14 DAY TRIAL // Although Calibre has been designed as an ebook library management tool, its abilities stretch beyond neatly organizing digital books so you can easily find any of them. The application can also convert between different ebook formats, send them to your reading device or read them on the computer.
It is free of charge and there is also a portable version if you do not want to go through the installation process. When launching the application for the first time you have to go through some brief configuration steps.
These include choosing the work language and an ebook reader. As far as the latter is concerned, there are plenty of options to pick from as Calibre has support for all major readers and several of the less known brands.
These include devices from Amazon (Kindle DX, PaperWhite, Fire and Touch), Barnes and Noble (Nook Color, Tablet/HD, Nook and Simple Reader), Kobo (Vox and Touch Readers) or Sony. Android and iOS tablets are also on the support list.
As for the file formats that can be converted with Calibre, the list is pretty rich, and it obviously includes the most popular ones: MOBI, EPUB, AZW3, CHM, PDF, HTMLZ, LIT, CBZ, CBR, FB2. A full list from the developer is available here.
The interface is intuitive and easy to work with, as the focus is on the items in the library and on the tools available for finding and organizing them. Adding a new item to the list is as simple as dragging and dropping it into the application window.
In the upper part of the main screen, there is the toolbar, filled with options that allow you to add books from a directory (recursive), edit the metadata of an entry in the library, start a conversion process (individual or in batch), start reading a book, backup the library or access the configuration panel of the application.
To the left of the library, there are viewing options that can be used to display the books of a specific author, those written in a particular language or from certain publishers. Further options include showing the entries by format, rating, tags or identifiers.
Double-clicking on a book in the library launches it in the viewer. It is nothing fancy, just an interface that allows you to read the book on the computer. The options available include increasing/decreasing the font size, accessing the Table of Contents or bookmarking various locations in the text.
The viewer comes with search capabilities and can be toggled to full-screen mode.
We noticed during our tests that it does not run smoothly, especially on lower specced systems. Occasionally, launching a book is not as snappy as we wished and scrolling does occur with a slight delay, especially in the case of items with images.
The metadata that accompanies each entry includes name of the author, rating, tags, publisher as well as the date it has been added to the library.
Selecting an item brings forward even more details, if available, such as comments, the cover image, the formats it is available in or a brief review. If no metadata is present, you can create it yourself.
However, the application can connect to various online resources, such as Google or Amazon, and download it automatically.
Converting a book to a different format can be accomplished easily, with the default settings; but if you want to customize the output, there is a wide array of options to fiddle with. Apart from editing metadata, you can tweak the overall look and feel of the result in terms of font, its alignment or spacing of the lines.
Calibre comes with “heuristic processing,” a feature designed to correct glitches based on common patterns detected during scanning. The option is turned off by default because the process is not foolproof and relies on patterns. Its usage is recommended when the regular conversion does not attain the desired results.
If you are preparing a book for a reading device, the application can make things easier on you by offering profiles for the supported ebook readers.
Although chapters are detected automatically, Calibre offers the possibility to control the creation of the ToC (table of contents) or generate it automatically.
However, for the books without a ToC, you can create one for EPUB or AZW3 files, prior to the conversion. The option is not in plain view, though, and you have to add it to the interface manually, from the “Toolbar” section of the application’s configuration panel; and this is no easy task unless you are already familiar with the program and its nooks and crannies.
Our tests were conducted mostly on Kindle PaperWhite and, apart from some minor layout glitches present at the beginning of the book, everything worked properly.
Calibre is quite versatile in options and it also provides the possibility to create a server in order to access the library online. Furthermore, you can use the application to send books in the library to a specific email address.
Another feature on the list is news fetching. The application can connect to about 1,500 online sources from all over the world to retrieve information. If none of the available entries suits your needs, you can add your own news feeds.
All of them can be scheduled to be downloaded with a specific frequency and you can also program the application to remove outdated entries.
The Good
The Bad
In the case of books with plenty of images, execution of the actions is carried out with noticeable delay, especially on less powerful machines.
