The Ultimate Kobo Tips & Tricks Thread

[Rothbardian]

Originally Posted by yecam

Has anyone noticed that the Kobo reader does not recognize footnotes? I have a good epub file with footnotes that works with Calibre and alos with a BeBook runnink OpenInkpot bit on the Kobo there seems to be no way to access those footnotes.

What does Calibre and BeBook do with the footnotes, and how are they implemented in the epub file? There is no footnote support in the epub format.

[taming]

I have ePUB books with end-notes that I believe were footnotes in the analog editions. As Kobo does not do hyperlinks, they are pretty much useless, given the other navigation limitations of the Kobo. When I looked at the book in the Adobe ADE desktop software, I can make use of hyperlinks and go back and forth.

[Rothbardian]

There's a really simple solution for footnotes that nobody implements

Your "endnotes" are a link; something like <a href="notes.xml#note1">1</a> in the source file. By adding a "rel" attribute with a particular value (e.g., <a rel="footnote" href="notes.xml#note1">1</a>) the reader can tell it's supposed to be a footnote. Rather than loading the page when you click the link, it could extract just the target element ("note1" -- so you can put all the footnotes on one file) and either display it on the bottom of the page when the referring document is on-screen (which can be slightly tricky, but is possible...but isn't as good as the next option anyway, IMO) or display it in a popup when the link is selected (have to have some way to select it, of course, but the font-size-changing behavior of the up/down buttons is more annoying than useful: could profitably use that for prev/next footnote, etc.). The "notes.xml" page in the spine section of the .opf file should have the linear="no" attribute set, and then the reader should skip over it rather than displaying it when you page through the book.

[DaleDe]

The HTML5 spec uses a span command to identify a short footnote something like: <span title="footnote content message">text needing footnote</span>. This could be implemented easily as a popup footnote with proper coding. I would have preferred a unique code but this is what they came up with.

Dale

[Rothbardian]

The main problems with that (aside from epub content is (a subset of) XHTML1.1, not HTML5 -- but span is in former, so it makes no difference): it doesn't get displayed at all, and it can't contain markup if it did. The same place also suggests using links with square brackets around the numbers: that sucks, too (presumably it's non-normative). The use of a well-defined "rel" attribute allows you to put the square brackets in, if that's what you want, in the style sheet -- while also allowing it to be formatted in other ways (e.g., as a superscript) if you prefer, without changing the source document. Putting square brackets or other markup in the source makes that impossible.

[dmacmart]

(found this on the Kobo Facebook page, thought it would be useful here)
---------------------------------------------------------------
How to 'side-load' PDF and unencrypted epub files into the Kobo application using iTunes

1) Ensure you have version 3.4 or later of the Kobo application installed on your device and that you device is running and iOS version that supports side-loading (iPhones / iPods that can run iOS 4.0 or later, and all iPads, regardless of the iOS version they are running.)
2) Launch iTunes
3) Connect your device to iTunes
4) Select the device from the Devices list in iTunes
5) Click on the "Apps" tab for the selected device
6) Scroll to the bottom of the Apps page, you should see a "File Sharing" section
7) Click On the Kobo icon that is displayed in the File Sharing section
8) Drag and drop PDF and/or unencrypted epub files into the Kobo Documents section, or use the "Add..." button to add the files.
9) iTunes should automatically sync the files to the Device
10) Launch the Kobo application and you should see the files you added via iTunes are now visible.

[taming]

You may want to copy that into the Kobo FAQ section of the MR wiki.

[dmacmart]

I was going to but ... *that* was too scary!

[taming]

If you look at the edit page and just copy the format--creating a question, and then copying in the answer. it's only scary the first time, LOL.

[dmacmart]

OK I think it's done.

[taming]

Good on you!

[yecam]

Originally Posted by Rothbardian

What does Calibre and BeBook do with the footnotes, and how are they implemented in the epub file? There is no footnote support in the epub format.

As mentioned elsewhere, the footnotes really appear as endnotes in the epub file. I can navigate on the BeBook or other ereader software from the highlighted footnote indicator in the body of the text i.e. a highlighted "2" for footnote number 2 to a place at the end of the ebook where the footnote ( now an endnote) is located. After I rad the endnote text I can return to wher the original footnote indicate is located and progress onward in my book.

It appears that the Kobo software, in its present form cannot do this.

[twokobos]

Originally Posted by aar3on

Warning, don't open The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. One chapter, 74 pages, ouch

If you use the Table of Contents you can skip to the last chapter & you only have to page by page through that one to close the book & take it out of I'm reading.

[twokobos]

As the name would suggest we have two Kobos in this house, two email accounts, one computer. I can't download the app twice, so it seems the only way to keep my books separate from his books is to switch between email accounts. Fine & easy but I've purchase a number of books & each time I sign in I have to wait while it downloads/syncs each darn book over & over.

I'm low level tech tolerance, if you can help, please keep acronyms to a minimum, thanks. Dumb it down for me, yes please!

[taming]

We are a two-Kobo home, as well. We use one kobo books account, one (Adobe Digital Editions) ADE account. and then transfer our books using ADE or Calibre, rather than syncing through the desktop app. We can have different books on different machines. We have two computers.

Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com/download) would be your best bet with only one computer because then you do not have to authorize your Kobo with ADE each time you switch readers. There is a limit on how many authorizations you can have with ADE and even though you are reauthorizing the same devices over and over, it may max-out that way.

You cannot use many of Calibre's amazing features with the ePUB books you download from kobo books, without removing the (digital rights management) DRM, but you can easily use it to transfer the books onto your device. You may want to look at the help files if you have trouble figuring out how to transfer books--though it is easy peasy if that is all that you are doing.

To download the ePUB books onto Calibre, click on the download link, and then rather than accepting ADE as the program, navigate to the calibre.exe file. On my Windows 7 machine, the path is "C:\Program Files (x86)\Calibre2\calibre.exe" If you have any Windows install, it will be some similar location. Not sure about MAC.

Once you find it, check the box that indicates you will use Calibre to open all ePUB books.

PS: Unless you do a factory reset (under advanced settings) or send your purchased/I'm reading books temporarily into the trash and resync (remember to restore them from the trash if you do this) you will have two versions of your books if you add previously purchased books through Calibre without deleting the books added through sync. Best bet might be to use this method with only your new books if you are technology impaired.

When I figured this out, I did a factory reset and replaced the sqlite database (see other thread in the sticky section). I then did the remove to trash and sync with all of my books (followed by a reverse of the trash part so all of my books showed up again in my library on the kobo books site). Then I did the Calibre/ADE transfers and had what I considered a cleaner machine.