Calibre

Description

Calibre is a free, open-source, cross-platform e-book manager for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS. You can use it to edit, convert, view and catalog e-books in all major e-book formats; fetch metadata for your books, download newspapers and convert them into e-books.

It is probably the most famous e-book manager, viewer, and converter.

Calibre Review

E-book readers are everywhere. There are choices for everyone, both free and paid, and new ones are coming into existence on a daily basis. Finding out which one is best for your needs can result in a lot of trial and error. This is also true of e-book creation tools, although your choices of these are not as numerous. Finding one program that serves both purposes can cost you a small fortune. Calibre provides you with the ability to read, edit and create e-books and it does so at a cost that fits everybody's budget: free. What's more, the quality of this program equals that of ones costing over a hundred dollars. Let's take a look at Calibre and see if your search for the ideal e-book reader/creator has finally come to an end.

E-book Reader

Calibre calls itself an e-book manager. It is one of the few readers that offers versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It also has a portable Windows version that allows you to load Calibre on a thumb drive. This means that you can use Calibre anywhere your travels take you. Calibre is also designed to detect the type of files your reading device can read, and it will automatically change most files to that format. For example, you have an e-book you usually can read on a Nook, but you happen to have a Kindle available. Usually, you would be out of luck. With Calibre, however, that file would be converted so that you can read it on either device.

Calibre can read all the major e-book formats. The one kind of file it won't read is one that is DRM protected. This means you can't read copyright protected work you would otherwise not have access to. Other than that, you have control over what format you prefer files saved as.

The icons are easy to see and the print is large enough for less-than-perfect eyes. Small print can be a problem with many readers and tired eyes become such a nuisance you can't enjoy what you are reading. This is not the case with Calibre. You can concentrate on the content of the material and not the effort of trying to see the content.

News Reader

The list of magazines and news RSS feeds that you can find on Calibre is extensive. You no longer have to get your daily news over a number of devices. Whatever the format, Calibre will automatically access your subscribed-to feeds and have them ready for you when you want them. The ability to support a Table of Contents comes in handy here as it allows you to see a list of what articles appear in a feed.

E-book Creator

The e-book creation mode of Calibre isn't nearly as impressive as the reader portion, but it is something worth exploring. Creating your own e-books can be difficult, especially when you need to deal with learning how to format them. Calibre can turn your personal documents into e-books or create them from scratch. It has automatic style helpers and scripts that generate the book’s structure. You can spend time writing and not have to worry about how the material will look when you finish.

The e-book creation part of Calibre is sufficient for the majority of writers who use it. It is easy to learn, avoids the learning curve of most creation programs, and doesn't require having to download yet another program.

Highly Customizable

There are many plug-ins that help you enhance Calibre. You don't have to go searching all over the internet for them either, as they all reside within the Calibre library. Because it is open-source, Calibre makes it easy for users anywhere to design enhancements that they feel are needed.

It's already been mentioned that Calibre is usable on the three major operating systems. In addition, it is also available in several languages.

The details you are able to add for each e-book are also extensive enough that you can search for a particular book by name, author, notes, your star rating, genre, publisher and more. You can categorize your books in the way that makes the most sense to you, not somebody else.

What Learning Curve?

Calibre is easy to use. The creator states that you are "never more than three clicks away from your goal" and that is undoubtedly true. In most cases, you don't need three clicks. The menus and icons are all self-explanatory, but there is also added information available by hovering over a certain item. To make things even easier, the Calibre site offers many tutorials to help those of us who are less technically inclined.

Final Analysis

Calibre is possibly the last e-book reader and creator you will ever need. It has been around long enough to prove its worth. You can spend hundreds of dollars looking for more bells and whistles, but in the end, you are just as likely to find them in this program. Anybody who has a collection of e-books needs to check this one out.