Task 2: Conversion

This is arguably the most useful, and most complex, feature calibre offers. Three of the most popular e-book readers today are the Amazon Kindle, the Kobo and the Barnes & Noble Nook. Unfortunately, not all of these devices read the same kinds of e-books. This mess is like the one in the music world where you might find such formats as WMA, MP3 and AAC. In e-books, the same confusion exists—the Tower of eBabel, as some call it.

2.1: Background

If you are only buying e-books from the store associated with your reader—for example, Amazon’s Kindle Store or Kobo’s Store—you don’t need to worry about any of this. But there are very good reasons why you should know about the major formats, what formats your reader supports, and how to convert between formats.

In addition to the big e-books stores, many online sites offer e-books. Everything from public domain works to novels (often offered at no charge) by well known and lesser known authors. The ‘Get books’ icon in the toolbar allows you to easily comparison shop via a store search dialog. This allows you to search many different stores (uncheck or check the stores you want it to use on the left), big and small, at once. It not only helps you find the best price but also the right format for the book you’re looking for. Please note that this feature connects you to a third party, the store, so any issues related to a purchase should be directed to the store itself because calibre is not part of this exchange.

Often you can download e-books in a variety of formats, but you won’t always find them in a format your e-book reader supports. Here is where conversion comes in. There is a very good chance that you will be able to take an e-book and convert it to a format your reader supports. Realize that you can’t convert e-books that use Digital Rights Management (DRM).

In the rest of the conversion section I will focus on three devices. 1) The Amazon Kindle which supports the AZW3 format. 2) The Kobo, which supports the EPUB format. 3) The Barnes & Noble Nook, which also supports the EPUB format. While both the Kobo and Nook use the EPUB format, books purchased from one store may not be readable on another device due to DRM.

2.2: Why are there different e-book formats?

Advances in technology is one reason why so many different e-book formats exist. In fact, it’s a major reason. Just like the transition from VHS to DVD and now to Blu-Ray, older formats which were created to solve the problems faced at that time are replaced with newer formats that better meet the needs of today. A great example of this is the e-books people read back in the ’90s on their PDAs. Those devices were very limited in what they could display. E-book readers today are much more advanced. They can display large images and handle advanced formatting. These newer devices needed updated formats that could provide these features.

E-book formats are constantly evolving. While new formats aren’t introduced very often, existing formats (like EPUB) are constantly being updated. For example, the transition from EPUB 2 to EPUB 3. One big change that comes with EPUB 3 is the ability for EPUB to support audio and video. While supporting audio and video might seem counter intuitive for an e-book, it make sense when you think about e-books as rich media. Coupled with a tablet or phone, audio and video can work very well and greatly enhance the readers experience.

Another major reason for the proliferation of e-book formats is exclusivity. Many vendors like to control their own proprietary format so they are not dependent on outside companies. They also have the benefit of being able to license their format for use by others. Finally, controlling the format allows them to lock users into their platform. E-books, being relatively new, are undergoing the same growing pains that Betamax and VHS or HD-DVD and Blu-Ray went though. The EPUB format, from the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), is an industry standard intended to reduce these problems.

2.3: Conversion basics

The first thing you need to do is find out what formats your e-book reader supports. The Kindle supports AZW3, MOBI, PRC, AZW1, TPZ, PDF and TXT. The Kobo supports EPUB, PDF, MOBI, RTF, CBZ, CBR, and TXT. The Nook supports EPUB, and PDF. Don’t let this scare or confuse you; all of the major e-book readers support multiple formats. Even with this jumble of letters, you only need to worry about the preferred format for the e-book reader. This preferred format is the one that gives the best formatting. As I mentioned earlier for the Kindle, you really only need to worry about AZW3. For the Kobo and Nook you only need to worry about EPUB. However, it is a good idea to be aware of all of the supported formats because it wouldn’t make sense to convert a MOBI to AZW3 for reading on your Kindle because the Kindle can already read MOBI. Conversion is only necessary to fill in the gaps. For example, if you want to read an EPUB on your Kindle you can convert the EPUB to AZW3.

2.4: Auto conversion

Auto converting e-books with calibre is simple and straightforward:

1. Open Calibre and select the e-book to convert in the library list.
2. Connect your e-book reader to your computer. Calibre will take a moment to detect and scan your e-book reader.
3. Click the ‘Send to device’ button in the top tool bar.
4. Calibre is smart enough to know if the book is in a format supported by your reader. If it’s not, calibre will ask you if you want to auto convert. Say yes, and calibre will take care of the conversion and put the book on your reader.

That’s all there is to it. Doing it is easier than it sounds because all you need to do is select the book you want on your device and click ‘Send to device.’ Calibre worries about the formats and converting for you.

2.5: More robust conversion

Auto conversion is the easiest way to go and in most cases will be all you need to do. However, there are a large number of options that give you control over the conversion process. Click the ‘Convert books’ button in the top tool bar. This screen looks very complicated, but realize that the majority of options here don’t need to be changed from the default. Most of the options only need to be changed in special cases. There is one option that is very important and may need to be changed. At the top right there is a drop down for ‘Output format’. This controls what format the conversion will generate. Kindle owners will select AZW3 while Kobo and Nook owners will select EPUB.

In the conversion dialog there are a few things to check before clicking ‘OK’ to begin the conversion. The first thing you need to do is double check the metadata and make adjustments if necessary. Also, click on ‘Look & Feel’ on the left side. The ‘Remove spacing between paragraphs’ option is very popular. It will cause paragraphs to be formatted with an indent at the beginning instead of separating them with a blank line. It makes the result look more like a printed book than the default, which looks a lot like a web page.

Next, click ‘Page Setup’. If you didn’t select your device during the welcome wizard, you can set it here. The input and output profiles provide specialized optimization for your selected device. Be aware that not all formats are affected by the profile.

That’s it for the basic conversion options. Every option in the conversion dialog has a description of what it does and is displayed when you hover the mouse cursor over it. Look through the options and play with them to produce output that suits your taste. Options set in the conversion dialog are saved on a per book basis. Each time you click convert for a particular e-book, the options from the last time you converted it will be remembered. However, your changes will not be applied to other e-books in your library.

Clicking ‘OK’ closes the dialog and begins the conversion.

After the conversion is finished (look at the jobs indicator) click the downward facing arrow to the right of the ‘Send to device’ button. Select one of the ‘Send specific format’ options (main memory is usually the best choice). A dialog will appear asking you which format you want to send. Select the format you chose in the conversion options. This allows you to specify what format you want sent to your device. If you don’t explicitly select a format and you just click the ‘Send to device’ button calibre will send the ‘preferred’ format for the connected reader. The preferred format is based on a configurable preference list which is device specific.

2.6: Limitations of conversion

An issue that often arises during conversion is missing or incomplete formatting. Not all e-book formats support the same formatting, so layout details may be lost when converting from one format to another. Formatting attributes, like bold and italics, will be preserved in most cases but complex page layout may not be. AZW3 and EPUB both support complex formatting, so you won’t have to worry about this as much when converting between these formats.

Conversion will only shift what the input provides into another format. It will not add anything that was not already in the input to the output. If the input is poorly formatted, the output will be too.

There are some conversion options, Search & Replace and Heuristic Processing, that allow for some modification of the e-book’s content. These options should be used with care. Since they modify the e-book’s content there is the possibility of losing something by accident. It’s best to avoid these options unless you know what you’re doing.

2.7: DRM: the bane of conversion

DRM is an acronym for Digital Rights Management.

Let’s think about physical books for a moment. With a physical book, you can lend or resell your book. But when you do either, you are without the book. With e-books, that is not necessarily the case. E-books are just files on your computer and they can be copied any number of times and given away any number of times. DRM was designed to prevent unlimited copying of an electronic file. Some e-book reader users would say that it is a handy way for companies to try to lock users into a specific brand.

DRM “enables” (really it disables) various end-user rights as determined by the publisher and seller. Some DRM’d e-books cannot be read on more than one device. Some will allow for only partial copying and printing. Some may even allow for lending, a feature shared with physical books. Simply put, DRM restricts what you can do with your e-book. I believe that Digital Restrictions Management is a more sutitable name.

An e-book with DRM cannot be converted to a different format. This is because conversion itself would require the removal of the DRM. Not all e-book formats support DRM and different e-book formats support different DRM restrictions. There is no way to move the DRM with the content when converting; thus DRM prevents conversion.

You might be tempted to look for some way to remove DRM from e-books in order to facilitate conversion. A word of warning about doing this: In the USA there is a law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This law makes it illegal to circumvent a copy protection system (DRM is such a copy protection system). It also makes it illegal to produce or distribute tools that aid in circumvention. Not everyone lives in the USA, but many countries have similar laws. Check your local laws and realize that even though you may only want to read an EPUB that you’ve legally purchased on your Kindle, it may not be legal to do so. If you don’t like this silliness—and I don’t—then speak up to whoever in your country makes the relevant laws.