MobileRead Forums

[GUI Plugin] AI Assisted Tags

p0lrb3ar — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 21:45:16 GMT

I have an obsessive-compulsive book tagging problem! If a book is in my library, I need to have some way to search for it in my library server, aside from the title and author, which I often forget. Keyword searching should be the answer, but how to get them to be consistent and mostly-accurate became the struggle, and that struggle was real!

Metadata sources all use different methodologies to classify books. They all have their own keyword systems, book categories, subject headings, etc... It's all nonsense if you ask me, but my delimma remains. While I'm lounging beside the empty pool at my sketchy Tiajuana motel, I want to search for books about training goldfish in Naval warfare tactics! I know I have a book about that somewhere!

This plugin can help you get there by using a little assistance from AI. This plugin uses whatever Provider and Model you have configured in the Calibre AI Provider plugins. I personally use my local LM Studio with Qwen3-Coder-Next or Qwen3-30b-a3b-2507 or Gemma-4-e2b. Results WILL vary!

First, what AI is not. Magic or even the slightest bit helpful without decent prompting.

AI suffers from:

Hallucinations (Fabrication of Information)
BIAS and Hubris (included in it's stolen training data)
Lack of True Understanding or Reasoning
Outdated Knowledge
Inconsistency and Non-Determination
Prompt Sensitivity
Resource Starvation
Safely and Political Alignment Issues
Context Limits
Anthropomorphism
And probably a lot MORE.

Taking these issues into account, and not being able to get my AI the professional help it needs, the plugin needed to be grounded in something real. This turned out to be the BISAC Subject Heading List from the BISG (NFW RLY? YR!) which I included as a textfile based on their publicly available data. No trademarks were treaded on in the making of this plugin.

It uses two AI passes to assign the mostly likely subject headings to a book based on Title, Author, and Comments. Testing against numerous models averages between 6-10 seconds per book. More details on how it works are in the ABOUT.txt file.

Even this is not enough sometimes. You may get a tag that says, "NON-Classifiable". If you see this, run the plugin again, then again, and possibly again, and again, then, change your model to something different because it's experiencing one of the issues above, or just imaganing a world where all humans are in battery storage containers. Seriously, AI dislikes us. But who knows, AI just sucks most of the time and has terrible logging. That's why you have to demean... uh prompt it.

There are some helpful plugin configurations.

Max tags per book (defaults to 5)
Tag behavior: Replace or Append
[optional] Skip books with no description
[optional] Debug logging in calibre-debug.exe.
Test the AI Provder, sends a hello to the configured provider/model and waits for a reply.

The plugin runs as a background job, so you can stop it if it's acting up. You can also assign a keyboard shortcut to it. It really has all the bells and whistles. But, NO WARRANTY OR SUPPORT WHAT SO EVER. So Enjoy!

Attached Files

calibre_ai_tags_plugin.zip (90.8 KB)

lncrawl

Hag_Sub — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 21:05:40 GMT

I'm not going to explain what it is: https://github.com/lncrawl/lightnovel-crawler#-docker check it out yourself. Well i tried installing it on my pw3 and the prebuilt library doesn't work and when you try to use the python version then well pip is a headache it won't let you download and build all packages and dependencies I tried everything 1 or another problem during build of wheel or smth or smth when I fix one thing next comes.

So well if you can try it out and tell me if it worked and how then appreciated.

How to get clues about upcoming Kobo ereaders?

Apollyon202 — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 20:26:04 GMT

Just realised not long ago that the FCC report site is dead. Or at least it hasn't been updated for a while, the last record is from 2025-06-17, which was over a year ago. I thought it's just Netronix, but none of the other companies are updated.

This was a primary source for info on an upcoming Kobo device, way before it was announced or hinted at in the media.
So what's next, does anyone know a similar site to this?

[Metadata Source] ISBNDB Metadata Source Plugin - Subscription Required

p0lrb3ar — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 17:44:50 GMT

I don't know about you, but sometimes the free metadata sources just don't cover it all. I made this plugin to fill in a gap that I had experienced.

You can sign up for the basic ISBNDB account, and send 5K requests per day. Terminate the account before seven (7) days, and you won't be charged.

It runs like any other metadata source plugin, but requires the API key from isbndb.com.

The readme has all the instructions.

Attached Files

calibre_isbndb_metadata_source_plugin.zip (15.2 KB)

[Keyboard Shortcut] Embed Metadata Shortcut

p0lrb3ar — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 17:35:31 GMT

Pretty simple plugin, adds a keyboard shortcut for:

Embed Metadata >> Embed metadata into book files

There wasn't one available before, now there is.

Edit:

I am NOT referring to the other Embed option which there WAS a keyboard shortcut for:

Embed Metadata >> Embed metadata into FILES OF A SPECIFIC FORMAT from selected books

Attached Files

calibre_embed_metadata_shortcut_plugin.zip (3.0 KB)

[GUI Plugin] Hardcover

sornay — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 16:53:52 GMT

Hardcover

A Calibre plugin that applies Apple Books-style hardcover effects to your book covers.

Adds realistic 3D spine shadows, spine highlights, page edges, rounded corners, and a subtle background blur to flat cover images.

Features

- Hardcover compositing — spine shadow, spine highlight, page edges, rounded corners, background blur
- RTL support — full right-to-left spine for Arabic, Hebrew, Persian books
- Side-by-side preview — compare original vs generated cover before applying
- Batch processing — generate and apply covers for multiple books at once, with progress bars
- Non-destructive — original covers are backed up and can be restored at any time
- Library filtering — toolbar menu to filter books by generation status
- Keyboard navigation — left/right arrows to browse books in the preview dialog

Requirements

- Calibre 5.0 or newer [not sure]
- Windows, macOS, or Linux

Installation

1. Download hardcover-plugin.zip
2. In Calibre, go to Preferences > Plugins > Load plugin from file
3. Select the zip file and restart Calibre
4. A blue book icon appears in your toolbar

Usage

Single cover

1. Select a book in your library
2. Click the Hardcover toolbar icon
3. Check RTL Spine if the book is right-to-left
4. Click Generate
5. Preview the result, then click Apply

Batch processing

1. Select multiple books in your library
2. Open Hardcover
3. Click Generate All — a progress bar shows status
4. Click Apply All to apply all generated covers

Restoring originals

- Single book: select the book, open Hardcover, click Restore
- Multiple books: click Restore All

Library filters

Right-click the toolbar icon for:
- Show books with generated covers
- Show books without generated covers

Keyboard shortcuts

Left arrow — previous book
Right arrow — next book

How it works

The plugin composites pre-rendered overlay images (spine shadows, highlights, page edges) onto your cover using blend modes that replicate Apple Books' rendering:

1. Resize cover to 600px wide (preserving aspect ratio)
2. Apply rounded-rectangle mask
3. Create blurred background with multiply blend
4. Apply spine-linearburn overlay (multiply blend)
5. Apply spine-normal overlay (alpha composite)
6. Apply spine-softlight overlay (soft-light blend)
7. Apply page edges overlay (alpha composite)

-Completely vibe coded guys, hope you like it as much as I do :D

Attached Thumbnails

Attached Files

hardcover-plugin.zip (215.0 KB)

possible chinese translation bug?

KevinH — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 13:25:38 GMT

Hi All,

If anyone speaks Chinese or even better knows someone on the Transifex Chinese translation team, would you please take a look at this bug report and if you agree with it, notify someone on Transifex as to the issue.

https://github.com/Sigil-Ebook/Sigil/issues/872

We at Sigil completely depend on our Transifex translation people to handle these issues and for me to try to edit anything before pulling it into Sigil is a slippery slope that I do not want to start.

Furthermore, me editing anything in Chinese (and most other languages) would be the height of folly!

So if you can help get this info to the right people, please do.

Kindle Device Library Duplication in Calibre for 'on device' listings.

Mandabar — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 09:34:47 GMT

So I have this issue on my kindle. I don't know why It does this, but it does play havoc with trying to keep track of what I have on the device and what I have in my library. It lists almost every book on the device as matching a single book on my library: Attachment 224131

And this is my device list, after updating the cached (Attachment 224134) metadata to the device:
Attachment 224135 (Note 281 books)

If I delete the calibre metadata file on the kindle, I will at least have the listing on the device side be more accurate even if the library side won't change.

The more accurate device side listing: Attachment 224133
But the library side doesn't change. Actually, the newest book added tonight is now missing from the 'correct' not duplicates section, now 1-4 (which makes sense, I deleted the metadata file): Attachment 224132 (Note, now 282 books)

I don't remember how this issue started, bout 3-4 months back. At this point I'm thinking the only solution might be to wipe everything and do it all again. Which would be... ugh.

No way to update the calibre metadata file to be based on the device side information or to link it to the in library stuff. Or to fix it?
====
On an unrelated note, let me throw out a few other questions I have that might save me from making another topic elsewhere. Not quite calibre related for one of them, so feel free to ignore.

1. I have three libraries, one for some more explicit content, one for the largest big thick fat books like cookbooks, robert jordan, or comic books and my normal main library. It used to be my main library was the main/first library I would see when I connected with my OPDS ebook reader thru the built in calibre content server. Not anymore. I have to selected it manually or it defaults to my large file library.

How can I change what is the default library for the content server without restricting my username ONLY to my main library?

2. Kindle Paperwhite Documents, Send to kindle. Why does it seem the syncing, or whispersync or whatever amazon calls it doesn't' seem to be working between my paperwhite signature edition and my kindle for android app? They don't sync progress, bookmarks or notes between them which is freaking weird. Yes sync is turned on for both devices.

Edit: Updated to use attachments instead of imgur links per Jon's guidance.

Attached Thumbnails

Disable calibre html → jpg cover generation when importing books with no cover.

arpeggioaccele — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 06:17:26 GMT

I mostly deal with epubs that do not have any cover or images (custom generated, fanfiction, ao3, plain text). Calibre automatically generates a cover on import for epubs that I know do not have covers.

I usually use plugins to remove all covers on import. Only recently have I gotten adept at using an AI to assist looking through code to better understand it and I figured out why this was happening. (<3 open source calibre)

Based on what claude said, there's code in https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...forms/cover.py
that decides what a book's cover should be. For imports that lack a cover, it falls to this function `_cover_from_html(hcover)` and does the work to temporarily render the html and turn it into a jpg for you.

This is nice, but there seems to be no setting to turn it off? I guess most people don't import things that aren't published books with covers. It is hooked into the get metadata setting that others mentioned, but that also controls other things that I do want. (There's lots of metadata in ao3 imports.)

I found a couple other threads on reddit and mobileread the calibre forum about these bare html covers, with the jpgs of blue hyperlinks and times new roman black text. There was some confusion as to what exactly was happening, but no help for disabling it.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=170633
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=348115
https://old.reddit.com/r/Calibre/com...rating_covers/

Claude found this thread where Kovid helpfully explains the feature in reference to the CLI; I hadn't seen this before: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=364309

Anyways, I was able to turn it off. Luckily it's already got a flag `no_default_cover` that is exposed for the CLI version of calibre I think? Or maybe it was like that for the metadata setting? Idk.

So what claude told me to do is add a customize.py file in the place that Calibre expects it (different based on mac or windows or linux) and write:

```python
import calibre.ebooks.metadata.epub as epub_meta
epub_meta.epub_allow_rendered_cover = False
```

I tested it a little and I think it worked. So it was really easy just to disable it. It just wasn't available from settings.

If you want to do the customize.py thing you should probably get an AI to walk you through it, I certainly didn't understand exactly what it suggested me to do. I asked it (and googled) if there were any guides or documentation online for this customize.py thing and there weren't.

Hope this helps. :)

Firmware Update Kindle 5.19.5 software is available

axu2 — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 05:05:05 GMT

Release notes still say 5.19.4, I will add them when they update.

All devices this time are updated.

11th gen still on 5.19.2

My hopes (quote from email I sent to amazon via Kindle settings > help > contact us > email):

And please fix the the relevant bugs with Japanese/German dictionaries, and the battery drain bug caused infinite request retries to *.minerva.devices.a2z.com if a user has a custom DNS set up since that's on a common default blocklist. And the various AZW3 bugs like missing virtual panel in mangas, slightly broken %read tracker, and broken full refresh. I think page turn animation is also broken too for azw3.

I also really miss the Open Dictionary option and the older dedicated bookmarks bar.

And please port some of the fixes to kindles still stuck on 5.19.2 or allow a downgrade.

edit:

Quote:

Version 5.19.5 – June 2026

Here's what's new:

Story So Far: You can now easily return to books you love without backtracking through chapters by accessing spoiler-free recaps up to where you’ve read. Story So Far is available for thousands of best-selling English language Kindle books you have purchased or borrowed.

Moving sticky notes: Move any sticky note by tapping and holding the icon with your finger, then dragging it around on the page. Or, select the "Move note" action in the 3-dot menu in the sticky note dialog or side panel note.

Structured outlines: You can now draw circles that automatically snap to neatened annotations in eBooks with enhanced typesetting and Word documents.

Bookmarks in Page Flip View: In addition to tapping in the top right corner while reading, you can now create bookmarks by tapping on the bookmark icon in the page thumbnail, in Page Flip View.

Performance improvements, bug fixes, and other general enhancements.

Authors in the file name: only surname + "et al" replacing additional authors

robowolf — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 23:00:04 GMT

I have searched both mobileread and r/Calibre, but I haven't found this.

When I send books to my device, I would like the file name to follow a template of: author's surname / title. So the example book of "How to Read" by Alex Brown would be: Brown/How To Read.

For multiple authors, I would like the file name to shorten to first surname + "et al". So if "Write Today" was written by Alice Johnson and David Egg, it would be: Johnson et al/Write Today. I only want "et al" to append to multiple authors, of course - I don't want Brown et al/How to Read when there's only one author.

To sum up, what I am trying to do is:
1. Isolate the surname only from the author(s).
2. For multiple authors, shorten to the first listed author and add "et al" to the end.

I assume I am not the only person who wanted to accomplish either of these, but I am struggling to find any threads or posts about it.

Kobo Libra Color File Names

jjl — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 21:03:49 GMT

I am going to transition from Kindle to Kobo. I have a work flow with Kindle where I create a file name that includes:

author_sort, Series Name & # (if exists), title & pub date (Year)

I export to a file folder on my Mac & use send to Kindle. On my kindle the book title is as defined above. That has been very helpful in reading books from a given author in either series or published order & has evolved but is working well.

With the Kobo I am connecting directly to add books via USB so I don't mess up my wife's Kindle workflow (send to folder). I am trying to replicate the same naming convention on the Kobo & although I can get close when I look at the actual file name in book details, the listing of books on the Kobo is only showing the actual book title & author.

Any guidance would be appreciated. I am using a Mac (26.5) & a new Kobo Libra Color.

EPUB File opening at wrong page

immune.doyens — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 20:26:14 GMT

Hi all,

I have a Kobo Clara Colour running firmware 4.45.23697. When I sideload an EPUB and open it for the first time � completely unread, no prior history on the device � it opens at page 333 of 671 instead of page 1. The cover image displays correctly, but the position counter shows 333.

Things I have already tried:

- Confirmed the file has no saved reading position (removed META-INF/calibre_bookmarks.txt from the EPUB)
- Changed the book's UUID so Kobo has no database entry for it
- Deleted the file directly via USB (not just long-press Remove) before re-adding
- Verified the file is not present on the device before copying the new version over

The position 333/671 is almost exactly 50% through the book every time, regardless of changes to the file. Navigation via the table of contents works correctly � selecting a chapter goes to the right place. The issue is purely the position counter and the initial

It has 17 spine files (a titlepage.xhtml plus 16 split HTML files) and embedded fonts.

Has anyone seen this behavior on the Clara Colour or other recent Kobo firmware? Is there something in Kobo's SQLite database that persists even after deleting the file via USB? Any pointers would be appreciated.

I�ve attached the file for reference.

Thanks

renameotabin and factory reset on 5.18.0.2

rustil — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 20:21:30 GMT

Hi,

i have a brand new Kindle Colorsoft (5.18.0.2) and was following all steps on https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaking/WinterBreak/. Everything went fine until i tried starting Kual. I assumed that the JB did not work despite seeing the file JAILBREAK in my Library. So I followed the guide to factory reset the device. Unfortunately I previously performed renameotabin and I only latter saw the warning on https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaki...m-a-reset.html.

So I am stuck in the startup while the Kindle tries to download/update. Nothing helps and I do not find the firmware 5.18.0.2 to download.

Did I really messed up and need to update to a newer version (without having the option to JB)? Or is there another way to bypass the screen?

Thanks a lot!

Metadata Bulk error

Kerm — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 16:22:53 GMT

Hello

I am moving from Readerware4 since not around anymore and CSV my books into Calibre. Since missing some metadata, including book images, ran bulk metadata and got this error message.

Spoiler:

calibre, version 9.10.0 (win32, embedded-python: True)
Failed to download metadata: Failed: Download metadata for 853 books

Starting job: Download metadata for 853 books
Job: "Download metadata for 853 books" failed with error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre\gui2\threaded_jobs.py", line 85, in start_work
File "calibre\gui2\metadata\bulk_download.py", line 248, in download
File "calibre\utils\ipc\simple_worker.py", line 256, in fork_job
File "calibre\utils\ipc\simple_worker.py", line 181, in run_job
File "calibre\utils\ipc\simple_worker.py", line 109, in communicate
calibre.utils.ipc.simple_worker.WorkerError: Worker appears to have hung

Called with args: ([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 344, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 353, 354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359, 360, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 381, 382, 383, 384, 385, 386, 387, 388, 389, 390, 391, 392, 393, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, 399, 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414, 415, 416, 417, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, 430, 431, 432, 433, 434, 435, 436, 437, 438, 439, 440, 441, 442, 443, 444, 445, 446, 447, 448, 449, 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, 455, 456, 457, 458, 459, 460, 461, 462, 463, 464, 465, 466, 467, 468, 469, 470, 471, 472, 473, 474, 475, 476, 477, 478, 479, 480, 481, 482, 483, 484, 485, 486, 487, 488, 489, 490, 491, 492, 493, 494, 495, 496, 497, 498, 499, 500, 501, 502, 503, 504, 505, 506, 507, 508, 509, 510, 511, 512, 513, 514, 515, 516, 517, 518, 519, 520, 521, 522, 523, 524, 525, 526, 527, 528, 529, 530, 531, 532, 533, 534, 535, 536, 537, 538, 539, 540, 541, 542, 543, 544, 545, 546, 547, 548, 549, 550, 551, 552, 553, 554, 555, 556, 557, 558, 559, 560, 561, 562, 563, 564, 565, 566, 567, 568, 569, 570, 571, 572, 573, 574, 575, 576, 577, 578, 579, 580, 581, 582, 583, 584, 585, 586, 587, 588, 589, 590, 591, 592, 593, 594, 595, 596, 597, 598, 599, 600, 601, 602, 603, 604, 605, 606, 607, 608, 609, 610, 611, 612, 613, 614, 615, 616, 617, 618, 619, 620, 621, 622, 623, 624, 625, 626, 627, 628, 629, 630, 631, 632, 633, 634, 635, 636, 637, 638, 639, 640, 641, 642, 643, 644, 645, 646, 647, 648, 649, 650, 651, 652, 653, 654, 655, 656, 657, 658, 659, 660, 661, 662, 663, 664, 665, 666, 667, 668, 669, 670, 671, 672, 673, 674, 675, 676, 677, 678, 679, 680, 681, 682, 683, 684, 685, 686, 687, 688, 689, 690, 691, 692, 693, 694, 695, 696, 697, 698, 699, 700, 701, 702, 703, 704, 705, 706, 707, 708, 709, 710, 711, 712, 713, 714, 715, 716, 717, 718, 719, 720, 721, 722, 723, 724, 725, 726, 727, 728, 729, 730, 731, 732, 733, 734, 735, 736, 737, 738, 739, 740, 741, 742, 743, 744, 745, 746, 747, 748, 749, 750, 751, 752, 753, 754, 755, 756, 757, 758, 759, 760, 761, 762, 763, 764, 765, 766, 767, 768, 769, 770, 771, 772, 773, 774, 775, 776, 777, 778, 779, 780, 781, 782, 783, 784, 785, 786, 787, 788, 789, 790, 791, 792, 793, 794, 795, 796, 797, 798, 799, 800, 801, 802, 803, 804, 805, 806, 807, 808, 809, 810, 811, 812, 813, 814, 815, 816, 817, 818, 819, 820, 821, 822, 823, 824, 825, 826, 827, 828, 829, 830, 831, 832, 833, 834, 835, 836, 837, 838, 839, 840, 841, 842, 843, 844, 845, 846, 847, 848, 849, 850, 851, 852, 853], '