Calibre vs Kindlian

2023. Calibre 7.0 adds innovative notes feature, audio EPUB support



Kovid Goyal, the creator of Calibre, has unveiled Calibre 7.0, the latest stable release of the widely acclaimed cross-platform, open-source e-book management software. With this update, users gain the capability to store notes enriched with links, images, and formatted text for elements such as authors, series, publishers, and tags. Calibre 7.0 revolutionizes the e-book landscape by introducing support for "Audio EPUB" books, featuring pre-recorded voices reading the text, although the developer acknowledges potential issues with this feature on Linux systems due to patented codecs. Additionally, the release addresses a longstanding user request by allowing seamless storage and management of "data" files associated with a book, making the process of adding extra data files straightforward through a simple selection and right-click action.


2023. Calibre improves metadata editor



Calibre has released a new version 6.17, which brings several new features and enhancements. One notable addition is the support for WOFF format fonts and CID keyed fonts in font subsetting, resulting in further reduction of file sizes. Additionally, when data files are present, the book details now include a convenient link to open the data files folder. The template language has been upgraded with various functions that allow users to query the extra files associated with a book. In the Edit book feature, users can now compress images in the WEBP format. The comments editor has also been improved, offering buttons to easily create links to data files and folders when inserting a link. Furthermore, users can now display the id, formats, and path columns through Preferences, allowing for more customization. A new button has been added to the trash bin, enabling users to easily clear its contents. Lastly, the metadata editor now utilizes a dedicated editor with a preview option for custom columns that store Markdown formatted text.


2023. Calibre now allows to read books aloud with more voices



New Calibre's update brings more voices to Read Aloud feature. It works only on Windows because uses Microsoft speech subsystem. When Read aloud is speaking, you can make the control bar translucent so that words under the bar are visible. There is a number of other new features. Spell check dialog now allows Up and Down arrow keys to work regardless of focus. Edit book feature now allows automatic fixing of various simple CSS errors. And File browser allows using keyboard shortcuts to re-order the spine. Also from the library you can now open the book folder easily. Add by ISBN feature now allows adding using identifiers other than ISBN as well. The update is bundled Qt to 6.4 this means calibre on macOS is now only supported on Big Sur and newer.


2022. Ebook catalog software Calibre 6.3 fine-tunes full text search



In several updated Calibre developers added some new improvements and bug fixes for full-text search, introduced in version 6. They added a button to re-index a book - useful if the book's contents have been changed outside calibre. Search queries start supporting quoting using "docstrings" for easier escaping. The search now ignores soft hyphens when extracting searchable text from books (though you will have to re-index your library to take advantage of this). The e-book viewer now allows searching for nearby words using a new "Nearby words" search mode. New fts_search and fts_index commands allow to perform full text searching from the command line.


2022. Calibre 6.0 now has text to speech and full text search



Calibre has recently released a significant update to its ebook management software, introducing several noteworthy features. The standout feature is Full Text Search, which offers the option to index your entire library, enabling you to search for specific words or phrases throughout your collection. To utilize this feature, simply click on the FT button located to the left of the search bar, allowing you to initiate the library indexing process. Once indexing is complete, you can perform searches within your library. Another prominent addition is the Read Aloud feature, which leverages your computer's default voice assistant, including Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, and Cortana, to read any ebook in your library. Furthermore, you have the flexibility to adjust the playback speed, catering to your preferred pace. Additionally, Calibre now provides support for Apple Silicon CPU architectures without the need for Rosetta translation. This enhancement is particularly significant, as the app is now optimized for Apple laptops and the Apple Studio computer, equipped with the M1 and M2 chips, respectively.


2021. Calibre added support for the 11th Gen Kindle Paperwhite 5



Ebook management software Calibre has just added support for the brand new Kindle Paperwhite and you can now manage your e-readers collection when having it plugged into your PC or MAC. Furthermore, this release adds support for EPUB 3 landmarks in the Set Semantics tool under the Edit Book component and moves the option that allows Calibre to recognize numbers when sorting from Preferences > Tweaks to Preferences > Behavior. Calibre is one of the best ebook management software in the world, millions of users use the program. It can do some powerful stuff, such as fetch missing metadata on ebooks that you downloaded from the internet, such as book covers. It has an ebook viewer, which can edit titles, can download magazines from the internet and import your collection of books from your PC right to the e-reader, at the click of a button. Calibre


2020. Calibre 5 adds highlighting to ebook viewer



Cross-platform eBook management, reading, and editing software Calibre saw a new release. There has been a lot of work on the calibre E-book viewer. It now supports Highlighting. The highlights can be colors, underlines, strikethrough, etc. and have added notes. All highlights can be both stored in EPUB files for easy sharing and centrally in the calibre library for easy browsing. Additionally, the E-book viewer now supports both vertical and right-to-left text. calibre has also moved to using Python 3. This is because Python 2 was end-of-lifed this year. This should be completely transparent to calibre users, the only caveat being that some third party calibre plugins have not yet been ported to Python 3 and therefore will not work in calibre 5


2019. Calibre 4.0 improves Content server



The new version of popular ebook management software Calibre is making its Content server ever more capable. It has gained the ability to Edit metadata, Add/remove books and even Convert books to and from all the formats calibre itself supports. It is now a full fledged interface to your calibre libraries. Besides, the new version is built on the new web browser engine Qt WebEngine. The change to use Qt WebEngine has entailed a complete rewrite of various parts of calibre, including the E-book viewer, PDF Output, Book details etc. Every attempt has been made to preserve features and functionality in a backwards compatible way, see below for a list of some known incompatibilities.


2019. Calibre adds support for the Nook Glowlight Plus 7.8



Calibre has just announced that they have official support for the new Barnes and Noble Nook Glowlight Plus. This means when you plug the e-reader into your PC via the USB cable, it will now be recognized. This new is good news for anyone who uses the software and has their own collection of ebooks, comics, magazines or newspapers they want to read on their Nook.


2018. Calibre added support for the Kindle Paperwhite 4



The popular ebook management program, Calibre, has introduced support for the new Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 4. As a result, the program can now recognize your Paperwhite device, enabling you to seamlessly transfer a wide range of content such as documentation, ebooks, manga, PDF files, and more directly to your Paperwhite. In addition, Calibre has introduced new features including metadata plugboards, which allow you to define plugboards that modify comments metadata, and a convenient keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+M) in the E-book viewer for easily toggling between paged and flow mode. Calibre is compatible with Windows, MAC, and Linux operating systems. With its comprehensive metadata support, Calibre makes it simple to fix any issues with ebooks downloaded from the internet, such as incorrect author information or missing cover art, with just a few clicks of a button.


2018. Kindlian 4 is like iTunes for your Kindle


Kindlian 4 is the latest release from AlfaNetSoft, offering an innovative software solution for managing Kindle books and collections. With Kindlian 4, you now have a new approach to organizing your Kindle library. The concept revolves around managing your library exclusively on your PC, while using your Kindle solely for reading purposes. Essentially, it functions like iTunes for your e-reader. When you initially connect your Kindle to Kindlian, it automatically backs up all your books to your computer. Creating collections and adding books to them becomes effortless through a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface. While collections are not synced from the Kindle itself due to Amazon's restrictions on third-party access to the collections file, you can easily arrange and rearrange collections in a matter of seconds, thanks to a wide array of options for viewing, sorting, and searching books. In addition to its library management features, the new Kindlian also includes a built-in reader, allowing you to preview non-DRM books on your PC. Furthermore, it features a converter that enables you to convert non-Kindle books to the MOBI format. With your entire library stored on your computer, you can confidently remove the majority of books and collections from your Kindle, leaving only a few that you are currently reading.


2017. calibre 3.0 improves Content server



The latest release of the ebook catalog software, Calibre 3, is now available. One of the most prominent additions is a completely revamped calibre Content server. This enhanced server enables users to wirelessly browse their calibre book collection on modern smartphones and tablets, and even read books directly within the phone's browser. Notably, the books are stored in offline storage on the device, eliminating the need for a continuously active internet connection or the Calibre software running in the background. Additionally, Calibre 3 now offers native support for high-resolution (Retina) screens and allows the installation of various icon themes to cater to different preferences. It also introduces the capability to convert supported book formats into Microsoft Word (DOCX) files. Furthermore, users can seamlessly transition between Word documents and e-book formats, enabling greater flexibility and convenience.


2014. Calibre 2.0 gets ebook editor



Kovid Goyal has recently launched the latest version of his ebook manager, Calibre 2.0. The standout feature of this update is the inclusion of an e-book editor that supports editing EPUB and AZW3 (Kindle) formats, equipped with a range of powerful tools and features specifically designed to simplify the editing process. Moreover, the software now features a "Compare Books" tool, allowing users to easily view and highlight all the differences between two books side by side. While calibre has previously supported connectivity with Android devices on various operating systems, this capability has been extended to macOS as well. Users can now effortlessly connect their Android phones or tablets to calibre on macOS, just as they could on Windows and Linux. Additionally, users now have the ability to define simple rules to display emblems (small icons) next to book covers in the cover grid. For example, a heart emblem can be assigned to books highly rated by the user, or a tick mark can be applied to indicate books that have been read. Another notable addition is the "Mark Books" tool, which allows users to temporarily mark books with a pushpin icon. These marks are automatically cleared upon restarting calibre.


2013. Calibre 1.0 is available for download



WoW! Seven years after it was first released, the free ebook management software Calibre has reached version 1.0. According to the author (Kovid Goyal), lots of new features have been added to the library organizer in this new version — a grid view of book covers, a new faster database backend, the ability to convert Microsoft Word files, tools to make changes to ebooks without needing to do a full conversion, full support for font embedding and subsetting,  an easy to use tool to edit the Table of Contents in ebooks, rewritten PDF Output engine, new tool "Polish books" that allows you to perform various automated cleanup actions on ebooks.


2013. Calibre Server - access your book collection via the Internet



Probably you didn't know it, but Calibre includes the inbuilt web server - Calibre Content Server for remote library management. Besides it can download and send you the books by email. The Calibre server makes your ebooks available to the gadgets within your home or office wireless network. And if you can set up port forwarding on your router - you access your library from a remote location. You can set a password to restrict access. By default access is unrestricted. The content server lets you see the whole Calibre database on your device, which is great, although if you have a lot of books in your library - it can be slow and you have to keep hitting the “Next” button to advance to the next group of books hour after hour. Using this approach you are using the device to choose the books to download. This approach is effective if you’re just browsing your Calibre database looking for a book to download to your mobile device. But if you wish to use the search power of Calibre to locate books that meet specific criteria to download, then Calibre Server is useless. ***


2012. Kindlian 3 allows to manage books on Kindle Paperwhite



The book management software for Kindle, Kindlian, has introduced support for the new Kindle Paperwhite e-readers. The developers had to overcome Amazon's efforts to prevent third-party apps from managing the device by creating a special agent—a file that users simply need to copy to their Documents folder. They assure that this process is both easy and safe for your Kindle device. Additionally, Kindlian now offers the convenient feature of on-the-fly conversion, allowing users to seamlessly convert EPUB and HTML books to MOBI format. When EPUB or HTML books are added in the new version, Kindlian automatically converts them to MOBI. Moreover, the updated software allows users to rename PDF books and edit other PDF metadata at twice the speed compared to previous versions.


2012. Calibre DRM removal plugins for Kindle, Nook, Kobo, PDF, EPUB and other ebooks



DRM (Digital rights management) is a technology for access control that is used by ebook publishers and inhibits uses of ebooks that were not desired or foreseen by the content provider. When you buy an e-book with DRM you don't really own it but just have a permission to use it in a manner dictated to you by the seller. DRM limits what you can do with e-books you have "bought". Often people who buy books with DRM are unaware of the extent of these restrictions. These restrictions prevent you from reformating the e-book to your liking, including making stylistic changes like adjusting the font sizes, although there is software that empowers you to do such things for non DRM books. People are often surprised that an e-book they have bought in a particular format cannot be converted to another format if the e-book has DRM. So if you have an Amazon Kindle and buy a EPUB book sold by Barnes and Nobles, you should know that if that e-book has DRM you will not be able to read it on your Kindle. ***


2012. Book library software Calibre gets a modern new look



The latest iteration of the e-library organizer, calibre 0.9, introduces a fresh and modern aesthetic. The interface has undergone visual enhancements such as focus highlighting, gradients, and rounded corners, providing a more contemporary look and feel. Notably, the E-book viewer has been updated with a new "paged" mode, enabling the text to be split into pages, allowing for multiple pages to be displayed simultaneously on the screen. Furthermore, calibre now offers wireless and USB connectivity to Android devices. In particular, modern Android devices often utilize the "MTP" protocol when connected via USB, and calibre now supports this protocol on Windows (Vista and newer) and Linux platforms. Another noteworthy addition is the introduction of calibre Portable, which enables the calibre library and settings to be kept alongside the calibre program. This allows users to store the entire package on a USB stick for convenient portability. Moreover, calibre's conversion engine now provides comprehensive support for Amazon's KF8 format. Users can convert KF8 books to other formats and vice versa. To convert to KF8, simply set the output format to AZW3 in the calibre conversion dialog.


2012. Why you need Kindle collection manager to organize books on Kindle



Kindle e-readers with eInk screen - are perhaps the best reading devices on the market. In any case the most popular. But they have two big drawbacks. The first is the limited support for e-book formats (no support for epub, doc, fb2, ect). And the second - is very inconvenient built-in library manager. When the number of books on your Kindle grow up - you'll immediately notice it. For some reason, Amazon developers decided that folders are not cool and invented collections. Collections – is the only option for managing books in Kindle. It’s something similar to tags, because one book can be contained in two or more collections. This feature could be fine for organizing books, but not at this time. ***


2011. Kindlian - a new free ebook organizer for managing Kindle library



Alfa.NetSoft, a renowned company recognized for its popular desktop ebook organizer, Alfa Ebooks Management, has recently unveiled a new software offering called Kindlian. This impressive application serves as a valuable add-on for Kindle users, providing a desktop platform to conveniently view and manage their Kindle books and collections. With Kindlian, users gain access to a range of features such as visualizing their Kindle library, managing collections, conducting searches, sorting book lists, creating book ratings, and editing book metadata (including title, author, publisher, publish date, ISBN) for MOBI, PDF, and even MP3 files. The software also allows for editing book data for TXT files and incorporates Google Images integration to facilitate easy updating of book covers. Upon launching Kindlian, it automatically scans the connected Kindle device, parses book metadata, and presents a visually appealing e-library. Users have the flexibility to choose from various layouts, including Table view for efficient book management, List View for browsing book ratings and descriptions, and Thumb View for a visually pleasing display of book covers. Additionally, Kindlian offers swift sorting and searching capabilities across all available views. The best part is that this remarkable software is available free of charge, adding even more value to Kindle users' reading experience.