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.
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!
mcky ( View Profile) - Posts: