Calibre is a useful tool that allows you to manage your e-book collection and personal library on different devices. It is a nice tool for a casual user who’s just looking for a simple ebook reader or an expert needing help with organizing their ebook collection.
Aside from acting as an e-library, Calibre offers you several other cool features, such as converting from one format to another, sharing and backing up your library, etc. The program can also download magazines and news on web pages from the internet and convert them to ebooks.
Additionally, Calibre is completely free and open-source. Follow the steps below and I’ll show you how to download and install Calibre on your PC for free.
How to Download and Install Calibre on Your PC for Free
- Click on the Download button on the sidebar to go directly to the official Calibre download page.
- Click on your prefered download option depending on your device type.
- Click the “Download Calibre” button as indicated below to get the setup file.
- Go to your download folder and double-click the .exe file after downloading it to start the installation process.
- Wait for the installation to complete, then click finish to end the process.
- Select a new folder where you prefer to save your ebooks, also select your device type, and click “Next” on the next page.
Once the setup is done, you can start building and organizing your e-library with Calibre.
How to uninstall Calibre from your PC
If Calibre doesn’t quite meet your expectations for an ebook library, you can remove the application from your PC by following these steps below:
- Type Add or Remove Programs in the Windows search bar and click the Enter key.
- Scroll and locate Calibre on the list of installed programs, then click the “Uninstall” button.
- Once the uninstallation wizard opens, confirm that you want to remove the software, and it will be deleted from your computer.
If you want to try out similar services, check out the free alternatives below.
Overview of Calibre
Calibre is a cross-platform, free, and open-source ebook library management software. With Calibre, you can organize your existing ebooks and catalog them in most of the major ebook formats. You can also sync your ebooks with any e-Reader of your choice. Calibre supports editing ebooks in various formats, such as EPUB, AZW3, Text Format, Plain Text, Doc, DjVu.
Calibre is designed to offer you the flexibility you need to enjoy reading and managing your ebooks. For instance, it supports changing the font of any book, as well as the font size, book margins, and metadata of the books for better convenience. You can also add an auto-generated table of contents. However, you may not be able to edit some books directly, especially those that have digital rights management (DRM) restrictions.
Features of Calibre
Easily manage your e-book collection
Calibre has been designed with an easy-to-use user interface. Everything you need is available at a glance. The large buttons in the main window provide you with most of the functionalities you need, while the intuitive tabs give you access to most of the other essential features in the application. You can use any of the three built-in library views to switch the general look and feel of the app.
Download ebook metadata
Calibre can help you download all the metadata for an e-book directly from the internet. These are elements like title, author, publisher, ISBN, tags, cover, or book summary. You can also edit or create metadata for the ebook in existing or new fields. This allows you to track the books you’ve read.
Use Calibre everywhere on different devices
The program supports virtually all e-Readers and works with more devices as it is updated. This means that you can transfer your e-books from one device to another pretty easily. Plus, it will automatically send the best file format for your device, without you having to initiate the conversion.
Comprehensive e-book viewer
Use the built-in ebook viewer to display all the major ebook formats. Calibre supports automatic table of Table of Contents generation, bookmarks, CSS, reference mode, printing, searching, multi-page view, copying, etc.
Download magazines from the web
You can set Calibre to automatically download and deliver the latest news from many sources across the internet, such as CNN, National Geographic, The Washington Post, NY Times, BBC News, The Telegraph, Forbes, The Economist, etc.
Share and backup your library
Calibre provides a conveniently accessible web server that aids in hosting your library. This simplifies the process of storing your content, and sharing it becomes effortless, accessible from any device. Utilizing the server enables you to enjoy both online and offline reading of the books within your collection.
Edit books in your collection
Calibre has a built-in editor that you can use to edit e-books from and to common ebook formats, EPUB, and Kindle. The editor also features several functionalities to help you edit easily.
Built-in plugin explorer
In case there’s a feature you need in Calibre but do not have it, the built-in plugin explorer is designed to help you work around that. Since the software is open-source, several developers have created different plugins that enhance and extend the functionality of Calibre. Browse through hundreds of plugins directly within the software and install them to add more functionalities to the application.
Free Alternatives to Calibre
Kindle: In addition to serving as an ebook reader, the Kindle app for PC features an in-built ebook store where you can buy thousands of ebooks, magazines, newspapers, comic books, and graphic novels.
CoolReader: Cool Reader is equally free and open-source. However, it is not as robust as Calibre, as it is mostly designed to offer ebook reader functions. It is available across different platforms.
Sumatra PDF: Sumatra PDF is a free and open-source ebook reader that supports various ebook formats, including MS Word, Open XML Paper Specification, EPUB, MOBI, PRC, DjVu, and many others.
FAQs
Is Calibre free?
Is Calibre secure?
What ebook formats does Calibre support conversion to and from?
Calibre allows you to convert several input formats to many other output formats. Calibre supports the conversion of files to and from the following ebook formats:
Input Formats: AZW, AZW3, AZW4, CBZ, CBR, CB7, CBC, CHM, DjVu, DOCX, EPUB, FB2, FBZ, HTML, HTMLZ, LIT, LRF, MOBI, ODT, PDF, PRC, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, SNB, TCR, TXT, and TXTZ.
Output Formats: AZW3, EPUB, DOCX, FB2, HTMLZ, OEB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, PDB, PMLZ, RB, PDF, RTF, SNB, TCR, TXT, TXTZ, and ZIP.