The new Caliber ebook viewer. This is my experience

The new Caliber ebook viewer allows you to view multiple pages

This is the new Caliber ebook viewer.

The new Caliber ebook viewer is completely different from above. So much so that even though Pablinux already commented on its characteristics Along with the rest of Caliber 4, I think it is justified to dedicate an article telling it about my experience.

For legal reasons I clarify that all the screenshots correspond to the book Dracula by Bram Stoker whose rights are in the public domain. This is the Epub version of the Gutemberg project.

We already know how Linux users (and Windows users) get when they change the interface. None of us are like Mac users who, in the face of any change, go out in procession to praise Saint Steve Jobs.

A few words about Caliber

A new user is always added, and it is likely that they do not know what what is caliber. It is THE TOOL (capitalization is intentional) for work with ebooks.

Its flagship is a book collection manager that allows you to import and export to and from different devices. You can also catalog the books according to different criteria and convert between different formats.

As I am a person who respects the law and who never violates the terms and conditions of the end user license, I will never tell you that by means of a third-party plugin called DeDRM removal, the protection that the main e-book sales stores put in place can be removed. .

The other Caliber tools are an ebook publisher (you have to write code, it is not visual like Sigil) un ve-book isor for the most popular formats and a specific one for the format used by the Sony reader.

The new ebook viewer. These are the changes

If you had an older version of the ebook reader with your preferred reading settings, and you were in the middle of an interesting book,  you will have to do it all over again. It does not save the configuration or position of version 3.

Previous versions had the controls on the side. Now, you have to carry a book for later access the configuration panel with the right button or the Esc key.

Loading of the book can be done from the application menu or hovering over the ebook and selecting the reader with the right button.

The different configuration options are now represented as a series of blocks. It feels like developers are looking to bring more convenience to touchscreen users.

The Caliber ebook viewer configuration tools

This is the search and configuration tools panel of the Caliber ebook viewer.

The preferences

In the preferences panel we can configure the following options:

Colours

Here we find an option already known in other ebook reading software such as the Windows version of the Kindle. We can choose to one of these four color schemes:

  • White background with black letters.
  • Black background with white letters.
  • Light sepia background with black letters
  • Dark sepia background with white lettering.

If you are not convinced by any of those combinations, you can always create the one you like the most.

Page structure

Here the margins of the text are established, how many pages will be displayed and how the passage will be made from one page to the next.

In My Opinion, the default option (let the program calculate the number of pages to display according to the size of the screen) it doesn't work at all well. With another book that I tried, I was shown 5 columns with one page each.

Styles

It fulfills a function very similar to the colors section, except that instead of clicking on the colors, we do it by writing code CSS. We can also choose to put an image as the background.

It is very interesting that they include a link where different code combinations are suggested.

Header and footer

In this section we can determine what information will be displayed at the top or bottom of the page. This could be:

  • Information about the book, section or chapter.
  • Information about estimated time to finish the chapter or book.
  • Information about what has already been read.
  • Hour.

Keyboard shortcuts

Here we can determine the different key combinations that will allow us to easily access the different functions.

Font

This section does not require further explanation. But we can use it to ask ourselves why the option to change the font size is a separate option and outside the configuration tab.

Miscellany

In this last section of the configuration we can enable or disable any of the following options:

  • Remember last window size and position
  • Remember current page when exiting
  • Keep a copy of annotations and bookmarks in the book file, for sharing
  • Hide mouse tips in book text

My conclusion

You see when you wore a pair of shoes for years and all of a sudden you have to get used to a new pair? The same thing happened to me with the ebook viewer.

There are things that they are not too intuitiveFor example, you have to close the window of the configuration tab with which you are working so that the changes are saved.

Translating the interface into Spanish it is not completely complete and there are also the two things that I already mentioned:

  1. Having to go to a different section to define the font size.
  2. That the default determination of the number of pages to be displayed is not always adequate for comfortable reading.

Overcome this, however, the reader works in a fluid way allowing a comfortable reading. When you think about it, being able to access the tools without having to leave the full screen is much more comfortable than having to exit to press one of the icons on the side as it happened in the previous version.


4 comments, leave yours

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with *

*

*

  1. Responsible for the data: AB Internet Networks 2008 SL
  2. Purpose of the data: Control SPAM, comment management.
  3. Legitimation: Your consent
  4. Communication of the data: The data will not be communicated to third parties except by legal obligation.
  5. Data storage: Database hosted by Occentus Networks (EU)
  6. Rights: At any time you can limit, recover and delete your information.

  1.   Jose luis mateo said

    As a Linux user, a nice improvement to get used to.

    As a Mac user (Mac Pro 2008), I regret that the application cannot be updated for those users that Apple has decided not to authorize to update the OS, more.

    We will continue with version 3.

  2.   Maria said

    I just downloaded the latest update of caliber 4.6 and the book viewer does not work, when I load a book, a window opens in which it says: loading book wait… .. but it does not load and it goes blank. Is there any way to fix it? Thank you.

    1.    Diego German Gonzalez said

      I do not know what operating system or what book format we are talking about. Try deleting the Caliber configuration files. If you are on Linux it is inside the .config folder. You have to activate the ability to see hidden files to find it

  3.   Marcelo Rodriguez said

    Two things.
    1. Moving with the arrow key leaves me in the middle of the line, which did not happen in the previous version.
    2. When I convert my document into word, I change the colors. For example, it had white letters on a blue background. In this new version I change it to black.
    They couldn't fix this, or how do I go back to the previous version.
    3. In particular, the buttons on the left seemed more comfortable, especially the zoom, because now I have to go to a new window for this purpose.