How to Calibre

It’s time to organize those ARCs and beta books.

Download the software and install it on your computer. Again, there are options for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. There is a fix for portable devices. More on that next week.

On the main screen, the ribbon across the top shows the primary functions of the program: Add, Edit, Covert, View, Donate, News, Help, Remove, Library, and Save. You may not use all the options of the software. I’ll highlight the most used options.

Add

Adding books to Calibre merely involves uploading a file. Usually, these files will be word processing files (doc, docx, txt, etc.). Click the Add button to open the file system, find your doc, and press Open. The default for “file to open” is Book. You can click the down arrow to filter by ePub, Kindle, HTML, and more types. Narrowing the search can find your files quickly. There are other options to add books. Press the small arrow next to the Add button. The menu allows users to upload multiple books from multiple files, upload ZIP files, and more. The last option lets you manage how Calibre uploads books.

Edit Metadata

This option allows the user to tweak the metadata on a single title. Books must already be uploaded to Calibre. Select a book and press the metadata button. This opens the “behind the scenes” of the book. Title, Series, Author, Publisher, Pub Date, and cover can be changed. I usually delve in here to change the author name (as my copy of Word is registered under another name.) Do this only for your own books!

Convert Books

This option is to change the format of a book you already have on your computer. Perhaps an ARC you received won’t load up on your mobile device or looks odd on your PC. You can change the format of the book to another type. Upload the book to Calibre (using Add), select the file, and press the Convert button. The next screen will show a large version of the cover. In the upper right-hand corner, the Output drop-down menu has several formats to convert, including ePub, MOBI, docx, HTML, and more. Select the appropriate output and click the Okay button at the bottom of the screen. You can also change a book’s metadata here. But again, only change your own books.

View Books

This feature allows you to read the books in your Calibre library. Select a book before you click the button. The book will open, fully formatted, in a small window. Scroll down through the pages to read. It’s that simple. And, of course, there’s a catch. If the book is ePub, it will open the viewer. If the file is a doc or docx, it will open Word. TXT will open in a text reader. If you want to see the manuscript as a book, open the ePub file. If you’ve converted the book to multiple formats and want to see one type, first pick the desired format. Then click the down arrow next to the View button. Choose View Specific Format. On the next window, choose the format, and Okay.

Get Books

This feature allows Calibre to search through the retailers you select (left side) to find a title you wish to read/own. The list is extensive. Calibre only finds the title for you; it doesn’t purchase it. The software will direct you to the retailer to purchase/borrow the book. You can search by author, title, or keywords. It’s a great way to find those elusive titles or the best price. The arrow on the button’s side makes a quicker search by author, title, or going directly to the store.

Heart

The heart links you to a donation site for Calibre. As the software is completely free, they rely on donations. My thought is if you use the app, pay for it.

Fetch News

The Fetch News button will gather news from various sources and download it into the software for viewing. I haven’t played with this feature much. But you can choose your news source, schedule the download, and peruse the articles on your computer via the app. The articles will be in ebook form for easy reading.

Calibre Library

Once you’ve added multiple books to the app, sorted, changed, and adapted them, you can access them through the main screen or use the library. You can further sort your titles by creating small libraries for them. Maybe you want to keep the romances and horror stories separate. The library button will assist you in organizing your files. I plan on exploring this option more.

Save to Disk

This option is important for authors who have converted their documents to ePub or other book formats. After you convert, the file still resides with Calibre. You will need to save your file to the disk to access it to upload to retailers. Click the book you want to save and hit the button. Options include saving only the ePub, choosing a single folder, or saving another format besides ePub (if you have converted the file into other formats.)

Calibre has so much more. We could spend the rest of the winter with the multiple options available through this free software. In the interest of time, I’m going to leave you with this basic understanding of the app. Explore and let me know if you found so cool features I missed.

Next week, we will look at Calibre specifically for authors.