[Resource] – Calibre ebook management software

This week’s resource I’m highlighting is the piece of software called Calibre.

Calibre is  a powerful and easy to use e-book manager.

Copying from their site, you can use it to…

• Save time on managing your e-book collection
• Use it everywhere and with anything
• Comprehensive e-book viewer
• Download news/magazines from the web
• Share and backup your library easily
• Edit the books in your collection
• Satisfy every e-book need and get support

When I first tried Calibre a few years ago, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the way it moved everything into its own structure. But a while ago I was talked into trying it again but given some advice on setting things up and a few tweaks. That was all I needed. Now I have things close to how I had it before, but with the excellent tagging and search features. Now comes the log of inputting all the fields I need into the database. But, I only have to do this once.

Other features of Calibre I really like are:

• Tagging – If a title contains, for example, dragons but does not have that word in the title I can tag it as such. This makes future references much easier.
• Customise the program – Want to hide certain columns, you can do that..add your own…can do that as well. Cange how the program sorts things? Yup can do that. The default settings are useful for most people, but those who want to “get under the hood” as it were and tweak thins, you can do that as well. Just make sure you follow any warnings the program gives you as a few changes are irreversible.
• Bulk Changes – You have 30 files, all about weapons. You can tag each one on their own or select multiple and input once – Boom, all those selected files now have the “weapon” tag.

A caveat – the program isn’t perfect – When importing your library, check everything , as it does it’s best, but if the pdf you are putting in does not have the right data, it will not always have the right fields filled out – It gives you it’s the best shot it can, but you may end up with the information in wrong fields. But this is easily corrected and is in no way a deal breaker.

The wiki/support they have is pretty good, but may go over the head of first time users – but don’t let that put you off. Only change things you need to change. You’ll probably I most the default setting are acceptable for you.

And most importantly, this software is free, but as with any free service, I very much recommend supporting the maker in any way you can.