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Calibre - e-Book (Personal Library/Document) Management - Mini-Review

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app103:
So I'll need to buy another hard drive just for Calibre?  :huh:
Does it at least give you the option not to put all of that on your OS drive?
-app103 (February 15, 2012, 10:13 AM)
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eBooks aren't all that big, so it's a reasonable choice to take a copy of them into it's library tree, rather than try & track changes that would occur if it just tried to reference them 'outside'.  I've currently only got just over 1000 books in mine, and the library around 912MB  (Mostly ePub, rather than PDF though).

One advantage not mentioned is that using Stanza on the iPad or the browser on a Kindle, I can access them wirelessly via Calibre's server & WiFi!

It does allow you to choose where to place the library (and to have more than 1 if desired), including moving an existing library tree around.
-gwynevans (February 15, 2012, 02:09 PM)
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They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so maybe this will explain why I don't want my books moved or copied anywhere else other than where they already are.

iphigenie:
Calibre does make its own tree and it organises it in folders by author.
I find it makes it hard for finding the files via other tools and programs. I think it's so it can arrange its meta data files etc. but it is a very annoying choice especially around ebooks or electronic documents (and alas so common)

I use Calibre nonetheless and donated last year to it to (never got a thank you email, though, so won't be all that in a hurry to redonate) but that aspect makes me a)hesitate to put all metadata in since i might lose it on move and b)think that one day I'll find an alternative that is more open to playing well with others and move.

I dislike software that decides it is the only one you use to manage something

IainB:
I have switched to the 64-bit version of Calibre, which was introduced at version 0.9.9.
calibre now has a 64 bit version for windows, available at: http://calibre-ebook.com/download_windows64 The 64bit build is not limited to using only 3GB of RAM when converting large/complex documents. It may also be slightly faster for some tasks. You can have both the 32 bit and the 64 bit build installed at the same time, they will use the same libraries, plugins and settings.

--- End quote ---

There have been several updates since, with bug fixes, and new features added.
Here are the details of the new features from the most recent updates (latest first):

calibre 0.9.16 - New Features (2013-01-25)

* News download: Add support for logging in to sites that require javascript for their logins.
* News download: Do not convert all downloaded images to JPG format. This fixes the problem of PNG images with transparent backgrounds being rendered with black backgrounds
* CHM Input: Support hierarchical table of contents. Do not generate an inline table of contents when a metadata table of contents is present. Also correctly decode the text in the table of contents
* Get Books: Add the beam-ebooks.de store
* Make custom yes/no columns using icons put text values under the icons.
* Driver for LG E400 and SayCoolA710
* Speed up device connection when there are lots of books on the device by not generating cover thumbnails unless they are actually needed.
* Have the metadata download dialog remember its last used size.
calibre 0.9.15 - New Features (2013-01-18)

* Linux MTP driver: Detect devices that have MTP interfaces even if their USB ids are not known
* Content server: Allow picking a random book by clicking the 'Random book' link on the start page. You can also refresh the random book page to get a new random book
* E-book viewer: Add an option to hide the toolbars in the viewer window (Preferences->Miscellaneous->Show controls in the viewr preferences). You can unhide them by right clicking in the viewer window.
* Kobo driver: Speedup initial connect by avoiding unnecessary update of series metadata in some situations.
* Get Books: Allow the store plugins to be dynamically loaded so that future website changes of a store dont require a calibre update to fix Get Books.
* Wireless driver: Always replace file when resending a previously sent book to the device, even if the title/author have changed.
* Add PocketBook Pro 912 driver.
* When creating/exporting epub and mobi files, add the calibre book identifier as a special field in the book's metadata. This allows third party tools to identify the book record in calibre to which the file belongs.
* Wireless driver: Add support for using the book uuid as the filename
* Remove the experimental tag from the subset fonts feature, since there has been only one reported problem (now fixed) with it in the two months since it was released
calibre 0.9.14 - New Features (2013-01-12)

* When adding multiple books and duplicates are found, allow the user to select which of the duplicate books will be added anyway.
* Device drivers for Kobo Arc on linux, Polaroid Android tablet
* When sorting by series, use the language of the book to decide what leading articles to remove, just as is done for sorting by title
calibre 0.9.13 - New Features (2013-01-04)

* Complete rewrite of the PDF Output engine, to support links and fix various bugs
* Show disabled device plugins in Preferences->Ignored Devices
* Get Books: Fix Smashwords, Google books and B&N stores. Add Nook UK store
* Allow series numbers lower than -100 for custom series columns.
* Add mass storage driver for rockhip based android smart phones
* Add a clear ratings button to the edit metadata dialog

dspelley:
A couple of months ago I won :D a Nook Simple Touch as a door prize at an event where I work. I downloaded a few books from Barnes & Noble using the Nook's built-in WiFi. Using a USB cable, I also copied some other ePUB files I obtained from other sources - Project Gutenberg, etc.

After installing Calibre and connecting my Nook, I find that Calbre sees the books I copied using the USB cable, but does not see any books downloaded over the WiFi. I posted a question about this on the Calibre User Forum and received a reply saying that it's true that the Nook "hides" these files from being displayed or managed. When I asked why B&N would do that, the reply I got was, "Think like a salesman, not like a customer."

Do other eBook readers "hide" files depending on how they were acquired? Any idea why these books would be hidden? Is it a DRM issue? (several of the files downloaded over WiFi were free)

CWuestefeld:
Do other eBook readers "hide" files depending on how they were acquired?
-dspelley (February 04, 2013, 07:46 AM)
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On my 3rd generation Kindle, nothing is hidden. If you connect the device to your PC by USB, it just looks like a flash drive.

Of course, the file names are inscrutable. But you can figure it out by opening on the device the book you're looking for. This causes its bookmark file to be re-written, which gives it the newest timestamp in the directory. And if there's DRM on the bok, being able to see the file may not help you.

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