It is becoming more and more normal to borrow e-books and sales are also on the rise. If you also have a huge collection and want to manage your e-books well, the Caliber tool is very handy. We give 12 tips for the program.
Tip 01: Read e-books
A digital version of more and more existing titles is also being published, and an e-book version is immediately available in about eighty percent of the cases. Moreover, there are more and more websites, such as De Slegte and Tom Kabinet, where second-hand e-books are offered. At the same time, it is becoming easier to read e-books. There is a huge range of dedicated e-readers and because the screens of tablets and smartphones have improved considerably, more and more people are reading their books on these devices.
Where things often go wrong is when people buy or download books from different providers and want to read them on different devices. Although epub is the most common format, mobi and azw (Kindle) are also used. In addition, there are especially many older books that are saved in the PDF format. Not all e-readers and apps for smartphones or tablets can handle all these formats. Fortunately, Caliber offers a solution.
Epub2 vs. epub3
With a market share of about 90%, epub is the most popular format for e-books. Less well-known is that we usually talk about epub2, while epub3 is now very much on the rise. This newer format offers possibilities to make an e-book interactive and ensures that audio and video can also be included in books. In addition, the reader has much more influence on the way in which a book can be read.
Keep in mind that epub3 is often not supported by older e-readers. In that case, Caliber fortunately has the option to convert an e-book to the older epub2, although it may happen that you will have to miss certain functionality.
Tip 02: Calibre
Caliber has long been the program to manage your e-books. This free helper supports all (un)known formats and makes it possible to convert your book collection - or part of it - so that you can read them on any device. Unlike virtually all other e-book programs or apps, Caliber is independent and not affiliated with any particular online bookstore. Instead of forced shopping, you can quietly check at which store an e-book is the cheapest and, if necessary, convert that file after purchase with Caliber to a format suitable for your e-reader. And then transfer the book to your device. You can download the latest version of Caliber here, after which you can add your collection of epubs, pdfs, mobis, iBooks or other files in no time.
Tip 03: Link ISBNdb
When you select one or more books in Caliber and press Ctrl+D, you have the option to automatically retrieve the missing metadata (title, author, comment, publisher, cover, etc.) from the Internet. An important source for this is www.isbndb.com. Before Caliber can also access this, you must create an ISBNdb account. Go to the site, choose in the menu for Account and follow the steps. Confirm your registration by clicking on the link you will receive by email. Select now on ISBNdb.com with your account for Developer Area / Remote Access API / Manage Access Keys and press Generate new key. Then copy the generated eight-character key to the clipboard.
In Caliber, choose Preferences / Download Metadata and click at the bottom left Source on ISBNdb. If you haven't configured anything here yet, there will be a red cross in front of it. Then click the button Configure selected source. Paste now isbnDB key the key and click Save. When you now look up the metadata of a book, the ISBNdb database will also be consulted from now on. You can consult this database a maximum of five hundred times per day.
Via ISBNdb you automatically add metadata to your books Tip 04: Convert to Word
It is also possible to convert books in Caliber to docx, so that you can edit them in, for example, Microsoft Word or another word processor. To do this, right-click on a book and choose . in the menu Convert Books / Convert Individually. Now choose back at the top right Output format in front of DOCX. Then click OK to convert the book. When converting, the original format is kept and a copy is made in new format. You can then open this by clicking on a book in the library, on the right (section Details) behind Formats clicking DOCX.
Tip 05: Virtual Libraries
As your collection of books grows, it may be nice to start categorizing your collection into genres, such as "Novels", "My Favorite Authors", "English Language", "Unread" and so on. This is largely possible by giving your books tags, but Caliber also has the option of creating so-called virtual libraries. Only a specific part of your collection is shown here as a sub-collection, based on, for example, search term, author and/or tag. It's a convenient way to keep your library organized without having to keep your books in different locations.
At the top left of Caliber, click Virtual library and choose Create virtual library. First give your virtual library an appropriate name. Then enter a search query or choose a saved search. You can also click at the bottom authors, Labels, Publishers and so on and thus build a library. Then click OK to save your library. Extra tip: press again Virtual library and choose Show virtual libraryas tabs to be able to quickly switch between your sub-collections with a mouse click.
Tip 06: De-doubling
If you are someone who fanatically downloads (free) books from various places, there is a good chance that sooner or later you will have duplicate titles in your collection. This is certainly not noticeable when you have thousands of e-books in your collection. Fortunately, a handy plugin for Caliber called Find Duplicates comes in handy for keeping your collection tidy. To install it, go to Preferences and choose Plugins under Advanced. Click now Get New Plugins, choose from the list that appears Find Duplicates and then press to install. You will need to restart Caliber and after that you will see a new button called Find Duplicates found in the toolbar. Click on this, enter any parameters and after a few seconds an overview of all duplicate or very similar books will appear.
Tip 07: Adjust appearance
Although Caliber has much more to offer than all other e-book programs, not everyone is equally charmed by the appearance. By default, Caliber is quite business-like and a first step to do something about this is by clicking the buttons at the bottom right with which you can use the cover browser and/or it cover grid turns on. You can view this view via the button Preferences / Appearance feeling (below Interface) completely to your liking.
Also interesting here is the tab Main window, where you're under Icons theme You can make Caliber show other icons that are also resizable. You can also choose a different font and change colors.
Tip 08: More metadata
In tip 3 you read how you can consult ISBNdb for missing metadata of your books. There are two other important sources that are not consulted as standard: www.bol.com and www.amazon.nl. However, these can still be added to Caliber via plug-ins. To do this, go to the section Get New Plugins (see tip 6) and install the plugins BOL_NL and Amazon.comMultiple Countries. Restart Caliber. Now press Ctrl+D and then choose for Configure download. Switch BOL_NL and Amazon.com Multiple Countries by putting a check in front of it. Click on the button for this last one Configure selected source and at the bottom make sure the Amazon website of the Netherlands is selected.
Extra tip: interesting at Resources for Metadata is the column Cover priority. Depending on the number shown here (the lower, the more preferable) Caliber will locate and download a cover in that spot if it's missing.
Secure Books
As discussed, there are several file formats for e-books and not all of these files can be modified. Some files are protected and therefore cannot be converted. This includes books from Amazon (.AZW files) and .epub or PDF files with DRM protection.
Tip 09: Moving library
Do you want to move your Caliber collection to a different location, for example because you have more storage space there? Fortunately that is very easy. In the toolbar, choose caliber library and choose at the bottom of the window for Move the currently used library to the new location. Now use the back button New location to select the other spot and choose OK.
You can easily move your Caliber bookcase to another location Tip 10: Caliber Server
Most people connect their e-reader, tablet or smartphone via a USB cable to the computer running Caliber to read e-books via the function Send to device to transfer. Another way to do this (wirelessly) is to enable the built-in Caliber server. You do this via the button Connect/Share / Start Content Server. You can then, by typing the IP address of that computer on another device in the browser and adding :8080, book with you anywhere in your network. Caliber also supports Open Publication Distribution System (opds), which makes sharing even easier. Install an app like Marvin, FBReader, or any other eBook app that knows opds on your Android or iOS device and you can easily search and transfer your book collection remotely. You can configure the server via Preferences / Sharing via (Inter)net. Caliber Server does not use https by default, so the exchange of data is not secure. Only use this server within your own network, unless you know how to apply a security layer yourself.
Tip 11: Newsreader
In Caliber it is possible to obtain all kinds of news from external sources via RSS and to automatically turn it into an e-book or e-magazine at set times. By default, there are more than 1600 news sources at home and abroad from which you can make a selection: a handy way to ensure that the highlights are shown daily in Caliber – or your mobile device – in e-book format. Tap the button at the top of the toolbar Download news to get an overview of all news sources, classified by country. Make your choice and indicate the frequency with which the news should be retrieved. News that has been brought in can be found on the left under the label News. Caliber uses standard RSS feeds to bring in news. If you want to add another news source, click on the arrow next to the Download news button and choose Add a custom news source.
A handy way to make sure you get all the news as an e-book every day Tip 12: Caliber Companion
The easiest way to transfer your eBooks to your Android or iOS devices via Caliber is via the relatively new Caliber Companion app available for these two platforms. Install the app on your smartphone/tablet, then select the books you want to share in Caliber and choose Connect/Share / Connect Wireless Device. Of course you can also contact Caliber Server (tip 10) and download e-books to your mobile device. Caliber Companion is primarily intended to properly organize your digital library. To actually read books, you need a separate e-reader app.
The History of Caliber
The ancestor of Caliber – Linprs500 – was born in 2006, the year in which the first commercial e-ink device appeared on the market: the PRS-500. This reader from Sony did not work with Linux and also used the different lrf file format for the books. Kovid Goyal therefore developed the Linprs500 assistant, with which the PRS-500 could also communicate with Linux PCs and it became possible to convert other e-book formats to lrf and vice versa. In 2008 Linprs500 got a graphical shell and because it now also supported other e-book readers, it was renamed Caliber. A nice detail is that, according to the maker, you should pronounce this name as 'Calibre' and not as 'Ca-libre'.
In the years since, Caliber has become the go-to tool for managing and editing eBook libraries and is available in dozens of different languages. Where today many e-readers more or less force the user to purchase e-books from a certain store and offer little flexibility, Caliber strives to let you decide where you buy your books and on which devices you read them. And that may well be donated.
