Installing calibre

The installation processes starts by downloading the installer for your operating system. Run the installer; when it finishes, launch calibre. You will be greeted with a welcome wizard, that will help you initially configure calibre. The first page of the wizard allows you to choose the storage location for your e-book library.

If this is your first time using calibre, the storage location should not be an existing e-book collection, but a new empty directory for calibre’s exclusive use. Calibre manages the e-books you give it in its own way. Think of the storage location as a black box. You don’t do anything with it – calibre manages the storage location for you. If you have used calibre in the past and are installing a new version, or if you have moved your library, then it’s okay to indicate a directory with an existing calibre library. Calibre is smart enough to know to use an existing library when it sees one.

Click ‘next’ in the welcome wizard to be presented with an e-book reader selection. If your device is not listed, or if you intend to use more than one e-book reader, don’t panic – just use the default ‘Generic’ choice. This selection provides some conversion optimization for formats requiring fixed sizes. Click ‘next’ and then ‘finish’.

Congratulations, you’ve successfully installed and configured calibre! If at any time you want to run the welcome wizard again, click the downward facing arrow to the right of the Preferences button (looks like a set of three gears) in the top tool bar, then select ‘Run welcome wizard’.