DRM enables (or disables) various end-user rights as determined by the publisher and seller. Some DRM'd e-books can be read on more than one device. Some will allow for partial copying and printing. Some even allow for lending similar to physical books. Simply put, DRM restricts what you can do with your e-book.
An e-book with DRM cannot be converted to a different format. This is because conversion itself would require the removal of the DRM. Not all e-book formats support DRM and different e-book formats support different sets of privileges granted by the DRM. There is no way to move the DRM with the content when converting; thus DRM prevents conversion.
You might be tempted to look for some way to remove DRM from e-books in order to facilitate conversion. A word of warning about doing this: In the USA there is a law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This law makes it illegal to circumvent a copy protection system (DRM is such a copy protection system). It also makes it illegal to produce tools, distribute tools, and aid in circumvention. Not everyone lives in the USA, but many countries have similar laws. Check your local laws and realize that even though you may only want to read an EPUB book that youve legally purchased on your Kindle, it may not be legal to do so. If you dont like this sillinessand I dontthen speak up to whoever in your country makes the relevant laws.
Task 3: Downloading News
This feature of calibre is often overlooked, especially by users who own an Amazon Kindle. Integrated into calibre is the ability to download news from a variety of sources. As of this writing 842 different sources ('recipes') from all over the world, including both free and paid content, are supported. The real advantage of having calibre manage your news subscriptions is that once downloaded the content will be formatted for reading on your e-book reader. However, you can still read the news right on your computer. If you're going to be reading the downloaded news on an e-book reader it's best to go into 'Preferences', select 'Behavior' and
set the 'Preferred output format' in General options to the preferred format for your e-book reader. This would be MOBI for Kindle, and EPUB for the Sony Readers and Nook.
Click the 'Fetch news' button in the top tool bar to open the news download scheduler. With so many sources the best thing to do is find the ones you like and set them to automatically download at a time convenient for you. If you don't want to schedule automatic downloads and would rather handle it manually, you can. Just use the 'Download now' button that appears when you have selected a news source.
In the news download scheduler you can expand the categories that are relevant to you (the ones in languages you can read) by clicking the disclosure triangles to the left of the language groupings. Look through the recipes for something of interest. When you find one of interest, select it and check the 'Schedule for download' check box on the right, or click 'Download now'. You can also set how often and when you want it to download. Once downloaded the content will be converted to an e-book according to your conversion preferences.
By default when you connect your e-book reader calibre will automatically transfer the downloaded news to the device. If you don't want this to happen, and would rather transfer manually go into the 'Preferences', select the 'Behavior' category, and uncheck 'Automatically send downloaded news to ebook reader'. Also, if you do want it send to the reader automatically it's usually a good idea to check the 'Delete news from library when automatically sent to reader'.
Task 4: Interacting with e-book readers
In my mind the reason people start reading e-books as opposed to physical books (p-books) is due to e-book readers. That's precisely why I started collecting e-books. Calibre has full support for a wide variety of e-book readers. In total, calibre currently supports over 40 e-book readers. Yep, over 40. Everything from eInk devices like the Kindle, Sony and Nook to cell phones and tablets.
4.1: Putting an e-book on your e-book reader
Connect your e-book reader to your computer, and start calibre if it's not already running. If your device is supported by calibre a 'Device' icon will appear next to the 'Books' button in the tool bar. Clicking the 'Device' icon will switch the main book list from your library to a listing of e-books on your connected device. If you want to send an e-book to your device just switch back to your library, select the book and click 'Send to device' in the top tool bar. It really is that simple. Another often-used feature is to select a book on the device and click the 'Remove books' button in the top tool bar, removing the e-book from your e-book reader.
Once you've finished refreshing the e-book content stored on your device click the down arrow next to the 'Device' button. You will see an eject icon (upward-pointing triangle inside a circle). Clicking the eject icon disconnects your e-book reader from the computer. Always eject your device before disconnecting it. Bad things can happen if you don't do this.