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.

The post Download Calibre (64-bit) Free for Windows appeared first on software.muycloud.com.

For those with certain e-reader devices, working with e-books on a computer can be difficult. Calibre for Mac is a free program that helps you manage your e-book libraries and create e-books from other sources for use on portable devices.

Calibre for Mac is an open-source freeware program, and it’s easy to download and install. The initial setup is easy, but requires an e-mail address to link to the user’s e-reader. Once this is done, the user is prompted to go to an outside Web site for more instructions on using the program, and some streaming demonstration videos. These covered the program generally, as well as specific, more complicated features. The interface is a little cluttered and confusing, making thorough reading of the instruction manual necessary. Fortunately, this popped up immediately after we started the program.

Despite the fact that the program is freeware, it offers functions beyond simply organizing and managing an e-book library. Calibre converts files between multiple e-book formats, allowing users to read books on different devices and even generate e-books out of Internet news sites for use in an e-reader later. It can also search out availability of e-books across many Internet sites.

For those with the time to work through its manual to learn all available features, Calibre for Mac may be a great option for e-book library management, especially considering that it’s free.

The post Download Calibre Free for Mac appeared first on software.muycloud.com.

Calibre Portable helps organize and keep track of your e-books. You can read e-books though the app as well.

Pros

Sync and conversion: Through Calibre Portable, you can sync all of your e-books, so no matter where you want to read them, you’ll always pick them up in just the right place. You can also convert e-books from one format to another to make them compatible with various e-book readers and other mobile devices. Output format options include MOBI, EPUB, AZW3, FB2, HTMLZ, LIT, PDB, PDF, and more.

Customizing the look: There are also quite a few options available for customizing the appearance of the pages including the table of contents, the page setup, and the look and feel of the pages themselves.

Search: You can also search for new books directly through the app. When you use this feature, you’ll be presented with many options for each listing, so you can quickly find the best deal on the book you want to read next.

Cons

Freezing: This app did freeze and crash a couple of times during testing. It did always open back up again without issues, however.

Bottom Line

Calibre Portable is a great option whether you have an extensive e-book library already or are just getting started. It provides clear options for syncing and converting e-books, as well as keeping them centrally located, so you can find what you’re looking for quickly.

The post Download Calibre Portable Free for Windows appeared first on software.muycloud.com.