Import Author And Title From Filename & Import Other Tags And Cover From File

[DazJWood]

I have a folder full of over 1,400 ebooks that I want to manage in Calibre.

The filenames are set up as:

<title> - <author>.mobi

I want to use the filename for the title and author metatags as these are all accurate and the tags currently on each file are either not correct or not formatted as I want them.

The other tags I would like to keep the same as are currently on the file (cover, published date, comments, etc...).

I cannot find a way to import all the books using the filename for the title and author and leaving the remaining tags as they are already on the file.

I'm sure this should be easy to do but I am either being really thick (which is highly probable) or I'm missing a setting somewhere.

Thanks in advance,

Daz

[Gunnerp245]

Preferences: Import/Export -Adding Books: The Add Process tab

[DazJWood]

Originally Posted by Gunnerp245

Preferences: Import/Export -Adding Books: The Add Process tab

Erm thanks but where does this give me the setting to import author and title from filename and import the remaining tags / cover art from the file?

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by DazJWood

Erm thanks but where does this give me the setting to import author and title from filename and import the remaining tags / cover art from the file?

You can only do one of these at a time. In the preference section mentioned above uncheck the box to Read metadata from file contents rather than file name and your author and title will be set via the file name when you add them to calibre.

Now you can select a book and open the Edit Metadata window. Here you can select a format in the formats section and click on either of two icons to the left of the formats section to extract the cover from the book or use the metadata from the book (all metadata doesn't discriminate between fields).

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DazJWood

Erm thanks but where does this give me the setting to import author and title from filename and import the remaining tags / cover art from the file?

Here's a couple of 'maybe' ideas

Maybe one way to do it would be to extract the opf from from the MOBI with the MobiUnpack plugin and then use the from-opf option of the ebook-meta command to update the Calibre metadata with what's in the opf file - see http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/cli/ebook-meta.html. I think the MobiUnpack plug-in is a wrapper around a command line program, if you used the latter should make it simpler to write a script

Maybe another way would be to find something that would take the author & title from the file name and inject them into the relevant fields in the MOBI. You'd do this before you added the books to Calibre. Then set Calibre to get the author & title from inside the book - along with everything else - when it adds the book.

I assumed you'd get a simple answer by now - maybe this post will prompt such a thing

BR

Addenda : I x-posted with DoctorOhh's post - he's given you a simple answer - but as he said - its one at a time.

[DazJWood]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

You can only do one of these at a time... (all metadata doesn't discriminate between fields).

That's the key problem for my issue then. I don't want all fields to be overwritten. I want to keep the author and title from filename and the rest of the metadata from the file.

Seems like this cannot be done in Calibre then. I am a bit surprised that this functionality is not available. I would have thought it would be a feature that would be commonly used.

Daz

[DazJWood]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Maybe another way would be to find something that would take the author & title from the file name and inject them into the relevant fields in the MOBI. You'd do this before you added the books to Calibre. Then set Calibre to get the author & title from inside the book - along with everything else - when it adds the book.

That sounds like a probable solution and I have already tried searching for something that may be able to batch rename author and title from filename to metatags and I have yet to find anything.

I can't believe it's this hard!

I'd appreciate any other suggestions.

Thanks for all your comments!

Daz

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by DazJWood

I would have thought it would be a feature that would be commonly used.

I've never heard of a book collection with internal metadata where the internal metadata has incorrect title and author and correct everything else. The only case I've ever heard of for doing this is getting the metadata from the filename and the cover from inside the file, which calibre does support.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by DazJWood

Seems like this cannot be done in Calibre then. I am a bit surprised that this functionality is not available. I would have thought it would be a feature that would be commonly used.

Commonly used? I doubt anyone has even given this combination a second thought. I can't imagine having a set of books that the title and author are wrong in the metadata but the rest of the metadata is good.

I either know the books have good metadata and add then using the metadata or more often than not I use filename to give me author and title and use download metadata to retrieve the rest of the metadata. Download metadata can be configured to not overwrite author and title. I use the Quick Preferences plugin to switch between the various add books methods I use and select the appropriate Regex as required.

I use the following metadata download plugins:

Barnes and Noble
Amazon
Fantastic Fiction
GoodReads

I only download tags using the Goodreads plugin which gives me a nice consistent and concise group of tags. 240 tags for 10,000 books.

[theducks]

I think it happens more than you think. It seems every person that codes books, seems to do it different (or enters exactly what was given, even if it violates style)

Inconsistent is probably a better word.

I am anal about a consistent Author and Title (Publisher) data

John Q. Author
John Author
John Q Author
Author, John Q.


Title
Title: A series name (exception when Series Volume# is the title. Man Kinzin Wars: XI )
<article> Title

Don't get me started on Publisher ( chose them to pick on because all my books come direct from their source)
Baen
Baen Books
Baen Pub
Baen Publishing Enterprises


I would really like a Tri-state Metadata fill choice: Always, Never, Only if blank/undefined
(Setting Series will set Index value)

[DazJWood]

I must be in the minority then I guess; but it would have been a good feature if it could have been done (for me anyways! ).

It's not that my book collection has authors and titles that are necessarily wrong but more that they are not formatted as I would have liked. My file names however are all correct to how I would like them for author and title. Perhaps I'm a bit too picky with the way my files and tags are named.

If I import based on the file name and then look up the tags after there is then the possibility of getting the wrong revision tags against the book.

I think I'll just have to import the books with the tags coming from the file and then have to just plough through adjusting them, which is a shame as I have the information already there in the file name.

Incidentally, when I try to capitalize every word in the title (using Title Case), why does it not capitalize words like of, a, the, etc...?

Thanks for your replies!

Daz

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by theducks

I think it happens more than you think. It seems every person that codes books, seems to do it different (or enters exactly what was given, even if it violates style)

I'm not debating there are books with inconsistent / bad metadata. I am saying that if the title and author are inconsistent the rest of the metadata in the book often follows suit. If I am forced to use the filename to fill in metadata I don't want to sift through or use the rest of the book's metadata.

I'll let you, Kovid and DazJWood debate better ways to do things.

Originally Posted by DazJWood

If I import based on the file name and then look up the tags after there is then the possibility of getting the wrong revision tags against the book.

That is why I only use GoodReads for downloading tags, check out my link above for more detail.

[DazJWood]

Originally Posted by theducks

I think it happens more than you think. It seems every person that codes books, seems to do it different (or enters exactly what was given, even if it violates style)

Inconsistent is probably a better word.

I am anal about a consistent Author and Title (Publisher) data

John Q. Author
John Author
John Q Author
Author, John Q.


Title
Title: A series name (exception when Series Volume# is the title. Man Kinzin Wars: XI )
<article> Title

Don't get me started on Publisher ( chose them to pick on because all my books come direct from their source)
Baen
Baen Books
Baen Pub
Baen Publishing Enterprises


I would really like a Tri-state Metadata fill choice: Always, Never, Only if blank/undefined
(Setting Series will set Index value)

I'm glad I am not the only one then that is picky!

I am like this with all my mp3 and movie files too. I keep a folder of files that have not been correctly named and only when I have them formatted as I want them do I move them into my libraries to watch or listen too.

Hmm, perhaps I am too OCD with my files!

But yes I agree with your suggestion. A metadata choice function would be a good idea.

Daz

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by DazJWood

I'm glad I am not the only one then that is picky!

I'm not against anything that has benefit. But I am confused. Are you saying you are picky enough to ensure all of the Tags, comments, publisher, series metadata in your books is exactly the way want it but you don't fix the Author and Title while you're at it?

How is it you have a bunch of files with great metadata except for the Author and title?

[DazJWood]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

I'm not against anything that has benefit. But I am confused. Are you saying you are picky enough to ensure all of the Tags, comments, publisher, series metadata in your books is exactly the way want it but you don't fix the Author and Title while you're at it?

How is it you have a bunch of files with great metadata except for the Author and title?

No I am not saying that all the files have great metadata except for author and title.

As written previously "It's not that my book collection has authors and titles that are necessarily wrong but more that they are not formatted as I would have liked."

I would prefer to have all tags correct of course but the author and title are the priority. I would like them formatted to how I like them; which is not necessarily how they are embedded in the mobi files. Equally I don't want to lose some of the information / tags that are already on the file.

What is useful / of benefit / correct / the right way / the standard... for one person may not be for another. Equally it may be irrelevant or not important to one person but not for another. We all like to do things different!

I fully admit I get obsessional with naming conventions, tags, cover art, etc...

Daz