Alfa Ebooks Manager

Sommario
Getting Started .................................................................................................................................................. 4
e-Library structure ......................................................................................................................................... 4
Books View .................................................................................................................................................... 4
Book Details pane .......................................................................................................................................... 7
Library Explorer ............................................................................................................................................. 7
Filter Builder .................................................................................................................................................. 8
3D Book View................................................................................................................................................. 8
Book Card ...................................................................................................................................................... 9
Custom Fields ................................................................................................................................................ 9
Authors and other Lookups ......................................................................................................................... 10
Add and Edit books .......................................................................................................................................... 11
Add books manually .................................................................................................................................... 11
Add books automatically ............................................................................................................................. 11
Edit multiple books ...................................................................................................................................... 12
Merge Books ................................................................................................................................................ 12
Read Books and Audiobooks ........................................................................................................................... 13
Read books .................................................................................................................................................. 13
Listen to Audiobooks ................................................................................................................................... 13
Update books from the Web ........................................................................................................................... 14
Supported Book Sites .................................................................................................................................. 14
Add books from the Web ............................................................................................................................ 15
Saving options.......................................................................................................................................... 15
Merging book data from different sources ............................................................................................. 16
Update book from the Web ........................................................................................................................ 16
Update multiple books ................................................................................................................................ 17
Batch web update options....................................................................................................................... 17
Get pictures from Google Images................................................................................................................ 18
Manage eBook files ......................................................................................................................................... 18
Scan your computer for e-Books ................................................................................................................. 18
Duplicates control.................................................................................................................................... 19
Operations with a book file ......................................................................................................................... 19
Files tab in the Book Card ........................................................................................................................ 19
Retrieve ISBN and other metadata.............................................................................................................. 20
Retrieving e-Book ISBN ............................................................................................................................ 20
 Parsing e-Book metadata ........................................................................................................................ 20
Creating cover thumbnails ...................................................................................................................... 20
Edit ebook metadata ................................................................................................................................... 21
Rename multiple book files ......................................................................................................................... 21
Copy/move multiple book files ................................................................................................................... 22
Copy/Move options ................................................................................................................................. 22
Moving e-Library to another drive/computer ......................................................................................... 23
Backup your library to DVD ......................................................................................................................... 23
Book Covers and Thumbnails .......................................................................................................................... 24
Add covers manually ................................................................................................................................... 24
Creating back covers................................................................................................................................ 24
Add covers automatically ............................................................................................................................ 25
Customize thumbnail size............................................................................................................................ 25
Operations with book covers and thumbs .................................................................................................. 26
Import / Export books ..................................................................................................................................... 26
Import from Calibre ..................................................................................................................................... 26
Import from Bookcat ................................................................................................................................... 27
Import from Google Books .......................................................................................................................... 27
Export books from Alfa Ebooks Manager to Google Books .................................................................... 28
Import from CSV .......................................................................................................................................... 28
Export to CSV ............................................................................................................................................... 28
Export to HTML............................................................................................................................................ 29
Export to XML .............................................................................................................................................. 29
Access e-Library in local network .................................................................................................................... 30
Access via LAN ............................................................................................................................................. 30
OPDS Web Server ........................................................................................................................................ 30
Getting Started

e-Library structure

Alfa Ebooks Manager stores all book data in the database file. It uses .SDF format (SQL Server Compact Editition database
file). This file can be also opened and edited by Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express.

Each book in the database is represented as a book card. The book card may contain a link to ebook file on your computer or
external drive. It also may contain links to front and back covers of the book. Note that cover thumbnails, that are displayed
on almost all e-Library views are stored in the database (in binary code) - not as separate images on your hard drive.

You don't need to change the structure of your library folder where you store your e-book files. After Alfa Ebooks Manager
installation you can scan your existing library and the software will automatically import all your ebooks to the database. Later
you can use Alfa Ebooks Manager to rename, copy, move multiple book files, so later you can easily change the structure of
your e-library folder.

We recommend to create one separate folder for all book covers, so it will be easier to work with covers and automate some
book update operations. But if you use to store each book file in a separate folder, you may also store covers in the same
folders.

Books View
Books View shows the books stored in your e-Library. There are 3 basic layouts of the Books View and you can easily switch
between them depending on your current task and mood:

1. Table View is ideal for searching, selecting, filtering, sorting and organizing books. You can sort the book list by different
parameters by clicking on the column header. You can select the columns to display by right-clicking on table header and
opening the Columns list.
2. List View is perfect when you want to see general book data or book description when browsing the library.You can zoom
the list and change the template.

3. Thumbnail View is perfect to represent your e-Library to your friends or browse it for your own pleasure. You can select
one of several templates, tune the number of columns and zoom the view.

4. Wall View is also great for playing with your library and showing it to your friends.
In any books view you can perform the following actions with the help of the right-click menu:

- Open the Book Card with detailed book data

- Delete a book from the database (Note, that the book file won't be deleted from your computer)
- Open Book file (the file will be opened by the default program for given file type)
- Copy Book file (for example to flash drive or to SD card of your e-Book Reader)
- Open book in 3D (opens interactive 3D book model on the full screen)
- Go to Web Link (opens the book page on the book site, it was updated from)
- View book description and TOC in the interactive Viewer
- Copy to the clipboard Book's Title, ISBN or File Path

Besides, you can define what action should be taken when you double-click a book in the Book View in Tools -> Options. You
can select to open:

- Book Card
- Book File
- Book in 3D
Book Details pane

Book Details pane allows to view book data, cover, description, TOC on-the-fly while browsing your library.

The pane also contains Similar tab that shows similar books provided by Amazon. You can drag these similar book to the
Books view and quickly add them to the database.

Library Explorer
Library Explorer is an Outlook-like pane that allows to filter the Books View by different parameters: author, genre, location,
extension, rating, add date and others. You can filter the book list by two or more parameters (i.e. by several tags) by
selecting multiple items in the Library Explorer using Ctrl/Shift.

To show all books - just click on the All Books button in the Library Explorer header.

Library Explorer also allows you to allocate duplicates (by title, file, ISBN) and book that miss certain parameters (genre,
author, file...).

Each section in the Library Explorer is switched on by the appropriate button. You can show and hide these buttons, transform
buttons into icons or vice versa. In the Authors pane you can display authors with or without grouping. Besides, right in the
Library Explorer you can view the number of books (in each genre, series, etc), edit and delete items.

You can also hide the Library Explorer pane, change its position in the program interface or make it floating.

Filter Builder

You can quickly filter your book list by clicking on items in the Library Explorer or using the Search. But if you want to select
books by several conditions (i.e. Genre, Author, Publish date) - you can use the Filter Builder tool.

You can open the Filter Builder pane from the Books menu.

To create a filter - just drag items from Library Explorer to the Filter Builder. You can set either OR or AND logical operator
between items. You can also use brackets to group some items and build more sophisticated filter conditions.

To apply filter - click on the appropriate icon in the Filter Builder toolbar.

3D Book View

To make your user experience more exciting the program creates interactive 3D-books that you can view in the 3D-book pane.
Book Card

You can open Book Card by double-clicking on a book. Book Card contains the detailed information about the book: Book Title,
Subtitle, Cover Thumbnail and Rating. Other book data is stored in the following tabs:

- Details - Publisher, Series, ISBN, Publish date, Price, Dimensions etc. It also contains the Custom Fields
- Genres - where you can assign multiple genres to the book
- Authors - where you can add one or several authors
- Tags - where you can add some tags
- Description - any book description in Rich Text format
- Contents - book's Table of contents
- Files - allows to link ebook file(s) to the book and perform various operations with it
- Front (Back) Cover - allows to link cover picture to the book and perform various operations on it

The Book Card toolbar contains the following tools:

- Update book parameters from the Web

- Open book file
- Edit file metadata (supports only PDF files)
- Retrieve ISBN from book file

Custom Fields

If the default fields are not enough for your e-Library you can create up to 5 custom fields. The custom fields are located in
the Book Card and can be displayed in the Books View (Table View). You can also sort and search books by the custom
fields.

Currently you can create only text fields. The custom field titles can be set in Tools -> Options.
When you entering values to custom field, the program shows you suggested values that begin with the same symbols.

You can also edit custom fields in multiple books at once using the Edit Books tool.

Authors and other Lookups

To make working with e-Library easier Alfa Ebooks Manager provides lookups for the following book parameters:

- Authors
- Genres
- Publishers
- Series
- Tags

When adding or updating Book Card you can select values from the lookups rather than enter them manually.

You can also access lookups from the Lookups menu. In the Lookup windows you can Add, Edit and Delete the lookup values
(i.e. authors, genres, etc). The lookup form includes Title, Description and Picture that you can create from any image-file or
pick up from Google Images:
Besides the Lookup window allows you to search needed values and view statistics in the status bar.

The Genres lookup also allows to create sub-genres, so that you could better organize your e-Library.

Add and Edit books

Add books manually

To add a new book to your e-Library click on the appropriate icon in the toolbar or select Books -> Add New Book... This will
open an empty Book Card where you can enter any book data (genres, authors, format, language, etc).

If you adding an electronic book, you'll want to attach the book file in the File tab. Besides, you can retrieve book ISBN using
the tool in the Book Card toolbar.

Having entered the book title you can update the book data from the Web. You can also download the book cover
fromGoogle Images in the Cover tab.

Press the OK button to save the Book Card.

Add books automatically

There are also two ways to add book to e-Library automatically:

1. Add books from the Web - search Amazon, Google Books or other book site and quickly add needed books to the
database

2. Scan your computer for ebooks - if you have an ebook library on your computer or external drive, the program will scan
it, retrieve metadata and add all books to the database
Edit multiple books

To edit parameters in multiple books simultineously:

1. Select the needed books (using Ctrl, Shift or Ctrl+A)

2. Open Books -> Edit Books menu
3. Check the box near each parameter you want to edit and select the needed value
4. Press OK

Note, that for Genres, Authors and Tags you can either replace the existing values, or add the new values to them. If you
want to clear e.g. Tags - leave it empty and select the "Replace current tags" option.

Merge Books

Sometimes you may need to merge several books into one. For example, after scan, when you get several parts of the same
books or several versions of one book in different formats.

To merge books:

1. Select the books you want to merge using Crtl, Shift buttons

2. Click Books -> Merge Books menu

3. In the Merge window select the target (primary) book, that you want to keep in the library

4. Check the box "Delete source books" if you want to delete the secondary books

5. Press OK, and the ebook files from secondary books will be linked to the target (primary) book
Read Books and Audiobooks

Read books

Alfa Ebooks Manager is a program for book management, but not for book reading. Nevertheless, you can use Alfa as a
launchpad to open books you want to read. When you open a book from Alfa it's opened in the ebook reading program, that is
set as defualt for this file type in your system.

You can also use our free ebook reading program AlfaReader, that allows to open and read PDF, EPUB and TXT files.

Listen to Audiobooks

Alfa Ebooks Manager contains inbuilt audiobook player, so you can use it to listen to your adiobooks. All parts of each
audiobook should be linked to the same book card. You can add them manually in the Book card -> Files tab, or Merge parts
into single books after Scan.

You can start playing audiobook from the right-click menu. Or you can open the Audio Player (click View -> Audio Player) and
start playing any part of the audiobook.

You can use the familiar controls to pause, stop, rewind and toggle audio books.
Update books from the Web

Supported Book Sites

Alfa Ebooks Manager allows to update book data from most popular Book Sites, including Amazon, Google Books,
Barnes&Noble and others. In the Web Search window you can expand the Sites sidebar and select the Book Sites from which
you want to add/update books.

Here is the list of supported book sites (it's constantly expanding):

- Amazon.com (USA)
- Amazon.de (Germany)
- Amazon.fr (France)
- Amazon.co.uk (UK)
- Amazon.ca (Canada)
- Amazon.es (Spain)
- Amazon.co.jp (Japan)
- Amazon.cn (China)
- Google Books (USA)
- Barnes & Noble (USA)
- Ozon.ru (Russia)
- Books.ru (Russia)
- Bol.com (Netherlands)
- Isbndb.com (USA)
- Papasotiriou.gr (Greece)
- Safari.Oreilly.com (USA)

For each book site the integration plugin exists. If one of these sites changes its data structure, the appropriate plugin stops
working. We always try to update plugins quickly in such cases. You can always download the latest plugins by clicking Tools -
> Update Plugins.

If you use Windows 8, than you need to launch the program as Administrator and then update plugins

If you need a plug-in for some custom book site, you can order it separately.
Add books from the Web

You can search books on the popular book sites and add them to your database. Here is how:

1. Open Books -> Add from Web...

2. Select needed book sites in the Sites sidebar
3. Enter book title, author or ISBN to the search box and press Search
4. Select a book in the search results and press Save
5. The book will appear in the database. You can do multiple searches and save multiple books in the Web Search window.

Saving options

You can select, what book data will be saved from the web in the Update Options. Besides, you can set the folder to save
downloaded book covers.

Besides, you can view and pre-edit book properties before saving it to the database. Just double-click the book in the Search
results list and the Preview window will be opened. There you can edit or uncheck fields. Note that the check boxes are synced
with the Update Options.
Merging book data from different sources

If you found a book on two or more sites, you can merge the results to select the most appropriate book properties:

1. Select the primary (most appropriate) book in search results and press Merge button
2. Select the other (secondary) book in the drop-down list of the right column
3. Replace the properties of the primary book. (You can open several secondary books to take data from)
4. Press OK and then save the primary book with updated properties.

Update book from the Web

To update book data from the Web, open Book Properties window and click one of the Web Update buttons:

- Update book from the Web (updates by ISBN. If ISBN is absent - updates by book title)
- Update by Title
- Update by ISBN-10
- Update by ISBN-13
- Update by Author (on the Authors tab)

When the Web Search window opens, you can select book sites, find books, preview them, merge book data from different
sources as described in the article Add books from the Web
 To save the updated book data press Update button. You can also save search result as a new book in the database
by pressing New Book button.

You can also update multiple books from the Web by ISBN

Update multiple books

To update multiple books from the Web by ISBN:

1. Select the books you want to update. (Note, that all these books should have ISBN-10 or ISBN-13)
2. Open Books -> Web Update
3. Select the book site, you want to update book data from
4. Press Start button. It may take some time before all ebook files will be found. You can press Stop button to stop the
update.
5. If the book was successfully updated, you'll see the green icon in the book row.

Attention! We don't recommend to update more than 100 books at once, because book sites may ban your IP

Batch web update options

First of all you can select the folder to save book covers. This
folder is synced with the covers folder specified in Tools ->
Options. For more information see (for more information
see Create book covers and thumbs)

Besides, you can select, what book data will be saved from the
web in the Update Options box:

Note: is you select to update the Genre and book site provides
multiple genres per book, the software will save only first given
genre.
Get pictures from Google Images

Alfa Ebooks Manager provides Google Images integration. You can quickly find and download book covers (in the Book Card),
author photos (in the Author card), pictures for tags, genres, publishers and series.

Manage eBook files

Scan your computer for e-Books

If you store e-Book files on your hard drive or external drive (DVD or SD/MMC card), you can use the Scan tool to import
books to Alfa Ebooks Manager database automatically.

How it works:

1. Open the Scan tool in the Books menu

2. Select the folder where the files are stored and (if needed) check the "Scan sub-directories" option
3. Select the e-book extensions (you can also add the custom ebook extensions to the list)
4. Start scan. It may take some time before all ebook files will be found. You can press the Stop button to stop the scan.
5. Select neded files (Ctrl+A will select all) and press the Save button. This will create books in the database for the selected
files and link these files to them.
Note: when scanning your computer for ebooks, you can at the same time retrieve ebook metadata and create book
thumbnails (see details). You can also perform these operations later (after you save the ebooks to the database) using
the File Parser.

Duplicates control
Sometimes, when a lot of news ebooks appear in your collection, you may need to import only the new files to your Alfa
Ebooks Manager database. For this reason the Scan tool includes the duplicates control. To detect the files, that already exist
in the database, you can select to search duplicates by:

- File Path
- ISBN (of course in this case you need to check the Retrieve ISBN box before scanning)
Duplicates are marked in the Scan list and you can remove them before saving ebooks to the database.

Operations with a book file

Alfa Ebooks Manager allows you to easily access and manage ebook files. Using the context menu in any e-Library view you
can Open book file:

You can also quickly copy the book file to any location. This is useful for example when you want to copy ebook to the flash
drive or SD-card of your e-Book Reader. It's also possible to copy/move multiple ebooks at once.

Files tab in the Book Card

Most operations with ebook file can be done in the Book Card. The Files tab toolbar allows to link/remove files, open, rename
and move files.
Retrieve ISBN and other metadata

Using the File Parser tool you can retrieve ISBN and other metadata from multiple ebooks. You can also perform these
operations in the Scan tool, when importing ebooks to the database.

Before opening the File Parser (from Books menu) you need to select the books, that you want to parse.

Retrieving e-Book ISBN

The tool can retrieve ISBN from file name or from file content. If it finds more than one ISBN, you'll see the drop-down list
with all found values in the ISBN column. To select the right value you can use the Check ISBN button near the ISBN value:

It searches the ISBN on isbndb.com - the largest ISBN database on the Web. If the given ISBN is found, you'll see the
notification with book details, so that you could make sure that this is the right ISBN.

The Retrieve ISBN operation supports the following file types: PDF, MOBI, FB2, LRF, EPUB, TXT, CHM, HTML

Parsing e-Book metadata

Some ebook formats contain metadata with general book information (Title, Author, Publisher etc). To retrieve ebook
metadata check the option "Parse file MetaData".

The following formats are supported: PDF, MOBI, MP3, FB2, LRF, EPUB, DJVU.

Creating cover thumbnails

While parsing files you can also create book thumbnails. Just check the box "Create Thumbnails"

The following formats are supported: PDF, MOBI, MP3, FB2, LRF, EPUB, CHM, DJVU.
Edit ebook metadata

You can view and edit ebook metadata by clicking the appropriate icon at the Book Card toolbar. To rewrite metadata just
enter new values and press OK. You can also enter values from the book card by clicking on the "Set" buttons near each field.

The following ebook formats are supported: PDF, EPUB, MOBI, AZW, FB2

Rename multiple book files

If you want to rename all your ebook files basing a common template, you may use the batch rename function in Alfa Ebooks
Manager. To rename multiple ebook files:

1. Select the books for which you want to rename files

2. Open Books -> File Manager menu
3. Select or set new file name template
4. Check the result preview in the New Path column (if it's different from the Old Path, it will be highlighted in green)
5. Start the Rename process

The file paths in the database will be updated automatically.

Note, that File Manager automatically checks if the new file name differs from the current name and not empty. In these cases
books in the list will be unchecked and highlighted in grey:
Copy/move multiple book files

You can copy/move multiple ebook files at once using the inbuilt File Manager. To copy/move multiple books:

1. Select the books for which you want to copy/move files

2. Open Books -> Files Manager
3. Select the destination folder
4. Set the options (see below)
5. Check the result preview in the New Path column (if it's different from the Old Path, it will be highlighted in green)
6. Start the Copy/Move process

Copy/Move options
- Include book covers - will copy/move book covers to the same destination folder
- Overwrite files - will overwrite files, if they already exist in the destination folder
- Update path - if selected, the file paths in the database will be automatically updated
- Include book folders - will copy/move book files with lowest-level folders
- Create folders - will arrange books to folders by selected parameter (i.e. by authors or genres)
Moving e-Library to another drive/computer

If you need to move your e-Library to another drive or computer, the simplest way to do it is the following:
- move your ebooks and covers in any file manager
- open in Alfa: Tools -> File Finder
- select the new root folder of you library on the new computer/drive
- press Start, and the file paths in Alfa's database will be automatically updated by file name (or MD5)

Backup your library to DVD

If you have thousands of ebooks in your collection, you'll probably want to backup them to DVD disks in order to keep them
safe and to free up space on your hard drive.

If so, you can use Alfa to create an ISO image of selected books and then easily burn it to DVD disk.

Just open Books -> File Manager -> Create ISO tab, enter the Volume Label, select the location for ISO file.

You can also use the options to include book covers, include book folders or create folders by different parameters (like Genre,
Author...)

After recording your ebooks to DVD, you can use the File Finder tool to update book paths in the database. Just select the
DVD drive in the File Finder and press the Start button
Book Covers and Thumbnails

Add covers manually

Book covers are stored on your computer as image files. For easy cover management we recommend to create one separate
folder for all book covers. You can set this folder in the program Options. By default, the program will ask you to select a
folder for every cover when you try to save it.

Cover thumbnails are stored in the program database (not as separate files). If you wish, you can create only thumbnails and
not save covers to your hard drive.

You can create a book cover and thumbnail in the following ways:

- add cover image in the Book Card (Cover Tab)

- add cover from Google Images in the Book Card (Cover Tab)
- extract cover from book file metadata (works for EPUB, MOBI, FB2, LRF, AZW, CHM)
- create cover from book file first page (works for PDF and CHM)
- download cover from book sites when adding/updating book from the Web

Cover thumbnails are created automatically from book covers. You can set the thumbnail size in the program Options. Besides,
you can resize all thumbnails automatically.

Creating back covers

The program alows to create and store a back cover for each book. It is used in the 3D Book view. If the back cover is
absent, the program generates back cover for 3D View automatically.

You can create back covers in the same way as front covers. But you can extract back cover from file in the Book Card only for
PDF files.
Add covers automatically

Book covers are stored on your computer as image files. For easy cover management we recommend to create one separate
folder for all book covers. You can set this folder in the program Options. By default, the program will ask you to select a
folder for every cover when you try to save it.

Cover thumbnails are stored in the program database (not as separate files). If you wish, you can create only thumbnails and
not save covers to your hard drive.

You can also create book covers/thumbs for multiple books simultaneously in the following ways:

- extract covers from book files during the Scan process. (works for PDF, MOBI, MP3, FB2, LRF, EPUB, CHM)
- extract covers from book files in File Parser. (works for PDF, MOBI, MP3, FB2, LRF, EPUB, CHM)
- download covers when updating books using the batch Web Update tool

Customize thumbnail size

Alfa Ebooks Manager allows to scale the Books View, so you may want to create larger thumbnails than displayed by default.
But remember that book thumbnails are stored in the database (not as separate files on your computer) and too large thumb
size may slow down the software performance.

You can set the default thumbnail size in Tools -> Options menu. And using the Tools -> Resize Thumbs you can resize all
thumbnails automatically. Note that you need to have covers for all books, otherwise the new thumbs will be created from old
ones and will have the low quality.
Operations with book covers and thumbs

Most operations with book cover and thumb can be done in Book Card -> Front (Back) Cover tab. Here you can:

- add/update book cover in different ways

- move cover to other folder
- copy cover to other folder
- rename cover using the template
- open and view cover in full size

Import / Export books

Import from Calibre

Calibre usually creates the following library structure: Author folder / Book folders / Book file + cover.jpg + metadata.opf

The Scan tool provides option to scan this library structure and quickly import all books (with metadata and covers) to Alfa's
database

Just select the root folder of the Calibre library and check boxes "Using .opf files" and "Scan subdirectories"
Import from Bookcat

To import your ebook library from Bookcat:

1. Click File -> Import -> Import from Bookcat
2. Select your Bookcat database (MDB)
3. Click Load to view all your Bookcat books
4. You can filter books by Genre, Publisher and Series, if you want to split your database into several parts
5. Click Save to add book to AEM database

The library structure on your hard drive remains the same

Import from Google Books

To import your Google Books library:

1. Open any book list in Google Books and click Options -> Export as XML
2. In Alfa Ebooks Manager select menu File -> Import From... -> Google Library
3. Select the exported XML file and press the Load button. This will load the book list to the window
4. Select the folder to download covers (this folder is automatically synced with the covers folder in Tools -> Options)
5. Select the books you want to import (Note, that the software finds and automatically unchecks duplicates by ISBN-13)
6. Press the Save button. It may take some time before all books will be imported. You can press the Stop button to stop
saving.

Export books from Alfa Ebooks Manager to Google Books

1. Use the Export to Text File tool to create a list of ISBN (set template )
2. Open the exported file and copy the ISBN list
3. Open any book list in your Google Books account
4. Click Options -> Add by ISBN
5. Paste ISBN list and press Add Books button

Import from CSV

If before finding Alfa you used to manage your book collection in Excel, Access or another book organizer, you can quickly
import all your books to Alfa using the "Import from CSV" tool.

Before importing your book list, open it in Excel and arrange the columns in the following order:

Title, ISBN, Authors, Publish Date, Publisher, Series, Format, File, Custom 1, Custom 2, Custom 3, Custom 4, Custom 5

If you don't have one of these parameters - just leave the column empty.

Then save the table as CSV file. Open File -> Import from CSV file (in Alfa) and do the import.

Note, that the CSV file should be in UTF8 encoding. Other encodings may result in character transformation. If your Excel
works with other encoding, than after saving table to CSV, open this file in Notepad, and save to TXT file with UTF8 encoding.

Export to CSV
To export your database or book list to CSV:

1. Select the books you want to export (or skip this step to export all)
2. Open File -> Export to... -> Export to CSV
3. Select the option to export all books or just selected
4. Select the CSV Separator
5. Select the folder and save the CSV file

If you want to open the exported file in Excel, we recommend to use the "Import External Data" tool in Excel.

You can also export your library to XML and to Text file

Export to HTML

If you want to publish your library or book list to your site or blog, use the Export to HTML tool:

1. Select the books you want to export (or skip this step to export all)
2. Open File -> Export to... -> Export to HTML
3. Select the option to export all books or just selected
4. Select the destination folder
5. Customize the HTML layout
6. Press the Export button

You can customize the following export parameters:

- export all book or only selected books

- export all books to single HTML page or to several pages split by alphabet or book number (i.e. you can export 100 books
per page)
- create a separate page for each book with book general data
- sort order on the resulting page
- library name

Sample HTML layout:

Export to XML
To export your database or book list to XML:

1. Select the books you want to export (or skip this step to export all)
2. Open File -> Export to... -> Export to XML
3. Select the option to export all books or just selected
4. Select the folder and save the XML file
Access e-Library in local network

Access via LAN

By default Alfa Ebooks manager intended to work on single computer, on which the database and ebook files are located. If
you want to use Alfa and access your single e-library from other computers on your local area network, you need to:

1. Install Alfa on each LAN computer, that you want to use to access e-library

2. On each computer map the network drive on which the database is located as local drive. Here is step-by-step guide, how
to do it.

3. On each computer open in Alfa the database file from this mapped "local" drive

Note: You can install one license of Alfa on up to 5 computers.

The alternative way to access the single ebook library via LAN is using OPDS server, built in Alfa

OPDS Web Server

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

Using Alfa Ebooks Manager you can create your own local OPDS Web Server and access (search, browse, view, download)
your books from any computer or mobile device in your local network.

To start OPDS server - just click on the appropriate icon in the Status Bar.

There are a lot of ereading programs and mobile apps that support OPDS (Aldiko, Mantano Reader, FBReader). You can also
use browser plugins (i.e. Lucifox for Firefox).

In the remote app or browser plugin you just need to add OPDS catalog and enter Alfa's OPDS web address that you can find
in the Tools -> Settings manu (for example 192.168.1.3)