Annotations and Backup Strategies

[LuisG]

Hello all.
I recently bought a Kobo Aura and it's my first experience in e-readers world.

I've been searching through web and this forum in particular, to help me understand some questions but information is much scattered around, sometimes not recent to latest firmwares and it's time consuming to go through some long topics, sometimes just to find that there are no clear answers (at least to my level of understanding).

I would like to understand two main subjects: annotations and backups.


--- Annotations ---
I do lot of highlight and note taking in paper book so I'm trying to find out what is the best way to deal with it in ebooks in general but particularly with Kobo.

I had imagined that an ereader would allow me to highlight and take notes from a specific ebook and somehow be able to keep them append to or embed into the ebook itself but I found out that (between kobo app/calibre/koreader) there is not yet a standard way to safely accomplish that.
- Koreader "Add Note" doesn't even operate yet. Highlight does work.
- Koreader's export to Evernote (altought not attached to the ebook itself) is a promising feature but I didn't manage to put it to work properly (couldn't login to my account), so I guess it's still in development.
- Calibre's fetch annotations feature is interesting but I think we have to be carefull not to inadvertently overwrite an ebook metadata. So it's not very safe.

I'm very interested to find out what are your best strategies to safely save your highlights and notes from epubs and pdf's for future reference.



--- Backups ---
Usually I enjoy making some tweaks to my devices, so to improve and extend their functionality but I'm by no means into programming of any kind, so I basically relly on info and tips I find on internet. I found about Koreader, KSM, advboot, Cool Reader, KoboLauncher and Calibre's Kobo plug-ins.

Let's say I want to be safe from an unwanted firmware update (I read somewhere that a fw update may mess with database and revert some personal settings). Also to be safe if something goes wrong when testing some tweaks to the system (I managed once to screw the access to my Library and had to revert to factory default).

What is your preferred backup method before try any kind of tweaks to kobo system or merely to perform a backup regularly? I mean, how can I make a system backup in order to return back if something goes wrong? I learned that kobo aura comes with an hidden partition used to revert the system to factory default, but what I want is to learn how to revert to a previously saved backup.




So making it short:
1. What are your best strategies to safely save your highlights and notes and access them for future reference?
2. How do you backup your kobo's system?

I hope I managed to be clear and I'm sorry for any eventual incoherence explaining myself. It's all a new world to me.

Thank you so much!

[murg]

On the Kobos, I simply copy the .Kobo and Digital Editions directories to my hard drive.

I generally backup before and after each firmware update, as well as every now and then between.

I generally delete the .kobo/dist, .kobo/kepub, and .kobo/slideshow directories, as I don't really need to back them up.

I also delete the .kobo/stacks, as I don't use shelves.

This pretty much gives me the state of the device as at a particular date.

[LuisG]

Originally Posted by murg

On the Kobos, I simply copy the .Kobo and Digital Editions directories to my hard drive.

I generally backup before and after each firmware update, as well as every now and then between.

I generally delete the .kobo/dist, .kobo/kepub, and .kobo/slideshow directories, as I don't really need to back them up.

I also delete the .kobo/stacks, as I don't use shelves.

This pretty much gives me the state of the device as at a particular date.

Thanks murg!
So, replacing those folders after a factory reset or a database refreshing (via sign out/sing in Kobo account) will revert everything as it was (kobo settings/annotations/reading stats/...)?

[murg]

Originally Posted by LuisG

Thanks murg!
So, replacing those folders after a factory reset or a database refreshing (via sign out/sing in Kobo account) will revert everything as it was (kobo settings/annotations/reading stats/...)?

Sorry, there are at least two steps. Pull a full backup and save it. Then I pull incremental backups. I'm not sure if the partial backup is sufficient to restore the device.

I'm not trying to restore the state of my device. If the device has a problem, I'll factory reset it, reload the firmware to the version I want, and then reload the books and let the device restore itself. I would also configure the device through the UI.

I save the databases so that I retain things like when I read the book etc. I use the annotations to clean up books I've read. Everything else is pretty much useless for my purposes.

Your backup strategy should reflect how you want to use the backups. If you want to be able to restore the exact state, then backup the entire device drive.

[GeoffR]

I don't backup anything from the device itself, but I have all my original books in Calibre, and I occasionally add a flag in Calibre to the books I have read recently. If I had to do a factory reset then it would just be a matter of sending the books from Calibre again, and using the KoboUtilities plugin to set the reading status to finished for the books I have flagged as read.

There is no other information on the device that I care about enough to bother backing up. (I don't make annotations, except for temporary ones to mark errors which I delete immediately after correcting the original book in Calibre.)

Edit: If I had lots of devices or was in the habit of doing frequent factory resets, then I would also backup the .adobe-digital-editions directory to avoid the need to reauthorise the device after a reset.

I also have the original internal SD card and a backup from when I opened the device to upgrade to a larger card.

[davidfor]

My backup strategy has three levels.

The main part is syncing the reading status to my calibre library. But, that is as much about getting them marked as read in the library as being able to restore the books and their reading status after a problem. I have used this to restore books and state several times.

I also backup the database when I connect to PC and calibre. I have restored that a few times when the database has been corrupted in the past.

Lastly, I occasionally copy the complete user partition. I only do that when I am deliberately doing a factory reset to test something. That way I can test whatever I want to and then get back to the state I was before the tests.