Converting a book using Calibre

Add the book to be converted to the Calibre list

Add Book to Calibre

When you add a book to Calibre, it is copied to the Calibre library. Click on the Configuration button (See hammer in screenshot) to change the location

Configuration Options

Since you are converting for your Kindle, change the Output format to MOBI

Once the file has been added to Calibre, Right-click it and select Convert e-books, Convert individually.

(This documentation will NOT deal with Bulk Conversions)

Convert Individually

In the Conversion window you can set the Book Metadata options, Table of Contents, format and other metadata

Make sure the base metadata is correct.

Conversion Options -Metadata

Go to Look and Feel

Sometimes you may want to check 'Remove spacing between paragraphs". This can help on documents where there is too much space between paragraphs - use at your discretion.

Conversion Options - Look & Feel

Go to Page Setup

Change the Destination profile to Kindle

Conversion Options - Page Setup

Go to Chapter Detection

Calibre will try to detect the Table of Contents so cross your fingers. If your book does not contain a TOC, you can try to edit it using your word processing software before conversion.

Conversion Options - Chapter Detection

Click OK and Calibre will start the conversion process

When the conversion is complete, you will get a pop-up notification.

I always find it helpful to open the book in Calibre for a quick peek prior to uploading to my Kindle.

Right-click on the book you just converted, select View, then View specific format. Select the MOBI format as that is the format that will be transferred to your Kindle.

View Book

Select Open Format

The book will open in a new window

You can click the Table of Contents button to see if your TOC came over and briefly scroll thru the book to see if the formatting is acceptable.

Table of Contents

My Converted Book

Post Conversion

Once of the nicest things about Calibre is that it recognizes when you connect your Kindle. Once you have converted all your books, plug in your Kindle and clidk on the Reader shown in the window.

You'll see the books you have on your device. How cool is that? Even better, it knows which folder to save your documents to.

KIndle and Books

You can now click on Send to device, you wan to use Send specific format to device, then select the MOBI format.

Even though it shows other formats, the converter saved the file as MOBI. The other file formats are shown because they are compatible with the Kindle and those are the only file formats the application will allow you to upload. If you have converted files using MobiPocket Creator as well as Calibre, this is your chance to upload them as well. You can select multiple files and upload them. You will be notified when the upload is completed and you can view them in the list of books on the Kindle.

Send to Kindle

Upload File

Check out the Calibre site for more information.