Please explain like you are talking to a 3rd grader
December 26, 2013 12:46 PM   Subscribe

I have a kindle and a kobo. I am trying to switch permanently from my kindle to my kobo which I will make my new ereader because it has many other options as well ( the tablet offerings). I have downloaded the epub mobi,az, etc. converter and epub master. I need to remove the kindle DRM to be able to move the kindle books to the kobo. Everything I read makes it seem so straightforward yet, there must be one thing I am missing. I have searched mefi for answers but am not finding anything that helps. Within my reading, it appears that using those programs you add the file and it converts it, super easy. Mine are not converting.

Maybe someone here has a similar problem. The kobo is more of an "Indy" reader and I wanted to make a move from my kindle and support them but it seems that kindle has such a huge monopoly that it perhaps was not worth leaving the kindle and I should have upgraded. I also hoped to share books with my mum who is on a kindle. Why is this so difficult? I also used calibre and added the plugin, I have been using calibre for years and I'm surprise it is coming up with so many errors as well. Many times people make these suggestions that I do not understand so If you " dumb this down" it may help!!( no shame!) Thank you!
posted by femmme to Technology (6 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
sometimes it's easier to use piracy to get DRM-free copies of things you already own, than to try to strip DRM from those things.
posted by rebent at 1:19 PM on December 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


To clarify, do you have a regular Kobo eReader, or a tablet one (like these)? If the latter, you can download the Kindle app and use that.
posted by bluefly at 1:19 PM on December 26, 2013


Stupid question, but are you sure your calibre and plugins are up to date? I used it recently to strip DRM from an Amazon book and it worked just fine.
posted by rtha at 1:23 PM on December 26, 2013


What errors do you see on Calibre? Are you using the latest version of Calibre and the correct plugins (available from apprentice Alf)? How are you trying to add items to Calibre?
posted by jeather at 2:09 PM on December 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


Kindle books are their own format, largely KF8 or Mobi7, which is similar to, but not readily converted to ePub, even if you manage to strip the DRM. I would not attempt for anything other than straight fiction, and the results will be pretty ugly at best. Are you sure you really need to consolidate your library?
posted by libraryhead at 6:43 PM on December 27, 2013


I've never had any issues converting normal Amazon books to epub. But Amazon has one format, Topaz, that cannot be easily converted. My understanding is it's essentially jpgs with some metadata wrapped around it. The easiest way I've found to check for it is to attempt opening the file in Calibre -- it'll give an error due to the Amazon Topaz format.
posted by bluesapphires at 6:18 PM on December 28, 2013


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