formats. The Linux app closest to this concept also comes with Calibre (Sumatra does the job on Windows). All the other book viewers I've seen insist on maintaining your library.
If you're on linux, check out Foliate. It's everything you're asking for :D
Any recommendation for a similar tool for Windows? The integrated Calibre reader is... Special...
Sumatra can open many formats including epub, but some epubs may not look as good, also check Adobe Digital Edition.
Not really. As soon as I've launched Foliate the second time it shown me the list with the previous book I've read. I don't want a viewer to maintain any state (besides the settings) between uses.
Okular can open ebooks. Maybe it does what you want.
Okular's my favourite PDF reader -- I install it even on Microsoft Windows machines I have to use -- but it doesn't read .epub or .mobi files unfortunately.
I'm pretty sure it does for me. I think it's probably a package that it uses. I'll check tomorrow and let you know.
Hot dang you're absolutely right - I'd never discovered this package before:
okular-extra-backends
Includes support for mobi and epub, as well as TIFF, CHM, Markdown etc. Weirdly the .epub and .mobi are quite slow to open compared to PDF, but I'm happier now for the suggestion to go hunting for this - thank you!
> okular-extra-backends
> Includes support for mobi and epub
Curious. I didn't know that was there.
> as well as TIFF,
The last time I've tried it didn't seem to support multi-page TIFFs
> CHM
Very curious. Never seen a good alternative CHM viewer (although seen apps advertised as such numerous times).
Yeah, it's well hidden - I'm sure I've looked for okular support for mobi & epub a while back, mostly because 'ebook-reader' that comes with calibre is a bit pants.
Must have been quite a while back, I guess.
On Debian unstable I'm seeing okular-extra-backends (as mentioned) along with packages for ODP and ODT, as well as an okular-mobile package (postscript, dejavu, DVI, comic books, fictionbook, Plucker, etc.
I've just tried this with an Asterix comic in .cbr format - no joy.
Works a treat with a Deadpool .cbz file though.
For CHM, and I've not [ found / been forced to acquire for want of a better format ] any of those since 2008, kchmviewer is pretty fine (I'm a KDE user so it fits nicely, though like most KDE apps it only wants some KDE / QT libraries to run on your preferred DE).
What's the benefit over just converting to html and using a browser? As far as I know epub is just html anyway.
Mostly; the structural information is in a mix of XHTML and various XML schemas. Conceptually it's more like that weird "HTML archive" format that IE used to do back when, but considerably more complex, and much less terrible thanks to being a W3C standard and not MIME-encoded.
The .epub file itself is just a zip archive. You can open it that way and pull the HTML content out, if you want, although it may be a pain to work with absent some kind of conversion - I think Calibre can linearize an epub into a single HTML file, but I haven't actually needed to do that so can't say for sure.
This is off topic, but I found a recent comment from you just so I could thank you for recommending Free Radical a little while ago. I never even played the game, but the book is excellent on its own.
That's among the reasons why I actually dislike ePub and prefer to convert (which involves pandoc/calibre + some hand-written scripting and hand-editing) epub to FB2 (which I love, it only has some minor imperfections). FB2 is a well-structured straightforward single-file XML designed with data-presentation separation in mind.
I can see the appeal, but that's not an option for me right now, since EPUB is on the input side of the project that's had me studying the relevant standards in the last few days.
That said, it's not the worst standard, if a little bit overcomplicated by trying to be all things to all people with a bunch of features I suspect are almost never actually used in the wild. Having the content already formatted as XHTML is really convenient for what I'm doing with it, too.
I agree the UI is confusing. However, I'm glad Calibre exists, solves my needs, and is so versatile. And in the end, I decided the confusing UI didn't matter all that much. I'd rather they* spent their efforts in improving stability and features rather than making a fancy intuitive UI -- assuming of course you can't have both. If you can have both, all the better!
*I'm never sure if Calibre is a one-person effort. If it is, more kudos to the author.
This is the best attitude I’ve ever seen in a rebuke of a poor interface. I wish I treated every criticism this way.
It's obviously a labor of love. Sort of like a house that was built by someone's grandfather ... also subject to grandfathered building codes. :)
I’d really love a post that just analyzed this take.
This is how I feel about the Libby app for iPhone. What is it with book apps? https://twitter.com/bendansby/status/1334717731925417986?s=2...
I'm genuinely curious to hear any specific changes you might make. I'm a librarian and I can say that Libby was a huge improvement in usability over the Overdrive app and we spend much less time on basic user support now. There are weird quirks for me as well, but I'm always hard pressed to say exactly what I would change.
It is a huge improvement over the low bar set by Overdrive. I use Libby everyday with my children and I think my three complaints are:
1. Filtering and categorization can be confusing: I have a difficult time finding books that are age appropriate for my daughter and available. I end up memorizing favorite authors as that is easier than the filtering.
2. The four buttons at the bottom are… interesting? The “library card” button the second from the left does… what exactly? I have never really understood the purpose of that button or why it is shaped like a card.
3. Figuring out how to exit a children’s book that is read “within” the libby app is inconsistent. I can never figure out how to reliably call up the UX to exit or change books.
Re. 2 I just checked: for the currently selected library, it shows you what looks like curated content from the library, to enable you to pick up on things that you might not necessarily do when just interacting with the app with searches and etc.
Calibre is one of those rare examples of software where the kitchen-sink approach is absolutely warranted. It's a one-stop shop for pretty much everything related to e-book management, conversion, or creation.
I spend most of my time in Calibre just managing my library or converting ebooks between formats (particularly if I'm pulling ebooks off my Kindle or Kobo to strip their DRM). When I want to test whether the conversion was successful, the built-in ebook viewer is there. It's not great, and I wouldn't use it over some dedicated programs to read an entire book, but it gets the job done.
Then there's that rare occasion in which I might actually need to edit an ebook, because the ToC is broken or I spotted an annoying typo that I feel compelled to fix. And for that, the e-book editor tool is more than capable. Again, maybe it's not ideal (I've never tried producing an e-book start-to-finish through it), but for some quick edits, it just works.
There's alot to be said for UNIX philosophy and fighting bloat, but sometimes having everything you could conceivably need for a given purpose in one well-maintained program is comforting.
>one of those rare examples of software where the kitchen-sink approach is absolutely warranted
I actually like this approach in general and I often wonder why there's so much animosity towards it. There's something about platform-like software like Calibre, or Emacs or WeChat where it becomes more than the sum of its parts that you just don't get with just a collection of disjointed, individual tools.
It's because it doesn't fit into the modern zeitgeist of extreme testability and pandering to computer illiterates
Every time this kind of UI comes up in discussion, I feel like there is always someone groaning about how much extra effort and cost is involved with giving the user too many options. In fact, you could say that modern software seeks to eliminate all noncritical optionality. Combine this with gobs of pointless whitespace, an inexplicable need to humanize pretty much everything, and smother the user in unnecessary feelgood emotions...
And then people wonder why modern apps suck so much...
That chip on your shoulder against everything post-2007-ish must be pretty heavy.
Modern apps don't suck. Specific design patterns suck. Not all things modern adhere to those design patterns. Not all the patterns you mention suck.
If I were hiring you to design an interface, your aversion to "humanize pretty much everything" would kick me right off the list. It reeks of tech-saavy elitism.
I have no desire to design interfaces like the ones I described, so the feeling would be mutual.
I would, however, love to be at the forefront of an anti-design movement that rightfully crushes the monotony/monopoly of modern UX
And what is wrong with tech-savvy elitism? Are you saying I should just forfeit the lifetime I've spent obsessing over this stuff to have an edge up on life? Give in to the tyranny of walled-garden and cloud-hosted nonsense?
> Not all things modern adhere to those design patterns.
Could you give some examples?
I think it's because integrated tools parts are often worse than the non-integrated versions and when people are forced to use them, it means removing choice.
A half-dozen well integrated mediocre tools is better than the sum of its parts, but that doesn't mean it's better than a half-dozen not-at-all integrated excellent tools.
A half-dozen pretty good tools that are well integrated is going to be excellent, but you'll still have some greybeards saying "I have to click through 12 menus to frobnicate the widget in this thing, while my old tool I could do it with a single command"
99% of "Integrated tools" fall more into the first category than the second, which makes sense; N non-integrated tools can have N parallel teams working on them, while an integrated tool cannot. This means each tool will get only a fraction of the effort in the integrated tool; it's a special case of Conway's Law.
I appreciate the thought but I think there's a sort of survivorship bias in this. You remember the apps that worked for you which did this and not the ones that overwhelmed you too, even as a savvy user. The vast majority of users are not Hacker News users (even if we adjust that bar for average).
Even as a developer (not a UX designer), whenever a client suggested, up-front, there should be a "power user mode" I would ask, "Is there such a thing as a power user or just someone with Stockholm Syndrome who hasn't found a better app yet?"
> there should be a "power user mode"
Well, there obviously shouldn't be. There should be one mode, and that's the power user mode :).
More seriously: power users aren't born, they're made - made through repeated exposure, if the software leaves them the space to grow in.
> Calibre is one of those rare examples of software where the kitchen-sink approach is absolutely warranted.
I disagree, and that's why I generally do not use Calibre, despite being an ebook aficionado. ...I already have my own ebook organization management. I'd like a good ebook reader, and I'd appreciate some of the surrounding tools, but Calibre's monolithic design isn't useful in my case.
It seems like even running the plain ebook reader takes a while because it's doing some callbacks to the larger program? Okular is a better fit for "a program that reads ebooks", but unfortunately has some really buggy handling with a number of books I've seen.
I happened to read Kovid justification[0] of this kitchen-sink approach few days ago and I agreed with Kovid. Before I was dead-set against his idea, and now I understand why it is the best for calibre.
It boils down to database and robustness. Filesystem and OS have their particular way of how it manage the files. And sometime when the file are being used and when calibre try to modify/something to the file, it can lead to unpredictable situation such as data corruption. And some OS sandboxed/isolated the app from ever touching outside of it own home directory unless explicitly permitted to do so. Sometime, it can be a permission weirdness. It is less variables for Kovid to worry and putting the software itself in control of the directory.
Also, another variable that Kovid don't have to worry about is between the keyboard and the chair errors. Users does stupid shit with it and those management software are sensitive to sudden changes without the software's awareness. Sure, you can set the path to find it again (it can be a pain for some), it didn't mean everything is jolly good. Some will force itself to rebuild the database to ensure it accounts for every bit of data. Those softwares are THAT particular and I can understand why.
Zotero does the same thing (and they preferred it), but Zotero does allows users to decide where it should be. Shoko Desktop/Server preferred their own but does allows users.
And the biggest advantage of calibre's approach is that its library only exist in single directory. You can move the folder itself without worrying the data corruption.
This is an odd take. You don't use Calibre because it doesn't fit your use-case, not because it's not good for what it's meant.
> I already have my own ebook organization management.
Calibre is an e-book management software with a reader for convenience, it's not geared towards reading.
I hope full support for audiobooks (single file, folder of mp3, ...zip?...) someday goes in that kitchen sink.
Kovid only makes $1,800/m from/for development.[0]
More people should support him; Calibre has been extremely high quality for years.
Seems to me that he might do better if he put in a few tiers of "You get absolutely nothing extra for this except the thanks of Kovid and the Calibre community for supporting ongoing development." Right now all support is custom donations.
I don't want to dig up old grievances but I think most people who have had the misfortune to interact with Kovid on a personal level would agree he is not the sort of person who deserves a penny of your money.
Care to explain?
Great reminder. Done. I wonder how much extra income he will get just because you thought to mention it.
~$57/m: well worth the time to make the comment
I've recently switched to his terminal emulator Kitty and I'm similarly impressed by that! I had no idea he was also behind calibre. I definitely owe him a subscription.
Also, kitty, which is a very fast Linux terminal I use all the time.
(not to be confused with the terminal software of the same name that runs in Windows.)
Is he the sole creator? That is a sadly small sum for this work.
I think there are other contributors, but he rubs lots of people the wrong way, so probably not as many as there could be.
What an unfortunate name these days
Kovid (pronounced with a soft d sound as 'th' in the) means an "expert in his domain".
Well now I think it's a badass name =]
Calibre just works and is great, but the user interface needs some work to modernize how it looks and to be less confusing in general. I'd love a fork that follows the Gnome Human Interface guidelines.
Yeah it's wild how the use case for 90% of users is "convert epub/mobi/whatever to azw3 and upload to kindle" and doing that is buried in several right click context menus... I'm comfortable doing it now but it seems as easy as having a left pane for books in my "library" and right pane for books on my device
If you just want to convert books and then copy them to your device I suggest you have a look at the command line tools installed alongside calibre.
`ebook-convert` does exactly that.
https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/de/generated/de/ebook-conve...
Yup!
ebook-convert mybook.epub mybook.mobi
Haven't used it in a little bit, but from memory most of my flow for this was drag and drop. Drag the source onto Calibre, then drag that to the Kindle logo up top.
I'm afraid that attempts to change it will ruin it, like many other things. Calibre just works and once you've learned how to use it, it's great that it doesn't change on you for no particular reason. I personally wish it remain unchanged.
> the user interface needs some work to modernize
No, it doesn't. Eventually people learn to use it, and everyone is happy that way.
Considering that it is an amazing piece of software but 90% of the comments on this thread (made up of mostly technical users) are about its user interface, it should be obvious that there are some problems.
There are people saying it needs improvement and people saying it’s ok for them, works for them as power users
People shouldn't have to learn how to use its complicated interface. The killer feature is managing eBooks, not rocket science.
There is nothing at all about the Calibre interface that needs to be the way it is. What's so interesting is the way it apes an old version of iTunes, one which nobody would've considered the pinnacle of UX, and still manages to complicate and bury things in unexpected places.
EVERY user interface needs to be learnt. Ask anyone: they hate it when it changes.
Yes, they all need to be learnt. How odd that an excuse for failing to reduce complexity?
There are well-documented user interface design guidelines to follow, both vendor specific and general ones made by experts like Jakob Nielsen.
Well-designed user interfaces lend themselves to user experiences where the learning curve is low, not steep, sometimes coming close to flat.
The only excuse I can fathom for those who prefer the learning curve be as high as possible or never be lowered is resentment that their own efforts to scale the same mountain of learning the UI themselves.
I call that technical elitism. It says “I worked hard to learn how complicated interfaces work, everybody else should be held to the same expectation”. No, they should not.
There are some huge UI warts, so I only use it to convert e-books.
1. I can't figure out how to change the styling of the book viewer. 2. Whenever I search, then try to hit backspace to modify my search terms, it tries to delete the first search result.
Not everyone is happy, which is why many of us wish it had a better UI.
I don’t know. I’ve bounced off it multiple times and just given up.
What do you use instead of Calibre? I haven't found a similar tool that is as useful, is free, runs on Linux, etc.
I find Calibre is not a tool to "enjoy" spending time on, but simply a tool to solve something specific so that I can then spend time on my Kindle.
There are other tools where I want to enjoy the time I spend using them (say, text editors, paint programs, IDEs) but Calibre is not one of them.
I use AlReader on android... But I don't think there is a Linux equivalent.
Noooo, no more Gnome ultra-minimalist and featureless interfaces.
If we ask for a better user interface, it pays to be sure it is actually an improvement.
I disagree and I hope no effort is wasted on this. Calibre is great and any confusion is solved by googling.
If and only if the author(s) feel they have time and energy to spend on this, then that's ok. But no forks and no wasted energy, please!
I'd rather they spent time solving bugs and improving/adding features.
UIs that you have to google are like jokes you have to explain...
I've never met a UI for which I didn't have to google how to accomplish some things, even macOS'
Completely self explanatory UIs don't exist. In the olden days they required manuals. Now we have online help and google at our fingertips, fortunately.
Unlike jokes, UIs are not an end unto themselves. I'm more than willing to accept a somewhat ugly or cumbersome UI if the underlying tool is as good as Calibre.
I'll be a bit nicer and say it needs some usability improvements. "Modernize"-ation and gnome-esque removal of features is _not_ what it needs.
Calibre's interface isn't to my liking but since they added the possibility to manage collections/bookshelves ~two years ago for my almost ten year old kobo I love it a lot ^^. Managing collections/bookshelves on the Kobo is a major PITA.
Added support for Kobo's "series" organization feature as well. Apparently requires some janky 2-stage process because it's not done with the book's built-in metadata; you have to sync the books to the Kobo, then sync again for it to poke the special series sauce after the files are on the device.
Seems like a needlessly complicated way to do it when the books have series metadata, so props to Calibre for the extra work to support that!
Check out koreader for Kobo devices. I've been using it for a quite some time and it adds some nice Calibre features such as wireless sync. Besides that the PDF support is leaps ahead of stock Kobo
Agreed, I'm very happy with their Kobo support.
A great discovery for me was that Calibre can convert to KEPUB (subset of EPUB tailored for Kobo readers).
I've used Calibre extensively for stripping DRM and converting formats for my various e-readers. Note that it does glitch sometimes in strange and assorted ways.
For example, when it converted the book Futu.re, it replaced all instances of "ft" with a blank space. While reading the book my brain has been interpolating over words to "fill in" the "ft" -- for example, when I read "a er" I know the word really is "after."
I don't understand all the ins-and-outs of e-book conversion, but I figure it might have something to do with the font processing. Aside from these occasional glitches, I am a very happy Calibre user.
"ft" is a common ligature. When characters are often used together, fonts are often designed with those characters grouped together as their own character so they can be given certain design flair such as having the "branches" of the "f" and "t" as one continuous horizontal line. Aside from "ft," "ll" (ell ell) also often gets this treatment and others I can't recall off the top of my head. Text rendering engines will then substitute the composite character with the ligature if the ligature exists in the font being used for display. So what might have been happening is that the text engine thought that an "ft" ligature existed for the font it was using to show your book and was trying to show it, but in fact it didn't exist. But who knows at the end of the day.
More information about ligatures can be found on the Internet.
Again, Hacker News delivers. Thank you for identifying this as a ligature issue. Maybe I'll be able to figure this out with some deeper poking around Calibre's legendary UI.
It's likely that "ft" was a ligature in the original which didn't survive the conversion (for example, if the destination font doesn't have the character ſt). Sounds like a bug, though.
I love Calibre, and I love its user interface. Maybe a little arcane, but free of modern ux nonsense.
I've been using Calibre for years to manage my ebooks, convert them, and sync them. This is one of those pieces of software that just works.
Calibre is great once you get the hang of the interface. The one thing I haven't yet figured out is how to stop it from butchering Kobo (kepub) ebooks downloaded from Standard Ebooks:
"Important: Don’t use Calibre to transfer the kepub file! Calibre will apply its own conversion on top of our own conversion, making for strange results" from https://standardebooks.org/help/how-to-use-our-ebooks
Your comment is interesting and relevant.
I always used Calibre to convert normal epub files to kepub format, to be able to zoom images and other things that the Kobo doesn't do with epubs.
I didn't know I could also get kepub files from somewhere else.
Thanks, I've found the Standard Ebooks (both kepubs and epubs) quite good and would recommend them if you're looking for something in the public domain. The downside is that their kepubs did not play well with Calibre.
By default Calibre didn't recognize Standard Ebook kepub files as anything other than a regular epub which caused it to reformat it (poorly) when sending to a Kobo eReader. It also prevented me from storing both the kepub and epub versions in my library.
There may be a better way but the workaround I use for now is to rename the kepub book files from .kepub.epub to .kepub which the Kobo eReader handles equally well. The downsides are that I have to remember to explicitly send the kepub format when I'm sending to a Kobo and I occasionally get notifications that there are duplicate book files in my library.
I recently started self hosting calibre-web[0] which consumes a calibre database and provides a basic web interface for viewing and uploading books to it. The killer feature for me is that it can act as a Kobo sync server. It makes getting my entire library onto my e-reader a breeze.
Ditto. I did the same for my partner for his Lego instruction booklet collection. He have over 150 sets and managing all of his Lego booklet (through Lego official app) and the official Lego website don't have every single booklet. And those PDFs are rather large file (averaging 40+MB, some are 100MB, a few is 200MB). It wasn't feasible to keep it all in his iPad due to the storage space. So I used my desktop to handles that for him. The best thing about calibre-web, it allows him to upload the PDF and edit the metadata directly in his iPad's Safari than depending on me to put it up for him (I don't mind doing for him, just that I have terrible time management.) For him, he don't have to do manual management and it is in one place.
Right now, I am trying to set up a scrapping the metadata from few sites in calibre (Import List plugin). Because LibraryThing, WorldCatalog and Amazon are usually scrapping for books. The thing is I don't know how to do XPath expression even I tried to read the guide. I couldn't understand how the hell it work. I can understand LaTeX, Homebrew, Chocolatey, Bash, CSS documentation just fine, but XPath I am just dumbfounded.
It does also allow for conversion of EPUB -> MOBI without using the calibre standalone application. calibre-web is now my primary interface to my existing calibre database file. I keep calibre ready/installed but haven't needed it in over a year
I'm using this for my 80k+ documentation library and couldn't be happier - so easy to share your library with other users.
Kudos for your project.
The one thing I really don't like about Calibre is how it will copy all of my ebooks into its own file organization. There is probably a way to disable this, but that is the default.
Kind of irritating when you have Calibre in a cloud-storage folder and your books are also in the cloud storage, and it uses up your space with duplicates.
"There is probably a way to disable this"
No, there is not, and never will be:
https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq.html#why-doesn-t-calibr...
Calibre's library is meant to be the place where you store your books.
I'm curious why you want to store a second copy outside Calibre. Is it because:
1. Calibre doesn't allow you to find books the way you want? (e.g. tagging doesn't have the all metadata you want)
2. You have other software (e.g. ebook reader software) that needs to read ebook files, and it's impossible/inconvenient to use Calibre's OPDS server for that purpose?
3. Some other reason?
I just dislike library software in general. I like files, I like keeping files neatly in folders and subfolders (and adding tags in filenames if necessary), so that I can easily use whatever software I like at the time on whatever platform to view or edit them, without ever being dependent on any. I organize all my movies, music, photos, documents, etc. this way, and I didn't want to hand over my ebooks to some software to keep it organized in its own way.
I don't even like it if a program scans my existing files to form a database without affecting them; but as long as it's not too in-my-face I guess I don't mind it so much; as I can get rid of the software and its database whenever I like, and I wouldn't notice anything was different. But Calibre decidedly takes the opposite approach, so, as the link says, I decided it's not for me. There are many parts of Calibre that I thought I might find useful, but it would be tiring to fight against a software that actively tries to work fundamentally differently than the way I like. (And I did try it, but using it felt almost as frustrating as using much of Apple software; it's an agony unless you use it exactly the way they want.) That's why I don't have Calibre installed on my computer even just for those useful parts; I just found other software to do things I like. Which is sad, because as an ebook user I really tried to like Calibre, and I really thought I would because I tend to love software that people criticize as "ugly/not modern" and "too cluttered/bloated". If only those things came with a package that didn't make it its "mission" to get me "to stop storing metadata in filenames and stop using the filesystem to find things".
From the linked Calibre FAQ:
> Why doesn’t calibre let me store books in my own folder structure?
> ... a search/tagging based interface is superior to folders ...
> ... much more efficient than any possible folder scheme you could come up with ...
Quite opinionated software. That and the quirky UI are reasons why I only use Calibre for a conversion or de-DRM here and there. Jump in, flail around until task done, fast exit.
I've already got them organized. At this point some of these PDFs and CHM and LIT files could get drafted, they're so old.
Same reason here: by the time Calibre was moderately usable, I had a thousand plus ebooks and an organizing system.
Once I put a book into Calibre, and make sure the metadata is correct, I delete the original. If there's any important info in the original filename I put it in the metadata. Is there a reason I need to save the originals?
I was surprised by this on my first use too. I just decided to give up and store my ebooks in the format that it wants, rather than just the media/books folder I already had.
...and rewrites/truncates the file titles
It is not meant for you, it is done that way by design for calibre's database. If you use the export feature, then you can set how the way you want it.
Invaluable for the command-line tool ebook-convert; I rarely use any other part of it.
Similarly, I primarily use calibre-debug CLI to extract resources from ebook.
I use Calibre to manage my Kindle pdfs and books. It is one of the oldest pieces of software I use, and it works really well.
Just a nit/aside: I'm sure the OS you are using has much older software built in. Iif on Windows, imagine the legacy that's stuck there for backwards compatibility. If on Linux, most of that is really old, updated recently perhaps, but created a long time ago. macOS is similar to Linux, though arguably worse as they dont update software that changed from gpl2 to gpl3, iirc.
There's a lot of really old software you probably use anytime you are on a computer. can't forget all of that!
as an avid calibre user myself, yay there are dozens of us! :)
Does anything trump GNU Maxima at this point?
Calibre is great, but if you just want to throw a directory at an ebook server and be done, Ubooquity is GREAT! https://vaemendis.net/ubooquity/
I prefer calibre-web[1] and it is under active development.
Seconding calibre-web; I rarely interact with calibre itself anymore since calibre-web handles the bulk of the tasks I’m trying to accomplish.
> Ubooquity server requires Java 8 (Oracle version).
That is rather limiting in 2021.
It's perfectly happy to use OpenJDK 11.
Yeah and Mac OS will bitch about Java 8 as well.
I use Calibre to manage my ebook library. I share it across devices (and with a couple friends) using Syncthing[1], and read the books using KOReader[2] on a Kindle. I get my books either from Z-Library or by ripping the DRM off of books purchased from Amazon.
Genuinely the best reading setup.
What made you use KOReader? I've always synced between my Calibre library and my Kindle directly and that works great.
By default, Kindle is a closed box. I love it, but the ads and tracking ruin a beautiful product.
KOReader gives me a great experience, sans the privacy violations, and with an incredible amount of additional control over the device. I love it.
For anyone that hasn’t taken the Docker route for installing it, I recommend it. It’s been rock solid sitting on a Synology. As always, Linux Server.
Obligatory link to the terminal emulator that Kovid also created / maintains that is super nice:
Wait, I didn't know they where the same person. Neat.
So few tweaks would be needed to make Calibre actually user-friendly to the average consumer. Instead people here are falling over themselves in declaring their love for a weirdo UI. Just because it's unusual?
They like real buttons, lacking flat nonsense, and densely-presented functionality. I do too, so I get the impulse to resist calls for change, but agree with you that a light-touch reorganization of some of the buttons & menus, and some filing-off of wholly-unhelpful behavioral rough edges would go a long way. It’s one of those pieces of software I’m constantly nervous using, because I’ve seen it do weird, destructive things for no other reason than some piece of the UI is “quirky”.
Well, Blender managed to pull it off and "everyone" loved that change. They have 24 salaried employees, though.
This makes me think of Dwarf Fortress. Weird menu system, that becomes endearing very quickly. Emacs too, now that I think of it. I love all three though.
The only thing I have against calibre is that the scroll speed on books is really fast. It's easy to flick 20 pages forward or backward on accident. Makes me miss smooth scroll on other interfaces.
Customizing it doesn't help? Right-click on the book text, select Preferences, select Scrolling Behavior
I use Calibre all the time to put ebooks onto my Kindle.
Ok so the interface looks like it was made in the 90s. But I don't know where I'd be without Calibre.
I have no idea what the other 100s of buttons do in Calibre.
Essential OSS for me, I wish the new update can be more user friendly though, something like "downloading at the backend and prompt you to update when you feel like it"
it seems like every time I open Calibre it wants to autoupdate.
nah it's worse, prompts for a manual download and update.
Does anyone know of any good ebook platforms that compete with Amazon?
Getting really sick of the Goodreads/Amazon interfaces and lack of quality recommendations.
I’ve purchased a book from Kobo before. It used the epub DRM compatible with adobe digital editions. At the time (afaik) they didn’t have a way to load it on a kindle without breaking the drm, converting it to mobi and doing a manual transfer. These days I stick with my public library (which uses overdrive and in my opinion is fantastic) or amazon in the event they don’t own ebook licenses.
That's my flow actually. I look up books on Goodreads or Amazon but buy them from Kobo. There are the additional steps of downloading, removing the DRM and uploading it to my Kindle but I think it's worth it.
Uh, LibGen?
My favourite eReader for android is and always will be AlReader. Some dudes pet project but it is glorious and wonderful.
Just curious, what do you like about it over other ebook readers? I've been using Moon+ heavily for years and it's fine but I'm interested in trying some others out.
Simplicity. It just works. It's just an eReader. No fancy app, no ads, just an eReader. That's why I like it.
I am always looking for that 'perfect' eReader in Android. Still have not found it.
So I will install AlReader for sure.
Calibre is my favourite product - been using it for more than a decade now. So happy to see it top the front page here.
What are the alternatives to Calibre?
I'm too old to be bothered by a UI that doesn't work. I get by with Apple Books.
Calibre has a great CLI too for automating ebook generation
I just wish it wasn’t so ugly and felt like 1990s software.
It is, isn't it. Many people find the UI charming, the top post actually put that into words nicely.
Nice if you're into downloading ebooks illegally or from the few sites that don't do ERP. I used to use it too. However since graduating college and starting to make money I didn't download anything anymore due to lack of time more than lack of funds so I don't use it anymore.
This implies that the only use for Calibre has to do with illegally downloaded ebooks... and i'm not sure how that has anything to do with it though.
Personally the only times i have used Calibre is the opposite of that: i used it with books i bought on Amazon to remove the DRM and convert them to epub so that i can read them on my mobile phone using my favorite ebook reader app (and also keep my own offline copies of course).
I literally stated 'or the few sites that don't do ERP'. Of course calibre does have legal use cases. Playing with (I think) O'Reilly ebooks and project Gutenberg being some of them.
I did not mean to imply it has no legal use. However stripping DRM and converting is not one of them. It's a form of copyright infringement as well, depending on where you are. I'm not sure how 'calibre has nothing to do with illegal copying' is very credible at this point.
> I literally stated 'or the few sites that don't do ERP'. Of course calibre does have legal use cases. Playing with (I think) O'Reilly ebooks and project Gutenberg being some of them.
The only acronym i've heard for ERP is "Enterprise resource planning" so i'm not sure how that was relevant... and still am not because even searching in Google about what the acronym means all i get is definitions and explanations for "Enterprise resource planning".
> However stripping DRM and converting is not one of them. It's a form of copyright infringement as well, depending on where you are.
It isn't illegal where i am (and FWIW i do not even see it as unethical at all, if anything i consider DRM more unethical) but that is moot since what you originally wrote was "downloading ebooks illegally" which is what i responded about.
electronic rights protection. i suppose i should have used DRM.
If you wanted to remove Amazon from the equation, I recommend Kobo. Prices are similar and you can remove the DRM quite easily.
Thanks, i'll keep it in mind in the future.
Unlike other kinds of content most books ever written are out of copyright and completely free today. Publishers and distributors, however, have every incentive in the world to keep charging you for them. Efforts like Project Gutenberg and Calibre are going a long way towards taking back control from Amazon & co. for things that shouldn't be owned and controlled by them in the first place.
Of course calibre has legal uses too. Certainly books like War and Peace and other classics are still relevant today, however they are the exception, rather than the rule.