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Syncing eBooks on Multiple Devices with Annotations

By Malinda Wijeratne
Digital editions of books are rapidly gaining popularity. While some people still find it preferable to use hard-copy, more and more people move to eBooks in favour of added functionality and usability.

When it comes to a book you own, it is nice to be able to commit your thoughts on to it. Highlighting, scribbling, commenting or making notes on your copy allows a more personalised feel to your books. And it makes reference a lot easier. Unlike in printed books, the original text is not ruined by user edits on a soft-copy. Such data introduced by the user are referred to as "annotations". They are actually an overlay of information over the book print.


Why Smart Syncing for eBooks Should Be Considered?

Conventional syncing is done based on binary changes made to the file. Because the eBook contains two forms of data: the book print and the annotations, it becomes less meaningful to sync the file bit to bit. What needs to be synced (most of the time) are the annotations. This would reduce bandwidth cost and sync times. Such synchronization would make it possible to sync from multiple devices at multiple times in any order without causing any data loss.


How Annotations are Managed

There are a variety of eBook file formats out there. While most some of them implement their own formats for annotations, some does not support them at all. To make matters worse, different eBook reader software may implement them differently; most of them deciding to keep annotations in a separate database accessed via the reader.

Storing annotations in the reader's database works quite well regardless of the eBook format. However, because such annotations are not actually included within the eBook, they do not move along with the eBook and also may not work when opened by a different eBook reader. Some systems address this by allowing the user to export annotations which may then be imported on the desired system.
It is noteworthy that most eBooks are PDF or EPUB formatted. And these 2 formats do support storing annotations in them. At least in theory, the viewer should be able to manage everything in the file itself. This way, a better portability could be achieved. On the downside, the books themselves may gain in size and contain sensitive information.

The other option would be to use a cross platform eBook reader software which can sync annotations. They would probably store annotations in their own separate database. But that doesn't really matter because we use the same software with a synced database all around. This may be faster and more efficient but, you'll have to stick to the same software platform for eBooks. Use any other viewer and it won't be the same.

 

Practical Software Options (as of 2017)

Okay... Now that being said, what software options do we have for eBook annotations with sync support and cross-platform (Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, Mac) compatibility?

Unfortunately, not much. 

  • Kindle software provides the expected features quite well at the moment. But it allows only the purchased content to be synced. The rest of the eBooks will not benefit.
  • Adobe Digital Editions is yet another candidate. Over the recent years, it has been criticized for secretly transmitting questionable data to the cloud. (See References)
  • Freda seems to implement syncing with annotations limited to Windows platform devices.
  • Calibre is an open source eBook manager with pretty impressive sharing/syncing capabilities. However, on its own it falls short in the highlighting, commenting etc. Apparently, the developers seem to have neglected implementation of annotation facilities(a plugin to add the capability has been attempted but haven't made it through. Can be found here). But, keep an eye on this promising work.

Well, that's a few eBook reader software which qualified the application. Hopefully, many other readers can still be used for the purpose with the help of other syncing services; the likes of Drop Box, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc.

And if you are privacy minded and doesn't bother a bit hassle, there are quite a few programs to sync eBooks on LAN without reaching the Cloud too.


References


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