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Calibre 8.0

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284 pointsthawawaycold146 comments

This 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.

OBS is also a good example of that

Mumble too

www.mumble.info

Calibre 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.

I agree I hate to use it because of that, super un-intuitive

I 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.

I really want to make a stand for Kovid Goyal here, because he has indeed done an excellent job with Calibre. But every time this discussion comes up, people act like pointing out a user interface isn't intuitive is throwing shit at the developer, which it isn't.

Maybe there is a reason people do spend years studying interaction design, and we can agree there's probably things that could be improved on the interface to make it more intuitive by someone who's specialised in that?

The interface can be definitely improved, but that requires actual research and resources to pull it off. But as of now, it's not that complicated and very well documented.

I understand that, it’s a lot of work and resources are needed. The most important aspect in this regard is features over UX. But for a casual user, not finding UI elements we’re used to makes it harder to want to learn it for a few use cases. So maybe I’m not the target (power user in ebook domain). But dismissing any UI change as useless … maybe it’s far fetched.

> I further expect that each of them would be mostly

> articulating "what I'm used to".

This is true, but most users spend most of their time away from any given application. Very few people become experts at using Calibre. So there's nothing wrong with taking cues from the most popular applications, the kinds of applications where people form their intuitions.

I use Calibre a few times a year, and I'm quite confused every time. I usually just Google the steps to do the thing I need to do, and even after I understand how to do it, it never makes a lot of sense to me.

Having said that, if the developers like the way it works, then that's all that matters. I'm glad it exists either way.

The fact that webdevs believe it is shit UI is a big indicator that it is quite good.

I'm not a webdev, but still think it's shit. And I'm even old enough to know most of those Icons from the days in which they were considered modern. The whole interface is dated and with strange hacks. It's useful, but could be made better. But I think there are two different parts coming together here, namely UI and UX. The UI is old school and a bit ugly, while the UX is very basic and sometimes strange. And together they make a criticizable interface.

But actually, who cars? It's still doing its job well enough, while delivering a very powerful experience. On that level of ability, it's quite hard and demanding to build a good interface, and a dev who is so deep in CLI that he even builds his own terminal is unlikely to have the necessary competence in that area to make something better.

> The whole interface is dated

Oh, so you're advocating redesign for the sake of redesign?

No, I'm saying it's justified to update the interface to reflect the state of todays interface-language.

Find the warts, optimize them, let it evolve and bring the workflows to the next level. The app is old and grown, one doesn't need to reinvent it, to make it better. And with its complex purpose, you would end up with something similar anyway.

> No, I'm saying it's justified to update the interface to reflect the state of todays interface-language.

Which one? GTK, QT, MacOS, the myriad in today's web?

Interface-Language has little relation with the used GUI-Framework. And Calibre is already using Qt.

It really doesn't imho. It does by no mean follow the kind of "sleekness" that you expect from contemporary UIs, but it's perfectly functional and takes the least amount of effort of getting used to, at least from the point of view of someone that does not otherwise particularly love to invest too much time in convoluted UIs (á la GIMP :))

> icons are beyond meaningless

What? How? “Add Books” is a book icon with a plus sign. “View” is a magnifying glass. “Remove Books” is a recycling symbol. “Preferences” is the usual settings-esque gear icon. “Device” is an e-reader. “Send To Device” is an e-reader with an arrow. I’ll grant you that some are vague, like “Download Metadata” being a globe, but the other major part you’ve glossed over is that all of these have their titles directly underneath them. There is no need to guess as to what they do.

> menus are nested and super-specific

I fail to see how that’s bad. Tree-like menus are extremely intuitive, and prevent having 50 items in a single column.

I wonder if this is a difference in perspective between people who use it as an ebook library manager and as an ebook reader. The ebook reader UI is terrible. Like how do you jump to a page:

1. Right click on the book to get menu at the top of the window.

2. Click go to

3. Pick which type of "go to" you want ("location")

4. You now get a full screen UI with a single input box

5. Now you get to enter a page number.

Other ebook readers, even the crappy DRM-encumbered web apps, give you a slider.

---

Also rendering a page is very slow, so you scroll to go to the next page, and apparently nothing happens for quite some time. Also it takes two ticks of the scroll wheel to paginate, even in the absence of any internal scrolling. So you're wondering if the page is rendering or if you need to scroll more and potentially overshoot.

---

Opening the bookmarks UI reflows the page, potentially pushing what you wanted to bookmark out of sight onto the next page.

> The ebook reader UI is terrible.

I don't think the reader UI is there for ... reading books. At best for checking out what the conversion steps did.

I just drag books to it, sometimes edit the titles and then export them to a Kindle.

When the Kindle gets fully locked down I'll get a Kobo or whatever is in fashion and works well with Calibre at that time.

No, it's just not great UI. It is functional, but that is not the same as good.

Oh, that may be entirely possible. Yeah, I don't use the reader at all. For one, I hate reading books on a computer. For two, agreed, its UI isn't great. I'm entirely referring to its use as a library manager / ebook converter.

Permanent deletions use a "recycle" symbol, advanced search a cogwheel columns a stylised greek pillar (creative at least, that one), while download cover and input options share a downward chevron icon. There's lots of instances where the icons do more to distract you than help usability. Titles are shown underneath main toolbar actions, but not in the statusbar or modal windows, for example.

> I fail to see how that’s bad. Tree-like menus are extremely intuitive, and prevent having 50 items in a single column.

Stuff like "Edit metadata > Merge book records > Merge only formats in first selected book - delete others" feels extremely intuitive for you? Calibre tries to cram every workflow under the sun into tree menus, because it's the easiest way to make commands accessible in a GUI. Meanwhile, stuff like the book details panel is completely underused. And we didn't even talk about metadata plugboards yet.

I love Calibre for being the Swiss army knife of ebook management it is, but sometimes I want to have merely a humble knife to spread butter on my reading habits; something that lets me intuitively CRUD an ebook library without forcing me to think whether I want to add files to my book records, add data files to my book records, or add from folders and sub-folders.

> Permanent deletions use a "recycle" symbol

So does Windows.

> while download cover and input options share a downward chevron icon

This may be version-specific to be fair; I checked 7.8 and the latest, 8.0.1, and the two icons are differentiated in both. In Preferences, "Metadata download" is a cloud with a downward arrow, whereas "Input options" is a downward chevron.

> Titles are shown underneath main toolbar actions, but not in the statusbar or modal windows, for example.

Mine definitely does for all of those. Are you sure you don't have something configured differently, or perhaps there are differences in OS default behavior (I'm on MacOS)?

> Stuff like "Edit metadata > Merge book records > Merge only formats in first selected book - delete others" feels extremely intuitive for you?

Yes. "Book records" definitely sounds like metadata to me, so that's where I would look for it. The "Edit metadata" menu has 7 options on my build. Of those, only "Merge book records" expands, and it expands into 3 options, including the one you mentioned.

There may also be age differences at play here, specifically with respect to what GUI era your formative computing years were in. I got into computers in as a kid in the 90s (DOS, then Windows 3.1, 95, then a mix of Linux distros and successive versions of Windows). Calibre to me looks and feels like a slightly fancier version of programs I grew up with. Nero Burning ROM [0], foobar2000 [1], and of course, WinRAR [2]. Microsoft Office design peaked with 2000, IMO. 2003 was technically fine, just that it adopted XP's visual styling, which I found appalling.

In contrast to dense UIs, we have modern web apps. If I want to change the appearance, is that under Profile, or Preferences? How do I get to either one? Do I click on the vaguely person-shaped icon, the hamburger icon, or do I have to go Home first?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_Burning_ROM

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar2000

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinRAR

> > Stuff like "Edit metadata > Merge book records > Merge only formats in first selected book - delete others" feels extremely intuitive for you? > Yes. "Book records" definitely sounds like metadata to me, so that's where I would look for it.

Not for everyone. I use this function to merge files into one entry after importing. So my mindset at that moment is on the files, and the metadata are just a secondary topic. But I can see how this is a topic where you can dispute endlessly, and no answer is perfect.

> The "Edit metadata" menu has 7 options on my build. Of those, only "Merge book records" expands, and it expands into 3 options, including the one you mentioned.

It shouldn't expand at all. This is the kind of complicated and dangerous job where a dialog with more information and feedback would be justified. Maybe something like a table where each row is a metadata, each column is a book, and you can select which source is used for the final result. The way it is now, I always have to be extremely careful to use the correct one, even select in correct order, and not screw it up.

> > Permanent deletions use a "recycle" symbol > So does Windows.

Where? Deleting to the recycle bin uses the recycle symbol, which isn't permanent deletion, you can undo it. And if you try to delete a file permanently, you get a red crosss

But also, it's not like Windows has great design to use as an argument

> Permanent deletions use a "recycle" symbol

That button isn't permanent, it moves the files into ~/.local/share/Trash/files/

(Unless it changed after the version I'm on)

Interesting.

I recently picked it up for the first time and had no issue whatsoever getting it to do what I needed it to do without any guidance.

Are tooltips abuse now?

> Are tooltips abuse now?

Here's an example screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/MSBDDmM

That's extremely useful.

Should it be also stated in documentation? Yes, tooltips alone should not be acceptable. But here they are doing their job; that's why they are called tooltips, because they give you tips about an option that might otherwise feel obscure.

I think it's excellent and descriptive, but I started with computers at the CP/M era.

that looks superb to me! I'm tempted to contribute a patch to generate documentation from the tooltips now.

That is the best possible experience

And what do you propose, make it dark grey on light grey and fill it with wizards that cover only 20-30% of the old functionality?

Realising my car is broken doesn't mean I can fix it. Likewise, being unable to fix it doesn't mean I can't tell it's broken.

Clearly that is what he meant, yes.

> hover title text is abused for option documentation

That's...why it exists?? What else would you do with hover titles besides showing additional information about an options?

Hover titles are supposed to display complementary information, not be the primary means of documentation about what an option does.

Not the worst no, but it definitely could be more readable/discoverable.

But the functionality as an ebook manager is insanely great in my view.

I like the retro style, but new users are always completely lost with the UI, its off putting to a lot. I know, I introduced (or tried to) introduce some people to calibre in an effort to show them that Amazon what not the best and only way.

But, again, hats off to those making calibre. I will moan publicly when my PR for GUI improvement are not approved, until then I’ll shut up.

works great for me and I had zero problems figuring it out. What it does is complex. I'm not sure why it would confuse anyone who has used a computer and wants to keep their book files in one place.

It had a perfectly fine UI before it transitioned to the current web-styled thing.

> 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.

I used addon kobo support with calibre previously. It looks like they incorporated their functionality into the main app.

Nice, but not game changing.

Never had issues with Kobo devices and Calibre. Is there any advantage to converting books to KEPUB format?

There’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.

I think that for some reason they use different renderers, and the kepub one consumes less battery.

I think you can get more format options with kepub, also page numbers are more accurate?

Some 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

I’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://send.djazz.se uses this under the hood and can be self hosted

Footnotes open in popup windows over the current page instead of teleporting you to the end of the book, is one feature that I love.

The books I buy from the Kobo store always have the page numbers match up with the rendered pages. The books I... acquire through other means... do not.

I haven't tested this yet but kepub imbeds progress data, which means this can probably be synced with Calibre. This is very nice for those of us which keep a larger library and change readers over time. Prior to this, we had to use a very janky workaround to sync this data. Most of us just didn't bother, so when moving books around, the progress data would reset.

It can make a huge difference in performance and batterylife, as well as how well images are rendered. I learned this by chance through this (great) site https://standardebooks.org/help/how-to-use-our-ebooks#kobo-f...

This was after a year or two of suffering through bad performance and a janky experience. Except for the purchased books of course. Somehow I never thought it was possible to fix.

Oh I'll have to test that one. Turns out that the text justification kobo uses is very sensitive to the HTML structure.

Most 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.

I 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.

Zotero looks interesting, what do you use it for? Does it work in conjunction with Calibre?

Zotero‘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.

The 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.

I'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?

Have 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.

Same. Either open directly from Files, or drag the books(s) you’re currently reading to it so it’s easier to open and find.

> 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! :)

Apple 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.

Gave Books a quick try, hardest part was probably how to send files from Linux to iOS, but thanks to ifuse it ended up being pretty easy, by (ab)using Chrome's download directory. Still haven't found a way of importing them into Books automatically, but better than nothing I suppose.

In case others are in the same situation, I ended up doing something like this:

    idevicepair pair
    mkdir ~/iphone
    ifuse --documents com.google.chrome.ios ~/iphone
    cd ~/iphone
    cp /home/user/books/*.epub .
    cd ~
    fusermount -u ~/iphone

Then use Files app on the phone, navigate to the Chrome documents folder and click on the .epub file and after ~5 seconds or so it opens up in Books, and after that it's accessible via Books directly.

I usually just have mine in the Safari downloads folder. Then use Files to open them.

If you’re on Linux, using iCloud to add files there should be easy enough as well. Then I just added them as I needed them. I’m on a Mac though so it’s a bit easier.

Sounds like you found a solution though.

Does the de-drm still work? I've tried it through the PC client method and it didn't work.

Don't know, sorry. I did this the 19th of February according to my logs, via the "DeDRM Plugin (v10.0.3)" in Calibre and it worked fine then at least. Seems this is the repository for the plugin: https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools

For downloading the files themselves, I think I ended up using this: https://github.com/treetrum/amazon-kindle-bulk-downloader

Edit: Oh, just saw the warning from the bulk downloader's README now :/

> As of 26th February 2025, Amazon has removed the ability to download backups of your Kindle books. Unfortunately, this means that this tool is no longer functional.

I think that it might still be possible to connect your Kindle to your computer via USB cable and back up the files that way.

Oh well. While before authors could make money off legit users who wouldn't buy without this ability, now these users will have to skip the middle man and go straight to the pirates.

Depends on the method. If you have an old Kindle that doesn't get KFX files like a Kindle 3 that should work. Some older versions of Kindle Desktop can still work but maybe not for all books.

The Kobo (obok) and ADE methods are still fine and easy to do. I wouldn't bother buying new books from Amazon anymore personally.

I use one called KyBook atm that i've got no real complaints about. If you can set up calibre-web or something similar you can get local network sync working and it can see your library when you're at home and download the books to the device for when you're away.

> But how do people consume these books on iOS today?

I don't read much on iOS, but I bought MapleRead[0]. It's quite nice and support OPDS endpoints. Books has a nicer UI, but I dislike the focus on the marketplace (same with Music, I don't like not being able to disable the store when I'm not using it and don't plan to)

[0]: https://www.maplepop.com/web/mr/overview.php

1. Bluefire Reader: this does epub and PDFs although I’ve rarely used it for the latter. Also handles Adobe DRM which I have personally never used. A couple of issues I’ve noticed with this app: it crashes when you delete a book. Search does not work in some epub files.

2. tiReader: handles more file formats than Bluefire, but is slower and has a strange UI which confuses me even after using it for months. Search works more consistently than in Bluefire.

3. Apple’s own Books app. I don’t like how it mangles epub files rendering them unexportable but it’s great for PDFs

I just send the liberated epub back to my kindle address (via calibre) and read them as "documents" in the kindle app for iOS. Unless this has recently changed it works fine, and (critically) my last read location syncs with my Kindle.

There are a handful of decent e-reader apps on iOS right now, and unfortunately a few of the best, like KyBook, are dead and no longer being maintained. Of the available options now, the best two IMO are either Apple's own Books app or Yomu EBook Reader. ReadEra is also pretty good.

Calibre 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.

I'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

I 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.

If 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.

Kobo Sync as it's called in the documentation (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.

nice to know! would be great to have some similar degree of support for boox devices but I gather it would be much more fiddly

> Getting stuff on the device is a bit of a hassle too, because I can't exactly go plug it in to my NAS

Kobo can connect to Dropbox. They hide the option on older models but you can re-enable it with NickelMenu[1]. If you don’t want the Dropbox app installed on your machine, you can use Rclone[2] to sync files to it on demand. With a bit more setup, you can even set up Rclone on the Kobo itself and trigger it via NickelMenu to pull new books. This last part is a bit more involved.

[1] https://pgaskin.net/NickelMenu/

[2] https://rclone.org/

Why add docker overhead, if you can just natively install it like any other software?

I think the OP was unclear. He is suggesting running it on a NAS or similar, storing the files on network storage and then simply being able to use calibre-web instead of having to install it on different devices.

For any newbies, this is not a panacea. Calibre Web is vastly more restricted in functionality.

> For any newbies, this is not a panacea. Calibre Web is vastly more restricted in functionality.

It would be helpful to point out what functionality is missing for readers, it fits my base case so would be interested to know cases are missing for you.

I'm not aware of any documentation which lists this so I used ChatGPT to help me compile a quick list. I took a quick look and it looks accurate, but of course there might be inaccuracies.

1. E-Book Editing – Calibre-Web does not include the advanced eBook editing tools available in Calibre, such as the eBook editor for EPUB and AZW3 formats.

2. E-Book Conversion – The ability to convert between different eBook formats (e.g., EPUB to MOBI) is missing.

3. Metadata Download & Management – While you can edit metadata in Calibre-Web, it lacks Calibre’s ability to fetch metadata and covers from online sources automatically.

4. Advanced Plugin Support – The desktop version supports third-party plugins that extend its functionality (e.g., DeDRM tools, additional format conversions, etc.), which are not available in Calibre-Web.

5. News Fetching – Calibre can download and convert news feeds (RSS) into eBooks automatically, a feature missing in Calibre-Web.

6. Full Device Integration – The desktop app allows direct connection and syncing with eReaders (Kindle, Kobo, etc.), while Calibre-Web is limited to wireless downloads.

7. Bulk Import & Export – You cannot bulk import/export large numbers of books via Calibre-Web as efficiently as with the desktop version.

8. Virtual Libraries & Custom Columns – While basic library browsing is supported, advanced sorting, searching, and virtual library features are more limited in Calibre-Web.

9. DRM Management – If you use Calibre with DeDRM plugins, these do not work in Calibre-Web.

10. Built-in Viewer for Some Formats – Calibre-Web supports reading EPUB and PDF files in the browser but lacks the extensive format support of Calibre’s built-in viewer (which can handle MOBI, AZW3, CBZ, CBR, etc.).

So then both of your replies are null because you have no idea?

Your first reply gave the caveat that there are severe limitations as a warning to "newbies". Definitely, it's an extension wrapper around calibre binaries and the db to make it a little easier to access across a local network. But you don't have specific examples for yourself and only something pulled from ChatGPT which is not even correct, some of those items are simply outdated/madeup.

> So then both of your replies are null because you have no idea?

I don't see how you could surmise that a list of 10 major differences is the same as "no idea." You seem personally or emotionally invested in the web interface being on par with the main app. I don't know why, and it's weird. Either you have experience with this interface and you were looking for a fight, or you have no experience and you're asking for third party audits which you know you'll never get, so you're looking for a fight. I'm not biting. Either way, I hope others are informed by my comment.

You pasted something from ChatGPT that includes incorrect information. In general and especially on HN folks don’t appreciate LLM dribble. I have no feelings in this just calling out your worthless posts. Since you had such a strong opinion I asked what in your experience made it so negative as the web client is really there to make it easy to browse and download books onto a reader, which it does. Of course it does not replace calibre, you can see all the functionality in like 5 screenshots.

Again no feelings but I have no issue calling out folks like yourself that try to give an opinion and then actually have no real world experience with it.

I can, but don't want to run it on my desktop or laptop. Then it's not available when either is turned off.

I have three calibre instances. One one my desktop as it's always turned on. One on my home server, where it serves as a content server. One on my laptop if I'm away from home. I use rsync (Easy to get conflicts with Syncthing) to propagate changes.

When I'm on the laptop and I get some new ebooks, I just put them in a staging folder that I push over to the desktop over sftp. I may also add them to the laptop's instance and rsync the folder, but I tried to only add books to the desktop instance.

I used flat folder organization on my ereader and don't use calibre to transfer files to it. Mostly because I use koreader, which doesn't scan the storage. Also, I have my whole library on the device, so calibre is there for backup and cleaning.

What's the benefit to putting it in a docker container?

Yeah I see no benefit here. The benefit they're referring to is pointing to a separate library location, but that can be done using the normal app.

Because then I can store all the books on my NAS and easily share the Calibre library with calibre-web, which again is accessible from the internet.

I could install it on my laptop, but then nobody else could access it when it's in my backpack :D

But why containerise it on your NAS?

I use google drive with my Kobo, just drop the files there and its synced over wifi. Am I missing out on something with Calibre?

Calibre can update the metadata on your books semi-automatically. Grab hi-res covers, get the back cover texts, mark the book as a part of a series (and which number it is).

It can also automatically convert the books to different optimised formats, for example: you don't need a 4000x3000 resolution full colour front cover if you're uploading the book to a 6" BW eInk reader.

Also Kobo has their own "KEPUB" format that is optimised for their devices and converting standard EPUB to that format results in faster page turns etc.

Calibre 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.)

Oh, that is very annoying - thanks, will find the settings.

> The most infuriating thing is that these decisions can all be overridden with some preferences

What settings should we change to avoid this behavior you described?

As 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.

Is the author still weird about maintaining his own dependencies[1]? I haven't used this program in a while.

1. https://redd.it/9wodtq

This 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.

I 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."

Still not possible to use your own directory architecture manifestly

I 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?

An 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

And 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).

Mine 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.

You 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.

I already have my files sorted and organised

I'd settle for at least not converting kanji to pinyin

Question 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.

Is 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.

Nice 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/

I'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.

There was recently an LCP content extraction blog that targeted Thorium's Chrome Dev Protocol: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43378627

Thank 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.

I'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.

I 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.

Can this be done with Kindles?

I 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.

For 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.

Does 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).

https://calibre-ebook.com/donate

I 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...

So, given that the Kindle deadline has passed, is there still a way to liberate those files?

Having 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/mhwhx...

I 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.

Thanks, 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.

I 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.

But Meta said it's okay to download them if you don't distribute them!

Donating the book away technically forfeits your moral right to the “acquired” copy. Whoever benefits from the donation may otherwise have purchased a separate copy of the book.

The Shrike certainly has some deep soul searching to do here. I am frankly aghast at such a suggestion and totally agree with you that on this technicality, his ethically fiber has waived. I hope he can find a way back to the light, if such a thing is even possible after his dubious and destructive actions of, checks notes, giving publishers money but not enough to keep his soul clean.

So if I do the same with movies (buy it, rip it and donate it), I'm again "technically forfeiting my moral right?"

Or should I just burn the book so I don't taint a potential book buyer? :D

Yes, it’s the same with movies. :)

In the extreme, someone could buy one DVD, rip it, and pass it on (for money or for free, it doesn’t matter) to a chain of hundreds of people who do the same and now all get to keep the movie digitally forever, while the copyright holder only sold the single initial copy.

My point is not to admonish anyone, just to point out how passing on the physical copy while keeping an uncompensated digital copy is inconsistent with the goal of compensating creators proportionally.

the goal of compensation creators proportionally flew out the door when the publisher took 85%.

What deadline?

Apparently if you have a 11th gen or older Kindle device, the KFX Input plugin and the latest DeDRM will allow you to pull books off it and crack the DRM. This worked for me with my 10th gen Kindle, after the removal of the web download feature.

Hope 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.

sounds more like a W10 issue?

No, 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.

That's more Windows 10 being annoying- but you can manually change file/app associations after the fact under Settings/Apps/Default-Apps!

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