Using Aldiko for Android instead of Kobo for Android

[darryl]

Originally Posted by leitz

Thanks for the info. Do I understand that after I run through the Kobo Desktop process with Obok , I would still need to send the resulting EPub to Calibre for further processing with Apprentice Alf's tools?

No. After you have run obok the books will be in Calibre with the DRM removed. You don't need Digital Editions, you don't need any of Apprentice Alf's tools.

Originally Posted by leitz

I am running Windows 8 and at present I have all my ebooks in Adobe DRM EPub. I took a look at the zip file from Alf's tools, which folder in the zip file should I use?

1. DeDRM_calibre_plugin : unclear if I need this, readme.txt mentioned Adobe Epubs (Kobo) and Windows
2. DeDRM_Macintosh_Application : not applicable in my case
3. DeDRM_Windows_Application : I need this, it is for Windows
4. Obok_calibre_plugin : Don't need this if do not have books in Kepub format which comes from Kobo Desktop
5. Other_Tools: Looks like relating to Kepub

For the Calibre approach, I think I need #3. I don't know if #1 is needed.

It looks like to take the Calibre approach, using folder #3, I need to install Python as well?

No. You only need to use the appropriate program from 1. If you do this you do not need to worry about installing Python. Your folder number 3 is for use if you prefer a standalone program to remove the DRM rather than a Calibre plugin, in which case you would need to install Python separately. Stick with Calibre. It is a much simpler process.

[eschwartz]

The tools archive contains two plugins, the DeDRM plugin which handles ADE/Amazon/B&N, and oboK, which handles Kobo Desktop.
You can of course use the Windows application which only works for Windows and runs independent of calibre, if that floats your boat...
(This is all explained across a couple blog posts and the readmes, too.)


Either way, I do advise you to DeDRM your books -- the way I see it, you chose Aldiko specifically because it works with DRM. There are a number of ereader apps out there, and you might very well decide you enjoy reading in another app better than Aldiko, but you can't even try until your ebooks are set free.

[leitz]

Originally Posted by darryl

No. After you have run obok the books will be in Calibre with the DRM removed. You don't need Digital Editions, you don't need any of Apprentice Alf's tools.

No. You only need to use the appropriate program from 1. If you do this you do need to worry about installing Python. Your folder number 3 is for use if you prefer a standalone program to remove the DRM rather than a Calibre plugin, in which case you would need to install Python separately. Stick with Calibre. It is a much simpler process.

Thank you so much again for your excellent clarifications on both questions. Now I know the difference between folder #1 and #3, I agree with you that using Calibre with folder #1 is a lot simpler, I don't think I want to mess around with folder #3.

I will use Calibre with folder #1 and keep you updated. Thank you!!

[leitz]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

The tools archive contains two plugins, the DeDRM plugin which handles ADE/Amazon/B&N, and oboK, which handles Kobo Desktop.
You can of course use the Windows application which only works for Windows and runs independent of calibre, if that floats your boat...
(This is all explained across a couple blog posts and the readmes, too.)


Either way, I do advise you to DeDRM your books -- the way I see it, you chose Aldiko specifically because it works with DRM. There are a number of ereader apps out there, and you might very well decide you enjoy reading in another app better than Aldiko, but you can't even try until your ebooks are set free.

Yes, I choose Aldiko because it could read the Adobe DRM epubs and it let me selectively import which ebook I want. I didn't like the Kobo e-reader because it only syncs and not import selectively, when Kobo syncs, it load more than ebooks into the e-reader, "stuff" other than the e-pubs. I feel I have no control over the Kobo e-reader when it comes to syncing the Kobo e-reader, with Aldiko, I can import e-pubs selectively and nothing more than e-pubs.

So at first, I didn't think I need Calibre, Aldiko can do what I wanted to do, but both you and Darryl have now shown me how to do it in Calibre and convinced me to use Calibre. Thank you to you both.

[eschwartz]

Be sure to check out some of the independent Android ereader apps. For example Mantano and Moon+ are both rather popular. Neither do DRMed ebooks.

[leitz]

1. I finally found the courage to try Calibre out. I downloaded and installed Calibre. Go to preferences, and Load Plugin from file. Choose folder #1 which is DeDRM_plugin.zip. That loaded successfully and under "File type Plugin", I can see DeDRM. Do I need to customize plug-in? If yes, my books are from Kobo so that would be Adobe Digital Editions ebooks, what do I enter/type for the Adobe Digital Editions keys?

2. I then copy a epub to a temp folder (just the epub file, I didn't copy the annot, xml or thumbnail from ADE folders to the temp folder). I didn't want my epubs to get mess up when things go wrong, so I use a temp folder. Next, in Calibre, I click "Add Books" and the book was added. On the right margin of Calibre, the format is EPUB for the book I just added. This book I added is Black Skies by Arnaldur Indridason, it is a Adobe DRM EPub. How can I tell if the EPub I'm looking at is DRM free or Adobe DRM Epub?

3. I then click "Convert Books", click "EPUB output" . The book was converted and now I have 2 format, EPUB and Original EPUB on the right hand margin. I don't think I removed the DRM successfully. Did I missed something in step 1 where I need to enter something for the Adobe Digital Editions keys? What other step I need to do? If this is done successfully, I would go to "Remove Books", "Remove Specific Format" to delete the Adobe DRM version and keep only the DRM free version.

What did I missed out? Thought I almost got it done.

[leitz]

It is possible that I was successful in what I was doing, here is why I thought so: I read that if the book has DRM, Calibre would prompt a message saying the book has DRM when one opens the book to read it. I think Calibre removed the DRM at the point where I click "Add Books". I'm thinking there is no DRM after I added the book to Calibre because when I click to read the book, there is no prompt from Calibre. I see the front cover on the new window, E-Book Viewer (I hope E-Book Viewer is from Calibre and not the Adobe Digital Editions on my computer), I click right arrow, I can see the table of contents, chapter 1 etc and no prompt from Calibre saying it is DRM protected. If the above is correct, then I don't need to do the "Convert Books" step. The DRM has been removed the minute I added the book to Calibre.

[darryl]

Provided Calibre is on the same machine as your working Adobe Digital Editions, you should not need to customise the plugin.

The easiest way to tell if DRM has been removed is to try to view the ebook in Calibre. Just highlight the book in Calibre and press view. Calibre will not open the book for reading if it still has DRM. If you can read the book then the copy actually in Calibre is without DRM. This means either Calibre removed the DRM on input or that the file you imported did not actually have DRM. To make sure it is the former and not the latter you need to confirm that the original file you imported had DRM. If it did, Calibre Viewer will not open it. In the Calibre viewer, one of the icons on the side lets you open an ebook file from the file system. Click on this and open either your original epub or the copy in your temp folder. Calibre should not be able to open it and give you a message about DRM.

If you can read the original file in Calibre, you should then continue to open original books in the viewer until you do get one that can't be read because of DRM. You then import this book to Calibre, highlight it and press view. If you can then read it the DRM has been removed from the copy in Calibre.

The convert function is not necessary for what you want to do. This function converts between different EBook formats. For example, you could convert your epub to a mobi or azw3 to read on a Kindle.

I suspect that you have it working perfectly, but the above procedure will let you verify this.

[leitz]

Yes, Calibre is on the same machine as my Adobe Digital Editions.

I was able to confirm that if the book can be viewed in Calibre, there is no DRM. I have a few Kindle books (prc files) that I bought before dropping Kindle for Kobo. So I tested with a Kindle book. I added the prc file to Calibre. The book was added like any other book but when I click to view the book, it would not show the cover page and prompt a message saying the book is DRM protected. The epub that I added is from Kobo and is Adobe DRM epub (according to Kobo website) and since it let me view the book in Calibre, I think the DRM was removed the minute I added the epub into Calibre. Wow,it turns out to be easy..

Some observations about the files:

In Adobe Digital Editions, the book has the following files:
- Black Skies.epub
- Black Skies.epub.annot
- Black Skies.epub.xml
- Black Skies.epub.png (image file for front cover)

I copied only the Black Skies.epub to a temp folder and added the file from the temp folder into Calibre.

Calibre has the following files:
- Black Skies - Arnaldur Indridason.epub
- cover.jpg
- metadata.opf

Seems to me that the only file that matters is the epub file (Black Skies.epub). The rest of the files are "auto generated" by the respective software.

[darryl]

It won't convert your kindle files because it does not have your key. You would need to customise the plugin by entering the serial number of the Kindle you had when you bought the books. Alternately, if you have kindle4pc installed and it can read the books, then the plugin should be able to pick up the key, though you may need to reinstall the plugin for it to do so. I'm not sure on this.

You do only need the epub file. And it really is that easy. Calibre is fabulous software, and far superior to any other software of its type I have seen. I and many others on Mobileread make a practice of importing books to Calibre and removing the DRM on purchase. I usually keep only about 10-20 books on my reading devices, being the books I am planning to read in the near future. I also backup my Calibre directory from time to time just in case. Doing this means I have my purchases with the Vendor in the Cloud, in Calibre and also in my Calibre backup, in the latter two cases in a form not hostage to DRM.

Once you have added all of your epubs, and verified you can read them in Calibre, you can be pretty confident that all is working.

Congratulations! I think you will find that Calibre and Apprentice Alf were well worth you perseverance.

[leitz]

For the Kindle books, I don't have a Kindle e-reader or kindle4pc. I used Kindle for Android to read the Kindle ebooks. The readme.txt said this - Amazon Kindle ebooks (Mobi, KF8, Topaz and Print Replica), the kindle book I have is a prc file, may not be one of the kindle formats that the plugin is converting? But doesn't matter, I have no plans to convert those few kindle books I bought.

Yes, I can see that Calibre is fabulous. If it has an Android version,then I would just use Calibre to read on the smart phone. I like your epub backup strategy. I think I will backup the epubs in Calibre instead of ADE because the files for a certain book in Calibre resides in one folder while in ADE, it resides in 3 different folders. Every time I buy a book and need to backup the ebook, I just copy one folder from Calibre, instead of going to 3 different folders in ADE to copy the files.

Thank you very much for your guidance. I am finally no more held hostage by the DRM.

[eschwartz]

Congrats! And if you decide you want to import your Kindle books anyway, just install Kindle for PC and import the books from there (the Android app is not supported, as per the blog).

(Regarding the configuration -- usually not necessary, since it tries very hard to handle things automatically whenever possible. Mostly of use with Kindle E-Inks, and importing ADE keys to linux.)

[leitz]

Thank you! Good to know that I need to install Kindle for PC to import the kindle books.

The process turn out to be so much easier than I thought.

[leitz]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Be sure to check out some of the independent Android ereader apps. For example Mantano and Moon+ are both rather popular. Neither do DRMed ebooks.

The product description page for Mantano said it reads Adobe DRM ePub

Of the paid apps, Moon+ is most popular with 72,743 downloads.


Aldiko Book Reader (Free) - 173,806
Aldiko Book Reader Premium $3.99 - 7,633

Moon+ Reader (Free) - 187,537
Moon+ Reader Pro $6.03 - 72,743

Mantano Ebook Reader Free - no longer available in Google Play
Mantano Reader Essentials $3.86 - 265
Mantano Ebook Reader Premium $6.90 - 4,026

[leitz]

Here is another e-reader app that reads Adobe DRM ePub - Universal Book Reader by MobiSystems

Universal Book Reader (free) - 123,883
Universal Book Reader Full Key $5.99 - 1,586

There are some comments in the review that said Aldiko or Mantano is better but the customer service by MobiSystems is very impressive, they replied on every single negative review, most of the negative reviews are bugs which MobiSystems said they will look into and lack of product features which MobiSystems said they will develop in due course.