Calibre – Easily Manage & Convert eBooks for your BlackBerry for Free

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One of the things I truly love to do on my BlackBerry is read books. The thing is RIM does not offer a proper way to do this out of the box and developers have been keeping us a bit wanting for solutions. In the past I have told you about my favorite MobiPocket Reader which has truly gone downhill since Amazon acquired them and released the Kindle. Now that OverDrive has released a free ePub eBook reader for BlackBerry I am back in the game!

One of the main questions people had about OverDrive is: How do I convert eBooks, documents, and even news to a format I can read in OverDrive or even MobiPocket on my BlackBerry? There is a simple answer to that question and it is called Calibre. It is a free opensource application for Windows, Mac, and Linux that helps you manage and convert eBooks for your BlackBerry and many other devices.

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Calibre performs four essential functions for me thought there are many other uses for it:

  • Manages your eBook library on your computer kind of like a music management system
  • Converts eBooks between the following formats:
    • Input Formats: CBZ, CBR, CBC, CHM, EPUB, FB2, HTML, LIT, LRF, MOBI, ODT, PDF, PRC**, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, SNB, TCR, TXT
    • Output Formats: EPUB, FB2, OEB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, PDB, PML, RB, PDF, SNB, TCR, TXT
  • Easily export or sync a set of books to my BlackBerry over USB
  • Downloads news from both websites and RSS feeds and can turn them into eBooks. I have some long form sites that are not time sensitive that I use this for.

If you like reading eBooks on your BlackBerry or want to get more into it I highly recommend checking out Calibre at this link. Let me know if you find any other good BlackBerry eBook reading tools or resources!

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