Online libraries

Not every book you own is a file on your PC. Some you read on a website, such as D&D Beyond or Demiplane. Others you bought from a store, such as Humble Bundle or DriveThruRPG, and haven't downloaded. Bibliotaph can bring them into your library as books owned elsewhere, so they turn up in searches, collections and binders with the rest.

What Bibliotaph does, and doesn't

• You sign in yourself, on the service's own page, in Bibliotaph's browser. Bibliotaph never sees or keeps your password.
• Nothing happens on its own. The browser opens your library page and then only does what you do: it never clicks, scrolls or goes to another page by itself. Nothing is read until you press Read this page, and nothing is imported until you press Import.
• Only books you own are imported. Books someone shares with you on D&D Beyond are left out.
• Covers are the pictures the page already showed. Bibliotaph fetches nothing else for the books. It keeps them with your own data, never with your book files, and they reach your other PCs and the web library with the rest of your library.

The services

Settings > Online libraries lists them in two groups: Books you read online and PDFs you bought from stores.

Import your library

1. In the Library, click Add and choose Import from an online library…. It opens Settings > Online libraries.
2. Click Open D&D Beyond (or the service you want). Bibliotaph's browser opens at your library.
3. Sign in if the site asks, and open your library. Read this page lights up when the page lists your books, and the browser says how many, for example "This page lists 30 books you own."
4. Click Read this page. Settings > Online libraries comes forward with a preview of what importing does:
   • New: books that get a card of their own.
   • Already in your library: a card with the same title is there already, such as one you added by hand. It gets the service and the link, rather than a second card.
   • Imported before, with more to fill in: only fields that are empty are filled, and a book that has lost its cover gets it back ("Gets its cover back"). Nothing you've set changes.
   • Imported before: nothing to change.
5. Untick any book you'd rather leave out, and click Import 30 books. Undo takes it all back.

A few services need a step first:

• Demiplane: each game has its own Nexus. Open a game's Nexus, then its Sources page. Read each game's page in turn; each one read in the same window adds its books to the preview.
• Humble Bundle: choose eBook under Platform, so the library lists only books.
• DriveThruRPG: if your library runs to several pages, read each one.

Import again whenever you buy something. When the page you read is your whole library, books you imported before that it no longer lists show under No longer in this library, each with Remove from library. Nothing is removed unless you remove it.

Without Bibliotaph's browser

Bibliotaph's browser needs the Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime. Windows 11 has it; on Windows 10 you may need to install it from Microsoft. Without it, or if Read this page doesn't recognize your library, import from your everyday browser with Send to Bibliotaph on the web (see Online libraries on the web). A PC connected to your web library gets the imported books when it next syncs.

Read a book you own online

Open a book you own on D&D Beyond or Demiplane, from the Library, Home, a search, a pin or a binder, and it opens in the online reader: the service's own page, inside Bibliotaph, signed in through Bibliotaph's browser. A book you have as a file and also own online has Open on D&D Beyond (named after its service) in its menu and details.

Around the page:

• Back, forward and reload buttons for the site (F5 reloads too).
• The heart, and the pin.
• Note shows the book's own note beside the page.
• Add this page adds the page you're on to a binder (see below).
• Open in your browser opens the page in your everyday browser.
• Pop out moves the book into a window of its own, and Return to main window brings it back.
• Reading mode, the open-book button, hides D&D Beyond's menus, ads and footer, and leaves the book and its contents. It's on to start with, and your choice holds for every book.

The reader follows links within the book's site, and the site it signs you in on. A link to anywhere else opens in your everyday browser, and the reader says so. Bibliotaph copies no text from the page, so there's no Find, page box, thumbnails, page notes or Ask here: use the site's own.

To read these books in your everyday browser instead, untick Read books owned online in Bibliotaph in Settings > Online libraries.

Pages in binders

Add this page in the online reader adds the page you're on, such as a chapter or a section of it, to your current binder. Its label is the page's own name, such as "Chapter 3: The Drowned Stair", without the service's name or the book's title. The menu beside it adds to another binder.

In the binder, the page opens in the online reader, and Next and Previous step between PDFs and pages online alike. See Binders.

Get a book from a store

Books from Humble Bundle and DriveThruRPG can come into your library as files, downloaded in Bibliotaph's browser:

1. In Settings > Online libraries, under Downloads, click Choose folder… and pick one of your library folders, or a folder inside one, such as a "Store downloads" folder. Without one, downloads go to your Downloads folder, outside your library.
2. Open the store and import your library, as above. Each book you haven't downloaded is listed under Get it from.
3. When you want one, click the store's own Download button in Bibliotaph's browser. The file goes into your downloads folder, and the browser lists it with its progress, Cancel and Show in folder.
4. Bibliotaph reads the new file like any other, and Needs review asks "You own The Sunken Lighthouse elsewhere. Is this its file?". Same book gives the card its file.

Nothing downloads unless you click Download. Stop using it goes back to your Downloads folder.

The badge on the cover

A book owned elsewhere has a badge at the bottom left of its cover saying where it is, such as D&D Beyond, with the site's own icon. Bibliotaph fetches each site's icon once and keeps it. Untick Show site icons in Settings > Online libraries and the badge shows a plain cloud instead, and nothing is fetched.

Find them

• Kind in the Library's filters (under More filters) has On this PC and Owned elsewhere. Also own and Get it from filter by service or store.
• In the search box, where:elsewhere finds books owned only elsewhere, and where:here those with a file on this PC. own: and store: find them by service or store, such as store:drivethrurpg.

Sign out

Bibliotaph's browser keeps you signed in between visits, apart from your everyday browser. Sign out of all services in Settings > Online libraries forgets every sign-in, cookie and page it kept.

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