calibre (software)
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 calibre main interface | |
| Original author(s) | Kovid Goyal |
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| Initial release | October 31, 2006 |
| Repository | |
| Written in | Python, C (Qt), Coffeescript, Javascript |
| Operating system | Linux, Mac OS X, Windows |
| Platform | Cross-platform |
| Available in | 37 languages (fully or partially translated) |
| Type | E-book management utility (utility software) |
| License | GNU GPL v3 |
| Website | calibre-ebook.com |
Calibre is free and open source e-book computer software that organizes, saves and manages e-books, supporting a variety of formats. It also supports e-book syncing with a variety of popular e-book readers and will, within DRM restrictions, convert e-books between differing formats.
History
Kovid Goyal started developing libprs500 on 31 October 2006, when the Sony PRS-500 was introduced. The main idea was to enable the use of the PRS-500 on Linux. Goyal, with support from the MobileRead forums[1], reverse-engineered the proprietary file format LRF.
In 2008, the name was changed to calibre.[citation needed]
Features
Calibre supports all the currently commercially relevant file formats and reading devices. Most of these e-book formats can be edited, for example, by changing the font or the font size and by adding an auto-generated table of contents. Conversion and editing is only possible after digital rights management restrictions have been removed from commercially purchased e-book files. calibre does not natively support this removal, but the capability can be added to the program by installing freely available plug-ins.[2]
Calibre helps to organize the personal e-book library by allowing the user to sort and group e-books by metadata fields. Metadata can be pulled from many different sources (ISBNdb.com, Google Books, Amazon, LibraryThing). Search for author, title or keyword in the whole library, is possible. Full-text search is not yet implemented.[3][4]
E-books can be imported into the calibre library, either by adding files manually, or by syncing an e-book reading device. On-line content-sources can be harvested and converted to e-books. This conversion is facilitated by so-called "recipes", short programs written in a Python-based domain-specific language. E-books can then be exported to all supported reading devices via USB or via the integrated mail-server. Mailing e-books enables, for example, sending personal documents to the Amazon Kindle family of e-book readers.
The content of the library can be remotely accessed by a web browser, if the hosting computer is running. In this case, pushing harvested content from content sources is supported on a regular interval (subscription). If the hosting computer is not always on, a hosted calibre solution[5] can help. In this case, the library is not accessible, but the subscriptions are pushed to the reading device on schedule.
Development and license
The application is written in Python and C. It is published under the GNU General Public License v3 as free and open source software.[6]
To convert external content sources calibre supports the RSS-Feedreader protocol; for remote access a E-Mail- and Webserver (HTTP) is supplied.
See also
References
- ^ "Mobileread Forums". mobileread.com. Retrieved 14 July 2012.
- ^ Sorrel, Charlie. "How To Strip DRM from Kindle E-Books and Others". Wired.com. Retrieved 4 August 2012.
- ^ User named kovidgoyal on fulltext search in TODO list, 2010-08-01
- ^ User named Kovid Goyal (kovid) on fulltext search request, 2011-05-23
- ^ http://readbeam.com/
- ^ License, calibre-ebook.com
External links
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