Now available for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows systems

Mar 10, 2017 19:45 GMT  ·  By

Calibre developer Kovid Goyal released today, March 10, 2017, a new maintenance update to the open-source and cross-platform ebook library management software for all supported platforms, including GNU/Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows.

Calibre 2.81 comes two weeks after the launch of Calibre 2.80, and it finally looks like it's more of a feature release than a bugfix one. There are quite a bunch of goodies implemented in this version, starting with support for the latest firmware for Kobo e-readers, and the ability to download Amazon metadata from multiple sources.

"You can now configure the Amazon plugin via Preferences -> Metadata download to use either the Amazon servers, or various search engine caches to get the metadata. Should help with the recent CAPTCHA problems when downloading metadata from Amazon," explains Kovid Goyal in the release notes.

The Linux installer has been improved as well, making it possible to verify if the umask is properly set before attempting to install the application, which should resolve some issues reported by users who have modified their user umask without adjusting sudo accordingly, and it's possible again to rearrange saved searches using drag and drop.

Two new features have been implemented in the Edit Book component, namely support for adding the original word as one of the spelling corrections to the Spell Check dialog, and support for using the actual dimensions of inserted full-screen images in the generated Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) code.

Built-in metadata download plugins are now automatically updated

The list of new features continues with the implementation of an automatic update functionality for all the built-in metadata download plugins so that there won't be any issues anymore when the respective websites change their code. The NYTimes, tyzden, The Economist, The Spectator, and Kansas City Star news sources were improved.

It also looks like the irrelevant control that allowed users to delete particular formats was removed from the Bulk Metadata Edit functionality as it is already available when right-clicking on the "Remove Books" button. Several bugs were also fixed in Calibre 2.81 to improve the TXT Input, Get Books, E-book Viewer, Edit Book, and other components.

The Google metadata download and News download plugins received some fixes as well, and you should check out the full changelog attached below if you're curious to know what exactly was changed in this release. In the meantime, don't hesitate to download Calibre 2.81 for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows from our website.

Calibre 2.81 Changelog