Kobo decided to go the proprietary Digital Restriction Management (DRM) way by providing some ebooks bought on their platform in their in-house Kepub format. This means that they can only be read on a Kobo device.
How to Use Calibre kepub plugin? The Obokplugin.zip you added to Calibre is used for removing DRM from Kobobooks. By default, Calibre will show this plugin at the top menu bar. Firstly, you should use Kobo for PC/Mac to help download your books. Where to find them? Books downloaded via Kobo PC are saved here. Covergen works on EPUB and KEPUB books, and does not conflict with Calibre or any other tool. It is also quite lenient about the way the cover image is referenced by the book. The following methods are supported: metaname=cover with the path as the content, metaname=cover with a manifest id reference as the content, and manifestitem.
You might have noticed that, when trying to copy an ebook from your Kobo device to your desktop Calibre library, it tells you it can’t do that because the book is “virtual”.
You can actually remove the DRMs from that format by using a plugin called Obok, part of the great DeDRM toolbox provided by Apprentice Harper.
- Download the latest obok_plugin.zip file from GitHub;
- Open Calibre (if you don’t have this amazing ebook management app already, install it);
- Install the plugin: `Preferences > Plugins > Load plugin from file`;
- Use the Obok plugin with your device plugged in: select the problematic Kepub ebook(s) and let it do its magic. You can now copy the ebook to your library without those pesky DRMs!
Learn more about the Kepub format on wiki.mobileread.com.
This was tested with Calibre 2.71, Obok DeDRM 6.5.3 and a Kobo Touch with its software at version 3.19.5761.
If you’ve read any of my reviews for Kobo eReaders lately, the Kobo Mini, Kobo Glo, and Kobo Aura HD, you’ll notice that I complain a lot about how Kobo chooses to format ebooks.
My main issue is with all the wasted space. Kobo insists on adding a huge bar at the bottom of a page to display page numbers, and another huge bar at the top of the screen to display the title (seriously Kobo, like I can’t figure out what book I’m reading that I need to be reminded on every single freaking page).
There’s also the fact most Kobo ebooks have spaces between paragraphs instead of indented paragraphs, which wastes even more space. Personally I just want my ebooks to look as close as possible to the paper books I’ve been reading my whole life, which means indented paragraphs and justified text.
And don’t get me started on how much I hate the long paragraph bug that makes it so there’s even more wasted space at the bottom of the page for certain books and fonts.
The irony is that Kobo’s ereaders offer more layout and font adjusting options than any other brand, but when it comes right down to it there are too many limitations and variables to make good use of the settings. In fact I can’t think of an ebook reader or app that annoys me more than Kobo’s software.
Luckily, there’s a great free ebook tool called Calibre that you can use to re-format your ebooks to have more control over formatting. With the proper settings you can easily minimize wasted space and remove spaces between paragraphs. You can even get rid of the entire big bar of wasted space at the top of the screen (unless you are running firmware version 2.5.2). Any video to 3gp converter software download freeupstart.
Kobo Formatting Tip: Minimizing Wasted Space
Calibre Drm Removal Plugin For Windows
Awhile back a reader named Evenft left a comment about what settings to use with Calibre to minimize wasted space. Here’s the procedure below, and here’s the link to some pictures showing the settings in Calibre if you need a visual.
You can use Calibre’s conversion feature to change the CSS settings in an ebook. If you are converting regular DRM-free ePubs all you have to do is import them and follow the directions below. If you want to convert purchased ebooks from Kobo you’ll have to login to your account and download the copies first, which requires using Adobe Digital Editions, and then import them into Calibre to convert them. You can also easily remove the DRM if you choose to make it so you can read your ebooks on other ereaders and apps.
– After importing the ebooks into Calibre, select the ones you want to modify and choose “Convert books”.
Convert Kindle To Epub Calibre
– Make sure the output format is ePub.
– Click on the “Look & Feel” tab. Enter the following code into the Extra CSS box:
body {orphans: 0; widows: 0}
– You can check the box to remove spaces between paragraphs too.
– There’s also the option to remove existing CSS properties for fonts, margins, and padding under “Filter Style Information”.
Kepubify Calibre
– You can choose to set default line spacing to 0% and margins to 0 pt as well.
Some of these settings aren’t needed depending on how the ebook is originally formatted. The two most important things are adding the extra code in the CSS box and checking to remove spaces between paragraphs.