Reading e-books on an e-reader or tablet is a popular activity. But what if your e-books are on your PC or laptop? Fortunately, you can transfer it. You just need to know how.
Ebooks on your PC
You can easily read e-books on your PC or laptop. However, not everyone likes to sit in front of the computer for long periods of time. Portable devices such as e-readers and tablets are simply better suited to comfortably read your digital books anywhere.
There can be several reasons why there are eBooks on your computer that you would like to transfer. Sometimes e-books are easier to find on the internet and download on a PC or laptop. Perhaps you have copied e-books from someone else via email or a USB stick. Or maybe your e-reader doesn’t have the ability to connect to certain e-book websites or even the Internet.
In these cases it is useful to know how to transfer e-books to your e-reader or tablet.
File formats
E-books come in different file formats. In addition to the more general text formats such as PDF and Word documents, there are also specific e-book formats such as MOBI and ePub. The MOBI format is very popular nowadays and can therefore be read on most modern e-readers. But there are dozens of other formats for e-books.
E-readers and e-book apps on the tablet cannot read all file formats. That is why it is wise to check whether it can handle the type of e-book before transferring from the computer to your mobile device. If not, the e-book must be converted first.
You will find information about the file formats that an e-reader can read in the manual that comes with the device. For the same information with an e-book app for your tablet, it is best to look in the app store from which you download or have downloaded it.
There are several apps for the tablet that allow you to read e-books. Below you can see which file formats they can work with for a number of popular apps:
- Apple Books (formerly iBooks) – ePub, PDF.
- Google Play Books – ePub, PDF.
- Kobo (Bol.com) – ePub, PDF, MOBI.
- Kindle (Amazon) – MOBI, AZW, pdf.
In addition, these apps can also handle common text formats, such as TXT and HTML.
Download and install caliber
There are several programs for converting and transferring e-books. One of the most popular is the free program Caliber. The program can convert almost all types of e-books to almost all other types. In addition, Caliber also offers the possibility to neatly organize your book library and transfer e-books to different types of e-readers, tablets and smartphones. This concerns Android tablets and smartphones.
To download Caliber go to https://calibre-ebook.com/
- click on Download Caliber.
- Click on your computer’s operating system. If you don’t know which Windows version is on your computer, you can find out by clicking the start button – Settings (gear) – System – Info. Bee Device Specifications stands behind System type whether you are using a 32 or 64 bit operating system. Choose Calibre Windows on a 32-bit system and Windows 64 bit at 64 bits.
- For Windows 10, click Download caliber at the top of the window. For Windows 7 and Vista, click from here at the bottom.
- click on (Save file at the bottom of your internet browser window. The installation file is saved on your computer.
- click on Open a folder or go to the folder via Explorer Downloads.
- Double click on caliber.
- When prompted, click Install anyway.
- Click a tick for I accept the terms in the License Agreement.
- click on install.
- When prompted, click Yes.
- click on Finish.
Caliber will start immediately. You set Caliber right away:
- Choose the correct language.
- If necessary, specify a different folder where your e-books are located.
- click on Next one.
- If you have an e-reader, choose the brand and type. If you don’t know what to choose or don’t have an e-reader: choose Generic. Then click on Devices Generic e-ink device for an unknown e-reader. Choose different smartphone or tablet.
- click on Next one.
- click on Complete.
The Caliber window opens.
Security with DRM
As mentioned, Caliber is a versatile program with different possibilities. One of them is converting e-book formats. Caliber can convert most eBook formats to others. One limitation is converting e-books with DRM protection.
DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. This is a technique that blocks the copying and conversion of e-books. To transfer and read the eBook on another device, you have to use a separate program with a user account that you have to create first.
A large part of the books that you buy from well-known online bookstores such as Amazon and Bol.com are protected with DRM. You will quickly find out when copying or converting the e-book that there is a protection on the book. You can read more about DRM here.
Convert a book with Caliber
If you have e-books that are not protected, Caliber can convert them well in most cases. The most popular option for that is auto conversion. You don’t have to set anything up here and Caliber automatically converts the book to an e-book format that belongs to your e-reader. Finally, the converted e-book is also automatically placed on your e-reader. It can’t get much easier. Caliber also works with most Android tablets and smartphones.
By default, there is already a small eBook in the Caliber library list. That’s the Quick Start Guide: a short guide to quickly get started with Caliber. You can use that e-book as an exercise book for converting and transferring or immediately convert a real e-book of yourself.
To add an e-book to the Caliber library:
- Press the button Add books.
- Go to the folder with your eBooks.
- Click on the desired eBook. You can also add multiple e-books. To do this, hold down the CTRL key and click on the books.
- click on To open.
- The e-book or e-books are added to the library.
You can now convert the e-book and transfer it to your e-reader, tablet or smartphone with auto conversion:
- Connect the device to the computer (see the manual for the e-reader for how to do this). Give permission on your device to connect.
- Select the eBook by clicking on it.
- Right click on the selected book.
- click on Send to device.
- If you want to determine exactly in which format the e-book should be placed on the mobile device, click on Send specific format to.
- click on Send to main memory or main memory or choose a memory card if possible.
- Caliber usually knows which book formats the e-reader can handle. If not, Caliber will ask you if the eBook needs to be converted. The original remains intact: a copy is made of it. Click Yes. If you previously indicated that you want to choose a format yourself, you can now click on the desired format and then OK and Yes.
- When you’re done converting and transferring e-books: click on the arrow to the right of the button Device.
- click on This device disconnect.
- Disconnect your device from the computer.
Keep in mind that PDF is difficult to convert of all e-book formats. It is wise not to do that. It’s also not really necessary because all e-readers and e-book apps can handle PDF.
In the second part of this article you will see how to convert and transfer books to your tablet or smartphone in a different way. This is important for iPhones and iPads, among other things, because Caliber does not work well with them.