I want an ebook app (for mac) that does these things.

May 2, 2016 12:12 PM

I've read a lot of reviews of ebook readers, but short of downloading all of them, it's hard to tell if they do what I want them to do. I also have a question about ebook devices.

I've been using iBooks on my mac primarily for amateur or self-published fiction I've downloaded--fanfiction from A03, original ebooks, etc. I think the interface is more pleasant for reading than using my browser or Acrobat.

However, there are some things I don't like so I'm looking for a different app:

* Editing book category/info has to be done one book at a time, from the list view, and the interface for doing this is clunky. This makes book management more of a time suck than I would prefer.

* File display options are limited. There's no list view for single categories, for example--if you want a list view you have to view all of your ebooks at once. Also, some of the ebooks have terrible, awful, cover art and I would like to not have to look at it.

* iBooks can't handle PDFs natively. It catalogs them, but they open in Acrobat. I would convert them to epub, but this usually results in weird formatting issues. Are there any readers that can handle PDFs? I'm guessing no, so alternatively: Is there a better way to create an epub from web content that doesn't involve a converter that adds extra line breaks etc?

(I know A03 has an export to epub option and that's what I use most of the time, but not everything is on A03.)

Things iBooks does that I need:

Syncing to my iPad. Providing a clutter-free reading screen that pages rather than scrolls.

Things I am thinking about maybe needing in the future:

I'm thinking about getting an actual ebook-reading device, because I'm going to be abroad for about a year starting in September. I'll have access to electricity, but charging devices is still a hassle--and sometimes I might be without access to power for a few days. It would be nice to have a reading device that has longer battery life. But I don't know much reading devices because I've always been a paper person!

I need one that syncs to my personal files on my laptop without having to go through an internet service. I might also want to add purchased ebooks to this reader, though.

Is there a reader I should be looking into?

(Can this be done with a Kindle? My mother has a growing stack of older Kindles she's willing to give me.)

posted by Kutsuwamushi to Computers & Internet (16 answers total)

My (old) Kindle's battery life is around a month, with daily reading, as long as the Wifi is turned off.

You can sync documents without internet by plugging it directly into your computer and dragging files. You can put a PDF on there. It's not the most pleasant reading experience -- however in my work I need to use .doc files so I haven't ever done any research into making PDFs easier to read on it.
posted by BlahLaLa at 12:25 PM on May 2, 2016

Best answer: Even though it's not perfect. Calibre is the most commonly recommended ebook organizer/viewer application. I use it religiously, but since I don't quite use in the ways you want I can't tell whether it'll exactly serve your needs. It's worth a try though.
posted by crazy with stars at 12:30 PM on May 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

I agree with BlahLaLa. A Kindle with Wifi turned off lasts a month between charges. Calibre works well for import of personal files.

PDF files are not well supported by anything other than Adobe Acro-bloat Reader, and that isn't that great. You can read them on a Kindle (or an iPad) but unless you convert the file to some ebook format, you see the equivalent of images of pages. Not very good. The conversion programs I've used aren't very good.

Personal files transfer via Calibre just like anything else does. I use my Kindle without Wifi, Calibre, and a laptop all the time.

If your mother has an older Kindle, it would be a good idea to try one.
posted by blob at 12:34 PM on May 2, 2016

(Can this be done with a Kindle? My mother has a growing stack of older Kindles she's willing to give me.)

I manage an ebook lending library (Open Library, check us out) and I use a Kindle Keyboard for almost everything and it's great. I did jailbreak it though (a very easy process) so I'm not sure which features they come with stock. The battery lasts forever. It's got minimal wifi for doing little online things. You can buy books from Amazon or import them via Calibre. You can read PDFs on them but it sucks. Calibre does offer some decent EPUB creation options but I haven't used them so I don't know much about how well they work. It is great at allowing you to edit metadata, to be able to group things in a number of ways. and to keep the books in one place and sync or not sync as you want to. So I'll keep the bulk of my books on my laptop but then scoot them over to the Kindle as I want to read them a few at a time.
posted by jessamyn at 12:49 PM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't mind reading PDFs on my Kindle, but I have always been able to read small print easily (I use the Compact OED without a magnifying glass). Anyway, Kindle + Calibre is the way to go.
posted by languagehat at 1:15 PM on May 2, 2016

Response by poster: I downloaded Calibre and it looks like it's got a lot of nice features for document management--but I feel like I'm missing something. The actual reading interface is pretty terrible. There are no margins, pagination results in cut-off text, and I even have to scroll up to see full titles sometimes. Am I missing some customization options? I'd love to just be able to change the display margins.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:17 PM on May 2, 2016

Response by poster: After poking around, I found a setting to change the margins but it apparently has no effect on the display. Confusing!
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 2:01 PM on May 2, 2016

Definitely try a kindle (or another ereader) - they are purpose-built for reading and far, far better than any laptop or tablet. You can load your books on it using calibre.
posted by R a c h e l at 2:14 PM on May 2, 2016

Yeah sorry, I don't use Calibre for reading but it's really good for metadata, organizing and ebook conversations.
posted by jessamyn at 2:16 PM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

While many of us here may read ebooks, nobody here can match the numbers, wisdom, and experience of the MobileRead forums. In addition to tens of thousands of users, some who've been reading ebooks for 15 years, all the reading software developers are there, as well as the tech crews for all the reader manufacturers.

I've downloaded and tried at least 25 iOS reader apps. Except for Kindle, they all read ePub. For ePubs, right now I'm liking Voice Dream Reader. While it's aimed at blind users, it has a good print interface, and the best filing interface (of a bad bunch). For PDFs I've found that the (free) Nook client does the best job -- fastest zooming in and out, fewest clicks between pages, highlights that make sense.

Calibre's interface is daunting. However, the MobileRead forumites will hold your hand through a one-step Calibre process that will strip the DRM from any ebook format to create open ePub, with the sad exception of purchases from the iBooks store.
posted by Jesse the K at 2:55 PM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

For ebook reading computer applications, I use either fbreader or sumatrapdf. I don't know if either are available for Mac.

I strongly recommend an ereader for being away. Calibre can send to any standard reader, choose one based on your preferred store. It is easy to convert, but why add hassle?
posted by jeather at 2:57 PM on May 2, 2016

Here is what I use: Calibre (manage a large library); Marvin ebook reader app; Notability or Liquidtext app for PDF and iTunes sync. Marvin was PERFECT but then the Calibre plugin person bailed, which hobbled Marvin from syncing large libraries using Calibre. The only way to move large libraries 2000+ to Marvin is WebDAV. However, you can simply download from single files via Dropbox, iCloud or Gdrive. You can add a lot of files, just a few dozen, via iTunes sync. Man, I want to go back to the days when I could bring a crapton of books to my devices. Be warned, Marvin has not had significant development is a while but it is still my favorite ebook reader on iOS.
posted by jadepearl at 8:58 PM on May 2, 2016

Response by poster: Update for anyone else who finds this thread:

I've tried Calibre with Kindle and think it works well enough for the purpose. It turns out that Calibre is better at displaying mobi than epub, so -- once I got over the ugly interface -- I can actually use it as a reader. The file management system has a lot of options, but it didn't take me long to figure out at all.

The downside is that spacing in MOBI is not great (ao3 stuff loses a lot of line breaks). You can easily adjust the stylesheet in the Calibre reader, but this doesn't carry over to the Kindle. But this seems like a Kindle issue, not a Calibre issue.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 4:03 PM on May 3, 2016

If you go with the Kindle device and apps (which exist on every major platform and device), the easiest way to load books on it from if you don't have a zillion to do at once, is to use the email address they assign you. It's dead simple. Info here.

I have used Calibre for a long time, but it is a kludgy, messy pain in the butt. I don't recommend it unless you are absolutely insistent about having all the metadata in your books be perfect or if you have to convert between book formats.
posted by Mo Nickels at 4:29 PM on May 3, 2016

> I have used Calibre for a long time, but it is a kludgy, messy pain in the butt.

What do you mean by this? It seems straightforward to me, but maybe I'm missing something.
posted by languagehat at 9:25 AM on May 4, 2016

To address one part of your question, PDF is the worst (widely used) format to try to view comfortably in ereaders or convert for any ebook format, so one thing you should do is to try to take advantage of any of the sources that allow you to view the whole article or story in an html format for regular browsing, and use that source to convert for ebook instead, either by saving and using Calibre, or save it using one of the apps like Instapaper or Readability where you can read a clean version online, plus save as epub or send to Kindle.

For example, for this story at Lightspeed magazine, I saved it on Readability (where, with my settings, it looks like this on the browser: 1, 2) and then used the Readability app to send to Kindle, where it looks like this, and is formatted perfectly. From Readability, I also downloaded it directly as an epub, which also looks great. I used Calibre on the epub file to generate a cover, add tags and the author's name.

To deliver to Kindle you must set it up to allow Readability to mail to your device's Kindle email address (each of your Kindle devices will have a special email address for this) that will convert the file to the proper format and send it to your Kindle device, a one-time set up that only takes a couple of minutes. I'm sure Instapaper has similar options.
posted by taz at 8:52 AM on May 6, 2016