hi! i recently got into storing fics on calibre (my new fixation!!) and saw your post re preparing for the ao3 blackout. how did you get calibre to look like that!! i know it has settings for look and feel etc but im still relatively new and would love to know how you customised it!
Hi! Sorry this has taken me so long to answer!
Let me know if there's anything specific you'd like to know. since you mentioned look and feel: this is where I changed the colors. I went to adjust colors and then I looked up color palettes and hex codes and I changed things until everything looked cohesive and the text was visible in contrast to the colors.
I changed the font to american typewriter but you can download fonts that you like and do that instead.
I changed the icon theme.
Under change icon theme they have a list of different icon themes you can choose from to customize the big icons at the top. I had to download the one I have because it wasn't on my list (i followed the instructions from this link)
I've also added more columns and got rid of some columns that I don't care for. you can add them by going to preferences->add your own columns->add custom column (or the big green ➕) and then you fill out the blank spaces. The example I have is of my read status column.
And then this is what it look like in the library
The little pictures under the fandom column are also something you can do to any of the columns. I saw someone do it for their tags and it looked really cool but I got impatient because there's too many lol
you go to look&feel ->column icons->add rule-> and then you fill out the information-> ok->apply
i recommend you find png icons with transparent backgrounds before starting this because calibre doesn't come with them.
this is my example for the fandom the bear
you have to do this separately if you wan to see the icons when it's in grid mode but it's the same process (it looks cool when there's more than one icon lol)
btw once you add the rule the change should happen automatically any time you upload a new story but only IF the value is exactly the same as what you uploaded otherwise you might have to add a new rule or you can manually change it in the column.
I hope this was helpful.
Let me know if you have anything specific you wanted to do.
Have fun!
