# Calibre & Kindle PC



## timjthomas (Nov 27, 2010)

I will be getting a Kindle for Christmas (woo hoo) and have a question regarding the use of Calibre and Kindle for the PC.  Do people use both?  If so, how do the programs relate?  When do you use one vs. the other?  Is there any reason to use Calibre for the books downloaded from Amazon that show up on Kindle PC?

Thanks,

Tim


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## racheldeet (Jan 21, 2010)

Kindle for PC reads the protection software coded into Kindle books, while Calibre doesn't. So if you want to read books purchased from the Amazon store, you need to use Kindle for PC.

Calibre is mostly used, at least for me, to edit the metadata of books or do conversions between books without protection on them, for use on actual Kindle devices.


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## timjthomas (Nov 27, 2010)

Thanks - so converting EPUB for use on Kindle?  Any other use for Calibre?  The news feed seems good.  But how much management of the actual books do you do with Calibre?

If I sideload a book from Calibre, does it show up in Amazon online somehow?  

Just trying to figure out how to use both Calibre and Amazon?  It seems like the main purpose of Calibre (for Kindle) is to add content not acquired from Amazon??

Thanks again!!


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## KBR (Nov 18, 2010)

Books added from Calibre do not show up on Amazon. You can use Calibre to manage what's on your Kindle, but it's not necessary or even desirable. It's just as easy to manually manage the files yourself. Calibre's RSS options are good if you really want the feeds on your Kindle, but you will need to constantly be plugging your Kindle into your PC to get the feeds. RSS readers on smartphones and computers are more convenient, IMO.

Where Calibre really shines is converting books to a Kindle compatible format. It does not work with DRM though. For example, authors from this site have sent me several books in .doc format that they would like reviewed. I added them all to Calibre at once. At this very moment, Calibre is converting them to Mobi for me. When that's done, I'll connect my Kindle to my PC and manually add all the Mobi files to my Kindle. On the other hand, I have some really old books in LIT format from Microsoft Reader. Calibre cannot convert them for me as they have DRM. 

If you are looking to read books from Amazon on a Kindle, it's pointless to have Calibre do anything to them. They are already optimized for use on Kindle apps and readers. If you want to read books from the Kindle Store on a different device, Calibre can convert them to a different format as long as they don't have DRM enabled. However, since Amazon's AZW format is just MOBI format renamed, you can often just change the file extension yourself and the file will work on many different devices.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

KBR said:


> Books added from Calibre do not show up on Amazon. You can use Calibre to manage what's on your Kindle, but it's not necessary or even desirable. It's just as easy to manually manage the files yourself.


I don't use Calibre -- but I know a lot of folks here find their book management very useful for their purposes -- quite desirable!  -- and easier than devising their own spreadsheet system; it all depends on what any given individual is looking for. I think folks who get a lot of books from other sources than Amazon find it particularly helpful because, of course, Amazon only keeps track of what one gets from them.


> Calibre's RSS options are good if you really want the feeds on your Kindle, but you will need to constantly be plugging your Kindle into your PC to get the feeds. RSS readers on smartphones and computers are more convenient, IMO.


I think one can send them wirelessly -- especially if it is a WiFi Kindle since you can now send _anything_ free to the Kindle by sending to the free.kindle.com address. It will come back to your email address, but will also load to your Kindle if you have WiFi on.



> Where Calibre really shines is converting books to a Kindle compatible format. It does not work with DRM though. For example, authors from this site have sent me several books in .doc format that they would like reviewed. I added them all to Calibre at once. At this very moment, Calibre is converting them to Mobi for me. When that's done, I'll connect my Kindle to my PC and manually add all the Mobi files to my Kindle. On the other hand, I have some really old books in LIT format from Microsoft Reader. Calibre cannot convert them for me as they have DRM.


And of course, the same issue applies with other available converters -- 2EPUB which is web based, or MobiPocket Creator. They all do a decent job of conversions but if there's copy protection -- DRM -- all bets are off.



> If you are looking to read books from Amazon on a Kindle, it's pointless to have Calibre do anything to them. They are already optimized for use on Kindle apps and readers.


Several folks here use Calibre to edit the metadata so they can make sure their books that are part of a series are sorting in order. Also, many have noted that publishers don't list Authors consistently (Last name, First name or First Name Last name) and that can be fixed with Calibre if you are one who likes to sort by authors and have things show up where you expect.



> If you want to read books from the Kindle Store on a different device, Calibre can convert them to a different format as long as they don't have DRM enabled. However, since Amazon's AZW format is just MOBI format renamed, you can often just change the file extension yourself and the file will work on many different devices.


Note that most books by far sold on Amazon will have their DRM scheme in place, so one can't convert them, but there are a lot of the independent authors who have stopped putting DRM on their books sold through Amazon. If the book has a notation that there is an "unlimited" device limitation, that probably means there's no DRM. But the book will have the "azw" extension, even with no DRM, and it is probably available on other sites as a generic "mobi" or "prc" file -- or ePub or something else, even. Which, of course, would mean no need to convert.


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