New to Kobo, want to manage with Calibre

[Findingaway]

Greetings, all.



I just got a Kobo Elipsa 2e and hope to manage it through Calibre. I've used Calibre for a long time with a low-to-medium proficiency in using its many features.

I am looking for suggestions on ways to handle my books. I have multiple Calibre libraries, broadly by category. Most of my libraries have a custom genre column that I populate manually (ex: thriller, mystery.cozy, music).

In the past with Android devices, I have just side-loaded books using the same file structure that I maintain on a laptop using Calibre. Sometimes I create a catalog on calibre for a library and then use it to look for books by genre, or to browse authors if I can't remember them. Then I can use a file manager to just tap on the file to open it.

I'm looking for this type of functionality but I'm somewhat overwhelmed with how to use the Kobo system. There are collections, will that be a lot of work? There is something called Nickelmenu, will it help? Should I bother converting epubs to kepubs? I installed the Kobo utilities plugin and a couple of more Kobo-related plugins to Calibre, but don't know how to use them.

So I appreciate in advance any suggestions you have.

p.s. I will leave off for another forum and day my sad attempts at integrating my new kindle book into the library

[theducks]

Kobo has its own Library manager (not filename based).
To begin: Don't try an fight/trick it. (once you get comfortable, then go for optional methods)

Remember, a stock Kobo takes 2 Calibre connect sessions to complete the metadata absorption.
Connect #1: File (book) transfer
Eject (Disconnect) #1: Book absorption (processing) : This makes the initial internal Database entries.

Connection #2: Populate the Database with additional metadata (This is automatic. You just connect and wait for calibre Jobs to be done).
Eject (disconnect) #2

IMHO Get the Kobo Utilities and Kobo Utilities Extended edition plugins for Calibre. Look at all the configuration settings to see what each can do.

Note: There is a setting that allows for custom per device (if you have more than 1 Kobo)
Note2: There are 2 places to customize if using the Extended mode: The second is on the Driver MENU of Kobo Utilities.

[DNSB]

Minor nit. The second item mentioned by @theducks should be the Kobo Touch Extended driver which allows creating kepub files on the fly. For the most part, I use the stock Kobo Touch driver. I reserve using the KoboTouchExtended or using kepubify for when there are images in an epub that are high enough resolution to make it worth being able to zoom them.

As usual, YMMV.

[Findingaway]

Thanks for these answers. I'm absorbing them and when I have worked more with the Elipsa I'll report on how it goes.

[Findingaway]

I've been re-reading the Calibre user docs and I haven't found a way to do what I want.

Is there a way to use the name of a library as a variable/expressioin in calibre? If so, I could create a concatenation of library and custom genre to get a field I could use. I do have custom genre subdivisions separated by "." , but the highest level subject divider I'm using is library.

If I can capture #library, I could create a catalog using both it and custom genre. Failing that, it seems to me like I would need to re-configure all of my libraries into one gigantic library, which is not what I want to do.

I am enjoying the Elipsa 2e, but still hoping to get things the way I want.

[Findingaway]

So, according to https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/sub_groups.html , my #cgenre category was created (semi-) correctly for my purposes but needs to be edited and better defined.

Is there a way to add a top level field in a mass edit of the column? for example, I currently have something like mystery.cozy and mystery.hardboiled but I need something like fiction.mystery.cozy and fiction.mystery.hardboiled for many books (in this case "Fiction" is the library. But I have around 10+ libraries and >1000 books.

[Quoth]

Just have one library. You can search by tags, collection, series, author, title, publish date, added date, modified date and any custom columns. Also sort by those and format or if on the ereader etc.

I might be tempted to have a separate library of PDFs needing a tablet or better eink than Sage or Elipsa. I do have a huge number of PDFs not in Calibre (old magazine scans, service information/schematics, datasheets etc).

[theducks]

The main reasons for multiple libraries vs a single one is:
a)Structure (custom columns) differences (includes fixed set of values)
b)Content not suitable for some users. AKA restricted access needed.

Tagging is the common way for selection, not isolation.

[Findingaway]

Originally Posted by theducks

Remember, a stock Kobo takes 2 Calibre connect sessions to complete the metadata absorption.
Connect #1: File (book) transfer
Eject (Disconnect) #1: Book absorption (processing) : This makes the initial internal Database entries.

Connection #2: Populate the Database with additional metadata (This is automatic. You just connect and wait for calibre Jobs to be done).
Eject (disconnect) #2

Thanks to theducks and others; I finally got collections to show on my Elipsa and it really helped to have the above note.

I guess I will slowly be re-forming my library and learning about tags and the calibre language, commands, etc. And for now things are working ok.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Findingaway

But I have around 10+ libraries and >1000 books.

I have over 30,000 books and only one library. Books can be sorted via tags, custom categories, saved searches, virtual libraries and so on. I see absolutely no need for 10 separate libraries with 100 books each. That would destroy any advantage of having all your ebooks in one place.

[Quoth]

I have about 6,000 ebooks & PDFs and one library.

What Sirtel writes ^^^^

[retro]

I have 2 libraries, one for fiction and one for non-fiction. The fiction is all epub while the non-fiction is a mix of epub and pdfs. Fiction has lots of columns for metadata that I don't need in non-fiction.

I have found when I tweak calibre after reading about a way to do something, the tweak does not always affect both libraries. So when I switch libraries, something I've gotten accustomed to doing doesn't work. It can get really confusing, just so you know.

On the other hand, some things affect both libraries the same, like metadata plugboards and driver tweaks. So if I make a change to a plugboard, one library will won't have the same column or whatever and throw an error when sending to device.

Just wanted to chime in that multiple libraries can result in issues you won't have in just one library.

[JSWolf]

But if you have a lot of books in your library, you want to be using a 64-bit version if possible.

[Patrick Faret]

Sorry to be a stick-in-the-mud, I also have an Elipsa 2e, but no matter how many times I log in, I can't get my collections back until I go to .
I have to say I'm a bit discouraged.
I've reset it several times without any noticeable progress.
I'm going to end up regretting my Kobo Libra 2

[DNSB]

What do you mean by login? Are you trying to use a wireless connection to your Elipsa 2E?