# Calibre? Why?



## Bookbear1 (Aug 27, 2010)

I have been looking at Calibre.  Bearing in mind that I never read books on my computer (only on the Kindle), what advantages does using Calibre offer me?  I see it as a way of (perhaps) searching a very large collection of books by topic or key words (tags), but unless I read the book on my computer (which I don't do), how does it help me with the Kindle?

Not looking to start an argument, just curious if I am missing something that is blindingly obvious to others.


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## MrPLD (Sep 23, 2010)

For one, it lets you convert ePub books over to mobi (Kindle).  As for the others, well I don't use it for anything else yet


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I mainly use it for format conversions, but I know some people use it for organizing as well, including altering the "meta data" for consistency in sorting, authors' names, series numbering, and so forth. You might want to check out the demos when you have a little time to see what interests you (if anything): http://calibre-ebook.com/demo .


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## RodGovers (Jun 7, 2010)

You might find that some of the topics here will encourage you to try Calibre:

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=166


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## TheKindleWorm (Sep 11, 2010)

I guess for someone who only ever gets books from Amazon and isn't interested in building up a library of non-amazon books or converting books then Calibre may seem like overkill.

I don't use Calibre to read books on my PC although you can.

I use it to store my very large collection of books which come from many different sources online. So it's a way of storing ALL my ebooks in one central location. It's also useful for searching through a large book collection because you can group related books into categories or add series info etc. I like to add custom columns so I can Mark off books as being read and the year in which I read them so I can see how many books I'm reading in a year - sad but true 

Brillint for converting formats - so converting files that wouldnt work with a Kindle so they can be read on a Kindle.

And also you can get newsfeeds via Calibre and email them straight to your Kindle - you can also email books as well.

So lots and lots of different uses. But maybe not so much just for a casual reader but probably better suited to die-hard readers!


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## chilady1 (Jun 9, 2009)

I am an avid user of Calibre and have been donating to this program for about two years.  When I found Calibre, it was like my prayers were answered because it had a lot of features that I wanted in an e-book management system.  The other great thing is that the support is truly unparalleled.  There is a new release of Calibre almost every Friday which fixes bugs that have been reported along with providing new functionality.  I have no association with any of the Calibre programmers so this is truly my opinion.  The application itself has come a long way since I first started using it two years ago with my Kindle 2.  Here are a few of the reasons I submit to you on why to use Calibre:

1.  It's free - but through donations (which are unsolicited) the programmers provide terrific support.  You can actually talk to them on MobileRead.  Plus, many of the users have extensive knowledge and provide a lot of answers to questions.
2.  Converts pretty much any other format into mobi Kindle format.  This in and of itself makes the program worth it.  I don't buy my ebooks exculsively from Amazon - many times I get free non-DRM books that are in epub or other formats and conversion with Calibre is a breeze.
3.  By using plugins and tweaks I am now able to manage and add Collections to my Kindle and also download books in series order.  This saves a lot of manual work.
4.  The ability to change the metadata to show how I want it.

These are just some of the reasons I love this program and would probably pay for it if it wasn't free.  For basic functions like adding books, changing metadata and conversion - it's pretty straight forward.  Some of the more advanced functions take a little work to get set up, but I find the people at MobileRead very helpful all the times I have asked questions.

Calibre isn't for everyone I grant you that - but for me, it has made my Kindle experience much better.


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## caseyf6 (Mar 28, 2010)

I'm so glad you posted this...my brother had suggested a non-DRM epub book that I really want to read, but I couldn't figure out how to get it on my Kindle.  DUH.


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## Bookbear1 (Aug 27, 2010)

Thanks one and all for your thoughtful replies!


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## NotActive (Jan 24, 2011)

content


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