How To Transfer Kindle Books To Kobo Without Losing Formatting?

Skip the hassle and go with Calibre (after stripping DRM from Kindle books, convert to EPUB and throw them on the Kobo. 90% or so of books convert just fine, the odd one or two need a tweak to the conversion settings (disabling ‘heuristic processing’ in particular helps to preserve very odd layouts). Kindle comics are best loaded with KindleUnpack, wireless synch’ing is better than using cables to avoid those rare sync’ing errors.

In my experiments to date, I’ve found that moving books between formats without losing their appearance can be harder than it sounds, especially given the differences between the Kindle and Kobo ecosystems. My best discovery to date is Calibre, a fine open-source software utility that is as much of a ‘Pocket Knife’ for e-books as Amazon’s own Content Management System is for Kindle content. Calibre and its associated DeDRM plugin (which removes DRM from e-books you own lawfully) form the core of the process here: convert to EPUB (a format natively read by Kobo e-readers) using Calibre’s conversion tool. With any luck, chapter jumps, italics, and even embedded fonts are all preserved in the transfer.

Note that highly complex layouts (e.g., poetry books or textbooks) can sometimes require fine-tuning after conversion, in the Calibre UI or in the converted eBook itself. In terms of comics or manga, I usually just unpack the images from the Amazon Kindle book using KindleUnpack and then re-zip them up as a CBZ file suitable for reading on the Kobo using a tool of your choice. Yes, it’s a bit more work, but superb page fidelity is well worth it here. Wireless transfer via dropbox or even direct upload via a browser on the Kobo works a treat provided the eBook was formatted properly in the first place. Do not ever use Amazon’s email-to-Kindle service (free or paid) for transferring eBooks to Kindles, as they re-compress the files and the resulting layout is almost always horrible.

I use my Kobo as the final destination for my permanent collection of books, such as classics, favorites and reference books. Casual reads that I got through Kindle Unlimited get read on the Kindle app on my phone or on my old Kindle. As a lot of time and hassle would be spent transferring these to my Kobo, they remain in my permanent collection.