Bulk move 'The' and 'A' to end of Title

[macnab69]

Because of the way I handled things before using calibre I have a large number of books whose Titles are 'The xxxxx xxxx' and "A xxxx xxxx'.

Is there a way of automating conversion to 'xxxxx xxx, The' and 'xxxx xxxx, A'.

I can use a regex in Search and Replace to remove 'The" and 'A', but there doesn't seem a way to add them to the end.

Without creating a new column with the modified values and hiding the original.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by macnab69

Because of the way I handled things before using calibre I have a large number of books whose Titles are 'The xxxxx xxxx' and "A xxxx xxxx'.

Is there a way of automating conversion to 'xxxxx xxx, The' and 'xxxx xxxx, A'.

Not exactly what you are asking, but you might find this acceptable. Go to Preferences - Tweaks and change the Control sorting of titles and series in the library display to title_series_sorting = 'library_order'.

Even though the titles will still show 'The xxxxx xxxx' and "A xxxx xxxx' they will sort as 'xxxxx xxxx, The' and "xxxx xxxx, A'.

[Manichean]

Using a regex for this should be possible. You just need to use named back references and write one expression to capture The and A, and the other to capture the rest of the title. Then it's trivial to reorder them in the replace expression

[Adoby]

Search for: A (.*)
And replace with: \1, A

Or

The (.*)
\1, The

But it is better to use the tweak described above. The title is what it is, you typically only wish to change the sort order.