Calibre OPDS Client

Download books from an OPDS catalog using a Calibre plugin.

📚 Background

Calibre is a cross-platform open-source suite of e-book software. Calibre supports organizing existing e-books into virtual libraries, displaying, editing, creating and converting e-books, as well as syncing e-books with a variety of e-readers.

The Open Publication Distribution System (OPDS) catalog format is a syndication format for electronic publications based on Atom and HTTP. OPDS catalogs enable the aggregation, distribution, discovery, and acquisition of electronic publications.

The Calibre OPDS Client is a Calibre plugin that reads from an OPDS server and downloads the contents to a Calibre library.

🛠️ Installation

1. Ensure Calibre is installed on your machine and the command line tools are available in your search path.

2. Install the plugin.

   cd calibre_plugin
   calibre-customize -b .

3. Restart Calibre.

4. Add the plugin to the main toolbar.

   1. Open the Preferences menu.
   2. Under the Interface section, click on the button labeled Toolbars & menus.
   3. Click the dropdown menu and select The main toolbar.
   4. Select OPDS Client under Available actions on the left side.
   5. Click the right arrow (>) to add it to the main toolbar.
   6. Click Apply, then Close the Preferences menu.

💻 Usage

Download books from an external OPDS catalog

https://standardebooks.org/opds

Replicate a book collection between two computers on a LAN

1. In the calibre you wish to copy from (in this example called calibre1.home.lan):
   1. Click Preferences
   2. In the "calibre - Preferences" dialog:
      1. Click "Sharing over the net"
      2. In the "calibre - Preferences - Sharing over the net" dialog:
         1. Click the "Start Server" button
         2. Select the checkbox "Run server automatically when calibre starts"
         3. Click the "Apply" button
      3. Click the "close" button
2. In the calibre you wish to copy to
   1. Install this plugin (see the "How do I install it?" section)
   2. Click the "OPDS client" button
   3. In the "OPDS client" dialog

      1. Edit the "OPDS URL" value, change

         http://localhost:8080/opds
         

         to

         http://calibre1.home.lan:8080/opds
         

         and then press the RETURN key on the keyboard

      2. Click the "Download OPDS" button

      3. Wait until the OPDS feed has finished loading (this may take some time if there is a large number of books to load)

         • Note: if no books appear, try unchecking the "Hide books already in the library" checkbox. If that makes a lot of books appear, it means that the two calibre instances have the same books

      4. select the books you wish to copy into the current calibre and click the "Download selected books"

         • calibre will start downloading and installing the books:
           • The Jobs counter in calibre's lower right corner, will show a decrementing number and the icon will spin
           • The book list will be updated as the books are downloaded

      5. The downloaded books will be in approximately the same order as in the original, but the time stamp will be the download time. To fix the time stamp, click on the "Fix timestamps of the selection" button

         • The updated timestamps may not show up immediately, but they will show up after the first update of the display, and the books will be ordered according to the timestamp after stopping and starting calibre

⚖️ License

This code is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. For more details, please take a look at the LICENSE file.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.