Why Calibre?
Calibre is an absolutely fantastic app for organizing your ebook collection.
It supports 22 ebook formats including MOBI, EPUB, LIT, PDF, and more.
What Do I Need to Get Started?
Once you unpack the portable version or roll out the traditional version there is no difference in operation.
If you’re not using the portable version don’t stress about not putting everything together.
Calibre stores all information (meta data and covers) in each unique book directory.
see to it to create a new folder for your new Calibre library.
We’re going to import your old ebooks into Calibre and let Calibre manage the directory structure.
In our case we’re pointing Calibre at /Ebook Library/Ebooks/.
In the second step you tell Calibre what ebook reader you use.
If you don’t use one go ahead and leave it as Generic/Generic e-ink unit.
If you do use one opt for appropriate gear such as Amazon/Kindle.
If you have a gadget that supports such a service we recommend you configure it now.
After configuring your email service, click finish.
Adding Books to Calibre
Now it’s time to start adding books to Calibre.
Grab somefree books onlineor some books you’ve already collected.
you’ve got the option to add books in one of several ways.
Here’s a quick primer:
Add books from a single directory:Opens a dialog box.
You pick the books you want to add manually from a directory of files.
Best for selecting single books or a few books in a single format.
For a more detailed look at the add command, refer to theCalibre manual here.
We downloaded our free ebooks into the /temp/ directory with no special folder organization.
It’s simply one directory with a bunch of ebooks in it.
After Calibre finishes adding your books you should see them listed in the main pane.
In the next step we’ll tidy things up.
If your library look pretty clean (as our does) you could likely get away with bulk scanning.
First let’s look at what a manual edit looks like.
Right punch any book in your library you want to manually edit.
We’ll start right at the top with Ulysses.
SelectEdit metadataand thenEdit metadata individually.
We’re going to leave the author and title alone as they are already properly sorted.
The cover is rather lackluster though.
Let’s clickdownload coverand see what the databases turn up.
The Amazon.com provided cover looks good to us, we’ll take that one.
Back in the Edit Metadata window we have a fresh cover and a decent amount of metadata.
There’s no rating and it might be nice to update the tags.
Press thedownload metadatabutton to do so.
Calibre will poll Google and Amazon again and present multiple versions of the book.
Now lets take a look at bulk downloading of metadata and covers.
Go ahead and select as many of your books as you wish to bulk edit.
Calibre will prompt you to ensure you want to bulk edit.
Here you might opt to download just the metadata, just the covers, or both.
In the beginning you might go wild and download everything.
Anytime Calibre is working on anything (downloading metadata, converting books, etc.)
the lower right portion of the window will show you.
it’s possible for you to press theJobs:1text for see what is in the job queue.
Your options are yes, no, and view log.
If you like what you see, click Yes.
Calibre will apply the metadata.
Start slowly to get a feel for editing metadata in Calibre.
Once you’ve got the hang of it you could start pouring in your entire ebook collection.
Now that we’ve tidied things up, take a moment to browse through your fledgling collection.
Books natively in the file format you need have the most reliable text formatting.
That said, Calibre is a whiz at converting between formats.
First let’s look at simply adding a book.
Calibre auto-detects dozens of ebook readers.
Simply plug in your ebook read and wait.
If your gadget does not appear, check out thistrouble shooting guide here.
Most of the time Calibre does a fine job with the automatic conversions between document formats.
Alternatively it’s possible for you to right select a book entry and selectConvert Booksand thenConvert Individually.
We recommend you only go with this option of the automatic conversion process has failed you in some way.
you might turn it on by selecting it in the sidebar of the conversion tool and checkingEnable Heuristic Processing.
It’s like, for lack of a better simple analogy, error checking for books.
It will scan your book for common conversion problems and attempt to correct them.
verify tocheck out this conversion guide to ensureyou’re clear on the function of each tool.
To increase your Calibre-fu and ebook reader enjoyment check out the following guides:
