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Kavita Books Library

Install and Run Kavita as a Binary

The basic install steps can be found here

  1. Download the linux x64 zip from the releases page.
  2. Extract the contents to a writable directory where you would keep applications. I have a directory at ~/Apps for this kind of stuff.
  3. Then cd Kavita and chmod +x ./Kavita.
  4. Screen or some other method for running kavita in the background would be useful. To run, just use ./Kavita in the ~/Apps/Kavita directory.

Running Kavita in Docker Compose

  1. Install Docker
  2. Add the Docker Compose configuration as kavita-docker-compose.yml
services:
    kavita:
        image: jvmilazz0/kavita:latest
        container_name: kavita
        volumes:
            - /media/networkshare/Textbooks:/textbooks
            - /media/networkshare/BooksRoot:/books
            - ./data:/kavita/config
        environment:
            - TZ=America/New_York
        # Host on port 80
        ports:
            - "80:5000"
        restart: unless-stopped
  1. Run Docker Compose with docker compose -f kavita-docker-compose.yml up -d

Using Kavita

Setup

Upon first time use; a username, email, and password will need to be put in. Just typing kavita in each field worked for me. Then you can sign in with kavita, kavita. NOTE If you want to be able to change the admin email or setup the email server it would be simpler to put a real email in.

Now to modify some settings. Click the gear icon in the top right after signing in.

Under the General tab

  • Change the port being used from 5000 to something less common like 9876.
  • You can lower the number of backups and logs to save. I don't see those being extremely important.
  • I disabled the send info to Kavita option
  • I also enabled the update library on folder changes to make it easier to update the libraries.
  • Now hit save and restart Kavita so the port change takes effect.

Under the Libraries tab

  • Hit Add Library
  • Then follow the prompts to add a library
  • Start by naming the library (e.g. Books)
  • Select the type (e.g. Book)
  • Hit Next
  • Select the location of the books (This could be in a NAS or a drive but I have a directory ~/DigitalLibraries/Books)
  • Hit Next
  • I skipped adding a cover but that's up to you; hit Next again
  • The advanced options also aren't necessary so now hit Save
  • Now the library Books will appear on the side bar. (To update the library with its contents, hit the menu icon and select Scan Library)

Customization

In Settings, under Account and Customize

  • Click the eye icon to hide any of the side bar locations you won't use
  • The items can also be moved around or filters can be added

Inviting Users

  • Hit the settings gear in the top right
  • Click the Users tab under Server
  • Hit the Invite button
  • Enter the users email (does not need to be real if you are not using a mail server)
  • Lastly select the Libraries the user will have access to and the Roles the user should have

Adding Books

This part could be done by hand but is better organized with Calibre. See below. Although a series of books in PDF format should be done by hand. For general formatting, you'll want a root directory containing the books directory where the author folders from Calibre are stored. Kavita will still work if you do not have the root directory but it will not pick up series with changing authors correctly. The structure would look like:

BooksRoot
|- Books
   |- Author 1
      |- Series 1
         |- Book 1
   |- Author 2
      |- Series 1
         |- Book 2

For a PDF series, start with Calibre since it will organize books based on author and the files are easy to move around. As an example, let's assume you have the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. Calibre would sort the books into individual book title folders within the folder Paolini, Christopher. Kavita will not pick these up as a series since PDFs don't contain a standard metadata. Kavita will however pick up on naming conventions for Specials due to the lack of metadata. This involves having the series name as a directory under Paolini, Christopher, then each book in the series is named as <series> SPO<place in series> <book title>.<extension>. This would look like

books_library
|- Paolini, Christopher
   |- Inheritance Cycle
      |- Inheritance Cycle SPO1 Eragon.pdf
      |- Inheritance Cycle SPO2 Eldest.pdf
      |- Inheritance Cycle SPO3 Brisingr.pdf
      |- Inheritance Cycle SPO4 Inheritance.pdf

When I've updated the books in my local storage from Calibre or manually, I use rsync to copy the new files/folders to the machine running Kavita.

rsync -a --ignore-existing ~/DigitalLibraries/Books/ argonite:~/DigitalLibraries/Books/
  • -r is for recursive copy
  • --ignore-existing prevents the copy from wasting resources and overwriting existing files

Smart Filters

A smart filter can be used to sort books on the side navigation bar or in the dashboard. This is especially handy if you want to see all of the books you have or have not read.

To create a smart filter:

  • Click your account in the top right and select Smart Filters
  • Click the funnel icon under the account icon in the top right
  • Make the second filter Read Progress Equals 100
  • Click Apply to see it happen
  • Change the Filter Name to Completed Books
  • Hit Save
  • Under Customize in the settings, smart filters can be used

Calibre

Calibre is a great tool for organizing a book collection and editing the metadata of EPUB books. Basic use is as follows:

  • Download desired book or books
  • Drag and drop into Calibre or Click the Add books button and select your books
  • Right Click on the book you want to edit and hover over Edit metadata then select Edit metadata individually
  • Verify the title and author are correct
    • If one of those fields are modified, click the arrow button to the right of the field to update the sort fields
    • If there are multiple authors, they can be separated by an ampersand (&)
  • If the book is part of a series, enter the series and click out of the field to then verify the series entry number is correct.
    • The entry number can be fractional for series that contain spinoffs, novellas, etc. that, for example, count as book 1.5.
  • Then hit Ok in the bottom right of the editor to save the changes
  • Repeat the metadata modification and verification process for the rest of your added books
  • Before exporting the books for Kavita, hit the preferences button
    • Click Saving books to disk under the Import/export section
    • Uncheck Save cover separately and Save metadata in separate OPF file
  • Now to export all of the books to disk, hit the Save to disk button and select the location to save to (The location should be the root of all the books you are using in Kavita such as ~/DigitalLibraries/Books/)

File Structure

By default, Calibre exports the books by {author_sort}/{title}/{title} - {authors}. For the Inheritance Cycle example, that would look like

|- Paolini, Christopher
   |- Eragon
      |- Eragon - Christopher Paolini.pdf
   |- Eldest
      |- Eldest - Christopher Paolini.pdf
   |- Brisingr
      |- Brisingr - Christopher Paolini.pdf
   |- Inheritance
      |- Inheritance - Christopher Paolini.pdf