Sorting books by author surname on Sony reader

[AlexBell]

I'm not sure whether this question belongs here or on the Sony forum, so please forgive me or have the query moved.

The background is that I have been away for some time.
- I am sure that before I went away I had the books in my Sony PRS 650 sorted by author surname, so that Lois McMaster Bujold appeared before Howard Zinn
- As soon as I got back to the internet I upgraded to Calibre 7.44 - I think the version I had was in the high 6.xx - and also transferred the library to a new computer running Windows 7. I had the Sony library software on the old computer running Windows XP, but have not bothered loading the Sony software to the new computer.

The books still appear in the Calibre library on my computer sorted by author surname, but now on the Sony reader they sort by author given name, so that Howard Zinn now appears before Lois McMaster Bujold.

What have I done wrong? More importantly, how do I get the books on the Sony reader to sort by author surname?

I have looked through the Calibre manual and the Sony Manual.

Regards, Alex

[jackie_w]

Calibre has some great features for managing metadata on Sony readers. I use the Metadata Plugboard (Preferences - Metadata Plugboards) with the Sony special option to get authors and titles displaying exactly how I want them, i.e.

• using author_sort (LN, FN) rather than author (FN LN)
• using an abbreviated series name/series_index/title instead of plain title

I also have Calibre configured to manage my Sony metadata automatically. I'm not absolutely sure but I think this might be a pre-requisite for the Plugboard to work.

This part of the manual is relevant but may be far more detailed than you need.

If you want some specific help with simple options I will try to oblige.

On the other hand, if you are only interested in changing the author to author_sort it may be enough to go to Preferences - Plugins - Device Interface - Sony - Customise plugin and check the relevant box.

[AlexBell]

Thanks, jackie_w, that's most helpful. I'll give your Preferences - suggestion a try later tonight, and get back to you if I have problems.

Regards, Alex

[AlexBell]

I'm afraid your suggestion for ordering books by Author surname does not work on my Sony 650, jackie_w. Is there anything else I can do?

Regards, Alex

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

I'm afraid your suggestion for ordering books by Author surname does not work on my Sony 650, jackie_w. Is there anything else I can do?

If you had calibre configured to manage your Sony metadata automatically. This should have worked just by connecting the device to calibre. If it isn't set to manage Sony metadata automatically then deleting all books and resending them should work.

Good Luck.

[jackie_w]

@Alex,

Try what dwanthny suggests first. The option is Preferences - Sending books to devices - Metadata management - Automatic management

Caveat: If you do this, calibre will take complete control of your Sony Collections and overwrite anything you did with Collections manually on the reader.

If you want to take it further with a Metadata Plugboard for more detailed naming of book titles, feel free to come back.

[AlexBell]

Thanks to you both. For reasons entirely unkown to me the books sort by author surname now, after I upgraded to the latest version of calibre and used jackie's suggestion again.

Regards, Alex

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

Thanks to you both.

You're Welcome.

Originally Posted by AlexBell

For reasons entirely unknown to me the books sort by author surname now

Great!