Manage updates with the Download AppCNET Editors' review
Quicker than you can turn a page, e-books have gone from a novelty to a publishing mainstay and will soon be the dominant format (perhaps by the time you're reading this). While many book-lovers use handheld e-book devices such as Amazon's Kindle, others read e-books on their tablets or even their smartphones. All you need is a good e-book reader. We tried the 64-bit release of Calibre, the free, open-source reader and library manager. It's a good e-book reader.
Calibre's welcome wizard let us choose from a long list of interface languages. It also prompted us to set up our e-book library by creating a destination folder or browsing to existing e-books. By default, Calibre creates its library folder in your Documents library. Of course, you can change it later, but it's not a bad idea to start with the right folder in the right location, since your e-book collection may grow rapidly when you see what's available for free (or cheap). It's also easy to establish your e-book library on a USB drive, memory card, or external drive. (You can lug your entire library around with you without giving yourself a hernia! Try that with hardbacks.) Next, we set up Calibre to be compatible with our specific e-book gadget. We could choose devices from a list of 15 different manufacturers, including Amazon, Apple, and Barnes & Noble, as well as generic devices such as smartphones and tablets. The setup finished with links to demo videos and an online User Manual. Better yet, Calibre's main interface opens with one free e-book already displayed: "The Calibre Quick-Start Guide." A colorful interface with a familiar layout makes for easy navigation, aided and abetted by icons with easy-to-grasp labels such as Get Books and Fetch News, each with equally clear submenus.
We've got nothing but good things to say about Calibre, whether it's the 32- or 64-bit version. Adding, converting, and removing books, editing metadata, and even sharing our favorite titles all proved to be as easy as a few clicks. If you don't have a favorite e-book reader and library app yet, or even if you do, check out Calibre.
Publisher's Description
From Kovid Goyal:
Calibre(64-bit) is program to manage your eBook collection. It acts as an e-library and also allows for format conversion, news feeds to eBook conversion, as well as e-book reader sync features and an integrated e-book viewer. It features library management, format conversion (all major eBook formats), syncing to e-book reader devices, fetching news from the Web and converting it into eBook form, viewing many different e-book formats, and giving you access to your book collection over the internet using just a browser.
What's new in this version: Version 0.9.31 fixes incorrect playOrders in the generated toc.ncx when editing the toc in an epub file, this apparently affects FBReader.
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"Greatest freeware program on the web!"
Version: Calibre (64-bit) 0.9.25
Pros
*Manage multiple devices
*Convert most eBook formats
*Sort by many different criteria
*User-definable fields
*Loads metadata and pictures easily
*Speedy load and use of programCons
None. Updates are frequent and fix most minor bug issues.
Summary
I consider this to be one of the best freeware programs on the web. It is worth a donation to the author because of all the features and how well it works. I manage over 1500 books on four different devices without a hitch.
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"The Best e-book manager and more"
Version: Calibre (64-bit) 0.9.24
Pros
Fantastic it is available for 64bit machines. Loading my ebooks into Calibre was fast and easy. It's great to get my favourite daily newspapers in Calibre as well. There are links to dozens of ebook sellers free and paid for. It reads epubs well. Haven't tried the conversion yet, but I am sure that too will be simple. Very, very happy with it.
Cons
I had to go to Calibres own website to download it. Because on all versions through cnet I kept getting an error message stating the Installation package could not be opened and to verify with the vendor this is a valid installer.
Summary
Calibre is a versatile ebook manager which is easy to operate without even having to look in the user manual. It can fetch daily newspaers which is a bonus. It can read dozens of file formats and overall it is worthy of the #2 spot.
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"Slightly faster on Windows 7 64 bit."
Version: Calibre (64-bit) 0.9.10
Pros
Excellent speedup. Functions exactly like the 32 bit version.
Cons
Not applicable. Functions exactly like the 32 bit version.
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