14 DAY TRIAL // The Calibre eBook reader, editor, and library management software has been updated to version 2.9 and brings a number of new features, improvements, and a new fix for Unity.
Calibre is an app mostly used as an eBook converter and reader, but it’s actually much more than that. It comes with hundreds of features and options, so it's easy to understand why there is always something to fix or to improve. If that wasn't enough, the developer has been adding new features, including the ability to edit books, which is something that very few apps are capable of doing, especially on Linux.
Despite the fact that most of the book formats are just containers for HTML documents, editing them is no easy task. There are tons of devices out there and not all of them are the same. Getting a book to display its contents in the same manner on an array of devices is actually very complicated.
The new Calibre is better than ever
Each new edition of Calibre brings many changes, and for the most part, they are very important. It's always a good idea to get the latest version of the application, especially because most of the time it also brings significant Linux-specific changes.
"Now when you click on a link to a footnote/endnote, the corresponding note is shown in a separate popup window, for convenient reference. Footnote links are recognized using the EPUB 3 footnote markup as well as some heuristics. Any superscript or subscript links are assumed to be footnote links. Any link that links to another file which in turn links back to the original link, is assumed to be an endnote," reads the official announcement.
Besides the ability to show the footnotes separately, the cover grid has also been improved, the application should now handle much better large libraries, and downloading metadata for books is now easier. Also, a fix has been implemented for a problem that was causing the menus to disappear from the global menu bar after the application was minimized.
You can also check out our review of Calibre and download Calibre 2.9 from Softpedia, but keep in mind that this is just the source. You can compile the application if you really want to, but it needs many dependencies and updates are being launched almost every week. It's simpler to just use the installation script available on the official website.