ebooks | Calibre Questions

I have some dumb Calibre questions I was hoping someone could help me with. I find the mobileread Calibre thread pretty intimidating and too techy to go ask newbie questions, but it seems there's some pretty knowledgeable people here too, so maybe you can help.

First, among the books I've loaded into my Calibre library, there are some .doc files. Calibre is unable to convert these in any way. I assume I have to convert them manually, but what is the best format to convert them to before I add them back to Calibre? Do I have to delete the originals from Calibre entirely and then re-add them and redo all the metadata or is there a better way to just convert the existing files? Anyone know the reason Calibre doesn't do anything related to .doc files? I'd think with OpenOffice, they'd be able to do conversions at the least.

ETA: using the method below(http://ebooks.dreamwidth.org/29142.html?thread=196054#cmt196054) I was able to convert my .docs to epub, with the following caveats: some of the doc files had embedded images and those I converted to filtered html instead of rtf; one of the files had to be manually merged with its original because somehow the title got changed; I haven't looked at them on my ereader to see how they look, but in the Calibre viewer they look fine; I don't really care about file size so I wasn't paying any attention to that.

Second, I'm pretty sure I don't have Adobe ADE installed, just their pdf reader. I have a few secured pdfs I'd like to convert to a different format. I don't have any of the deDRM tools installed because I try to avoid buying DRM'd books, but it would also be nice to get books from the library. Is there any point in me adding the deDRM plugins if I don't want to install ADE or Kindle4PC or any of those type of programs? Is it possible to deDRM library books without installing ADE?

What other Calibre plugins do you use? What do they do and how easy are they to use? (I ask because there are a few plugins that look promising to me, but it seems the most recent edition of Calibre has quite a few bugs and you need to update to that to use them. I'm currently using 7.40)

Next, a lot of times Calibre can't find the metadata for my books using Googlebooks. It is available on Goodreads and I end up cutting and pasting. Is it worth it for me to sign up for an isbndb.com account so Calibre can check there for the metadata? Is it more or less complete than Googlebooks?

Lastly and not Calibre related, has anyone here used the PRS+ hack? I'd like the dictionary function, (I love it on my eBookwise) but if it screws other things up, I'd rather not bother. I'm just wondering if it's more trouble than it's worth or is it something you can't live without.

For the record I have a Sony 505 and an eBookwise.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm definitely not a Calibre expert (I only use it for conversion, not library management), so hopefully someone will jump in with more help.

The best format to convert .doc to is .rtf; they're almost identical, except .rtf ("Rich Text Format") doesn't have Word's coding shortcuts, so the filesizes tend to be larger for anything that has substantial feature-use. Like page breaks.

I don't know why Calibre doesn't do .doc conversion; it's possible that the coding part of OpenOffice that do so aren't easily adapted to other programs. Microsoft doesn't like other programs being able to open .doc files, so they make them hard to translate.

I don't think Calibre will convert the existing files; they probably need to be removed and re-added. You can put some metadata in .doc & .rtf files; in Word, going to "File-->Properties" gets a menu with multiple tabs; the "Summary" tab will let you fill in title & author, and Calibre will import those (and if you convert to PDF, the converter should also keep those.)

I've heard very good things about PRS+, but have not tried it myself.

I don't think you can de-DRM ADE books without having ADE; I think the decrypter needs a file with a registration ID #, which is assigned when you download through ADE. (I cope with this by bypassing all DRM'd ebooks, including library books.)

they probably need to be removed and re-added

You won't need to remove and re-add stuff. Consider this a placeholder for a fuller comment explaining how to just add the RTF files and have them combined with all the metadata work you do.

I've signed up for isbndb.com because it has more book covers than Googlebooks but I don't use other people's metadata so I can't help with that.

de-DRM ADE books requires ADE.

Looking forward to reading your comment.

Thanks for the info on isbndb. Mostly what I'm after are the summaries. I use my own metadata too.

Amazing write-up! This could aid plenty of people find out more about this particular issue. Are you keen to integrate video clips coupled with these? It would absolutely help out. Your conclusion was spot on and thanks to you; I probably won’t have to describe everything to my pals. I can simply direct them here!

Thanks for answering. You have been quite helpful so far.

I don't think Calibre will convert the existing files; they probably need to be removed and re-added.

Let me run this by you and see if you think it will work: All my doc files are tagged and organized already, so could I use the 'send to disk' function to copy them all to a folder, then just convert them all to rtf. Add those rtf files back to Calibre, then merge them with the original tagged .doc files to get all the metadata added without me having to redo it all?

I'm with you on avoiding DRM'd books. So far it hasn't been a problem for me at all, but at the same time I kinda want to install the tools just in case, you know? But I don't want to add all the required DRM-compliant programs. I guess for now I'll just keep avoiding it until that one special books comes along that I just can't resist.

Add those rtf files back to Calibre, then merge them with the original tagged .doc files to get all the metadata added without me having to redo it all?

That's what I'd do. Before you do that, open calibre, open preferences, go to Add books, check the box for "If books with similar titles and authors found, merge the new files automatically". That causes the new format to be added to the existing file for that book and preserves all of the metadata for that book.

If ever you need to merge manually, you can do that from the main screen under "edit metadata". You select the file you are merging into and then select the file to be merged (Ctrl+click) and then select the option from the "edit metadata" drop-down.

Thank you for the help! I wouldn't have thought to change the preferences and it's great to have directions on how to do it manually too.

It is also worth noting that if you go to a record in calibre and select the 'Edit Metadata' option - in the top right hand corner is a list of available formats for that record. That box allows you to add, remove (and import metadata from) specific formats.

It is possible to remove all the formats and leave just the record and metadata but with no actual file attached - so delete the Doc file but leave all the information there. Equally, you can just add new formats into the record and leave the Doc file for completeness/archiving.

So, for example, you could just add the RTF and/or HTML versions to the record. Then when you go to convert to the format you want, when you go to the 'convert' page you select which of the formats you want to convert from the 'input format' dropdown in the top-left hand corner and convert away.

Oh, I'll take a look at that and play around. I just assumed that box was so that you'd know which files you were editing the metadata for if you had several similar books.

If you don't have Word on your computer, Calibre won't be able to convert doc files. Word is the default software for opening doc files in Calibre at the start of the conversion process, and (as far as I know) will not go searching for other doc-compatible software on your computer. As you mention you have Open Office, I'd recommend you convert the doc files to html, import the html file into Calibre and then convert to epub.

I actually do have Word installed too. (I have the Open Office for Powerpoint stuff, which I don't have.)

From the Calibre wiki I got the impression that Calibre can't do anything with .doc files. Am I wrong about that then?

Hmm, I don't recall ever having a problem converting anything in Calibre, but it is possible I've never actually tried to convert a doc file. I just checked my Calibre and right enough - almost every type of file except doc. Whoops.

*grins* You're smarter than me for avoiding them.

Ha! Actually I had the 'won't convert without Word' problem when I used Mobipocket, so I converted all my docs to pdf.

My hack is to convert the Word files to html, and then use calibre to convert the html to epub (for my Sony reader). The thing is, I have a word2html utility (not free, but fairly cheap) so it's relatively clean; I dunno what happens if you use the "save as" function to make those horrendously bloated html files that Word natively generates.

*nods* That makes sense. The fact that it's not freeware is probably why it's not built into Calibre. I think I'll try the rtf method first. With merging back to the originals I shouldn't lose the covers or formatting. *crosses fingers*

Calibre Questions

no subject

no subject

no subject

herve leger

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject