Calibre To Apple Books

[Bulah Landaker]

Ive uploaded many non-Apple epub books to Books. When I drag and drop them from Books to my computer, other programs (like Calibre) cannot read them. Are they stuck with some DRM or such? All the instructions that I've seen say you should be able to export them by drag and drop.

So, Apple may tell you that just drag-and-drop exports the file, the truth is that it cannot be read by other programs. Yet another way Apple locks you into their ecosystem. They just don't play well with others.

Don't get me wrong - I'm an Apple guy through and through... got more Apple devices than I have toes, but every once in a while I need a bit of flexibility. This problem keeps me from sharing MY files with non-Apple users.

What is the exact error message that you receive, if any? Were these ePub books previously stored in the iCloud Files app? If so, the format of the ePub books should remain. Please use the Files apps to determine if the format to the ePub books has changed.

Thanks for the response. Maybe a better explanation of how to export books would help; I found several answers that say to just drag-and-drop to my Downloads folder and then import to other programs normally. Calibre opens if I say File, Open With from my directory, but does not read the file - just does nothing. If, within Calibre I try to import the epub, it pops up with a "Failed to open", then shows my directory and the file name as the name of the imported file. Trying to open that link just says its not there. Most of the error message says:

I didn't quite catch you. Did you get able to export the epub from apple book? As the instruction, copy the epub file for your book folder and change the file type to zip, then drag to the epub zip-unzip 64(Macos), it will generate a new epub file which you can open either in calibre or open ebook app. it works for me now.

Thanks for the follow-up info. We'd like to suggest booting the computer in safe mode, as this will isolate any problems that might be caused by specifics apps or software. Follow the guidance provided in the Apple Support article: How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

Sorry to say, I have not cured the problem yet. I've tried re-booting, Safe mode, changing type of file, turning off accessories, and nothing seems to make a difference. I off-loaded quite a few books recently, now I have to go back and verify if they even work.

Calibre strokes out when it tries to import the Books epubs because they are no longer epubs, but zipped Books files. If you right-click on the epub it shows meta contents. That's why I can Export a file, then import it again to Books with no problem. Just a no-go with Calibre.

In the linkable applications under the heading Ebook Readers there is no mention of Calibre, which I run under macOS10.14.6

Does Calibre for macOS already feature a reliable automation for linking, which is used by Hook?

Thank you

[quote=Kovid Goyal]{calibre is the leader in its field, used by millions of people. never heard of Hook. Dont know what it does, and from its page can tell its one of those pathetic mac specific apps that would not recognize an API if it was driving a truck that ran over it.

My question now is, if you (or anybody else here) knows of any other books readers/editors to which I could eventually migrate my already existing books in Calibre, and which would allow for really deep lilnking.

A good (or inimate) connection of my future books reader with Bookends would be a definite bonus.

As I use in Calibre tagging really extensively, such a feature would be also welcome.

Thank you.

I copied the calibre:// . . . URL and pasted it into Hook to link it to something, which worked. I guess a script can extract that and do something with it without me pasting the Calibre-generated markdown and then copying the URL.

PRC is a generic format, calibre supports PRC files with TextRead and MOBIBook headers.PDB is also a generic format. calibre supports eReader, Plucker (input only), PML and zTxt PDB files.DJVU support is only for converting DJVU files that contain embedded text. These are typically generated by OCR software.MOBI books can be of two types Mobi6 and KF8. calibre fully supports both. MOBI files often have .azw or .azw3 file extensions.DOCX files from Microsoft Word 2007 and newer are supported.

The first thing to realize is that most e-books have two tables of contents. One is the traditional Table of Contents, like the ToC you find in paper books. This Table of Contents is part of the main document flow and can be styled however you like. This ToC is called the content ToC.

Then there is the metadata ToC. A metadata ToC is a ToC that is not part of the book text and is typically accessed by some special button on a reader. For example, in the calibre E-book viewer, you use the Show Table of Contents button to see this ToC. This ToC cannot be styled by the book creator. How it is represented is up to the viewer program.

In the MOBI format, the situation is a little confused. This is because the MOBI format, alone amongst mainstream e-book formats, does not have decent support for a metadata ToC. A MOBI book simulates the presence of a metadata ToC by putting an extra content ToC at the end of the book. When you click Go to Table of Contents on your Kindle, it is to this extra content ToC that the Kindle takes you.

If you have a hand edited ToC in the input document, you can use the ToC detection options in calibre to automatically generate the metadata ToC from it. See the conversion section of the User Manual for more details on how to use these options.

Finally, I encourage you to ditch the content ToC and only have a metadata ToC in your e-books. Metadata ToCs will give the people reading your e-books a much superior navigation experience (except on the Kindle, where they are essentially the same as a content ToC).

The newer AZW3 format has proper support for a metadata ToC. However, theKindle firmware tends to malfunction if you disable the generation of theend-of-file inline ToC. So it is recommended that you leave the generatedToC alone. If you create an AZW3 file with a metadata ToC and noend-of-file generated ToC, some features on the Kindle will not work, suchas the Page Flip feature.

In order to convert a collection of HTML files in a specific order, you have tocreate a table of contents file. That is, another HTML file that contains linksto all the other files in the desired order. Such a file looks like:

Then, just add this HTML file to the GUI and use the Convert button to createyour e-book. You can use the option in the Table of Contents section in theconversion dialog to control how the Table of Contents is generated.

You can get help on any individual feature of the converters by mousing overit in the GUI or running ebook-convert dummy.html .epub -h at a terminal.A good place to start is to look at the following demo file that demonstratessome of the advanced features html-demo.zip.

calibre can directly connect to all the major (and most of the minor) e-bookreading devices, smartphones, tablets, etc. In addition, using theConnect to folder function you can use it with any e-book readerthat exports itself as a USB disk. Finally, you can connect wirelessly to anydevice that has a web browser using the calibre Content server.

Once you send us the output for a particular operating system, support for the device in that operating systemwill appear in the next release of calibre. To send us the output, open a bug report and attach the output to it.See how to report bugs.

If you are connecting an Apple iDevice (iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone), Appleno longer allows third party software to connect to their devices using aUSB cable. Instead use a wireless connection, via the calibre Contentserver.

Make sure you are running the latest version of calibre (currently7.15.0). The latest version can always be downloaded from the calibrewebsite. You can tell whatversion of calibre you are currently running by looking at the bottomline of the main calibre window.

In addition to the Connect to folder function found under theConnect/share button, calibre provides a User defined deviceplugin that can be used to connect to any USB device that shows up as a diskdrive in your operating system. Note: on Windows, the device must have a driveletter for calibre to use it. See the device plugin Preferences -> Plugins ->Device plugins -> User defined and Preferences -> Miscellaneous -> Getinformation to setup the user defined device for more information. Note thatif you are using the user defined plugin for a device normally detected by abuiltin calibre plugin, you must disable the builtin plugin first, so that youruser defined plugin is used instead.

An easy way to browse your calibre collection from your Apple deviceis by using The calibre Content server, which makes your collection availableover the net. First perform the following steps in calibre

The Content server allows you to read books directly in Safari itself. Inaddition, there are many apps for your iDevice that can connect to the calibreContent server. Examples include: Marvin, Mapleread and iBooks itself.

You will see a list of books in Safari, tap on any book and you will be giventhe option to either download it, or read it in the browser itself. If youchoose to download it, Safari will ask you if you want to open it with iBooks.

Many reading apps support browsing the calibre library directly via its OPDS support.In such apps you can go to the online catalog screen and add the IP address ofthe calibre server to browse and download books from your calibre librarywithin the app.

Simply plug your device into the computer with a USB cable. calibre shouldautomatically detect the device and then you can transfer books to it byclicking the Send to device button. Note that on macOS and Linuxonly a single program can connect to an Android device at a time, so makesure the device is not opened in the OS File manager, or the Android File Transferutility, etc.

3a8082e126