🆕 PocketBook support

[haeyrz]

I am trying to install French and English dictionaries on my PocketBook 606. I went to the Readerdict site, where there are several dictionary formats available: Kobo, Kindle, Stardict, Dictfile, and Dict.org. I chose the Kobo files because they seem the closest to PocketBook 606.

I connected my PocketBook to my computer, navigated to the “system” folder, then to the “dictionary” folder, and copied the dictionary files there. However, when I check on my PocketBook, the new dictionaries do not appear.

I am not sure if I’m missing a step or if these files are incompatible with my device. Could you please advise me on how to correctly install dictionaries on a PocketBook 606?

Thank you very much for your help!

[BoboTiG]

Hello @haeyrz,

Native support for Pocketbook is not yet possible, we started a donation campaign to help moving forward on the subject.

As a workaround, you can install KOReader on your Pocketbook, and use StarDict files.

[IcedQuinn]

Is this related to them using a custom, undocumented format?

[BoboTiG]

Yes, and also the fact that they do not care sharing anything. I contacted both Pocketbook, and Vivlio (their French brand), multiple times by email, X, and LinkedIn. So far, zero answer.

Results: we are trying to reverse their format, but it is a complex task, and not really in the backlog "for free" given the work it requires (modulo the fact that maybe we won't make it work at the end 😓).

[IcedQuinn]

I have seen some prior work converting stardicts to pocketbook using some kind of official tooling. I can't speak for how effective it is as my pocketbook has yet to arrive.

Though the onboard TTS is the only reason I would use the official reader. I pretty much exclusively run Koreader for books (sad as it is that upstream won't allow audio overlays and the like.)

https://github.com/Markismus/PocketBookDic

[BoboTiG]

I did a lot of tests with the official, and other versions found on mobileread of, converter.exe. That's not a working solution, it requires Windows, and so we cannot automate the thing. We need a "real" tool that can be use in automation, and that works on Linux, and, most importantly, a tool that does not end on segmentation faults at any time (I had segfaults when running the same command with the same data: sometimes it passes, sometimes it crashes.

So, there is no real solution as of now.