importing books into calibre and metadata - I think!

[Yirabeth]

I posted in the iPad forum thinking this was an iTunes problem, but was recommended I post here. This is what I said:

********

Apologies in advance if this is dealt with in another thread. I did a search, but got nothing. Perhaps my google-fu is weak! If this is the case, please point me to the right area.

I have books from a previous reader, which calibre has changed into epubs for me. I've figured out the secret codes (lol) which enable me to have the title displayed the way I want, as the file name. For example:

series01 - book title.epub
(This is inside the folder "author name")

should end up as:

series01 - book title
author name

next....

However when I try to import them into iTunes to load onto my iPad, it drops the series name. This makes it difficult to tell what books should be read in what order..I have also tried using "(series01)book title" and "Series01(book title)" etc. It always drops the series, and only loads the title in.

What I actually get is:

book title
author name

How can I remedy this? What setting in iTunes will allow it to find the WHOLE title not just a portion of it? I REALLY need the book series as well as the title...

Thanks for any help on this

********

In retrospect I wonder if I didn't do the actual importing incorrectly, and since posting this earlier, I've been trying to figure out the regular expressions. It may as well be greek to me

So! What I need to know is:

How do I make the ENTIRE filename be the title of the book? My author name is the name of the folder the books are in. My filenames are Series01 - Book Name.ext This would also solve the pesky series index issue (I don't want it lol)

I can handle doing a bulk edit and adding in the author name, but doing sometimes hundreds of books, one book at a time, to edit the title is daunting to say the least lol.

Thanks again for any help

~Yira

[GRiker]

After setting up calibre to communicate with your iPad following the 'Connect to iTunes' method described in 'Calibre + iPad: Start here', see this thread for instructions using calibre's plugboard feature.

G

[Yirabeth]

Thank you! That did the trick, and took waaay less than the hours I spent on it trying to figure it out myself today...LOL!

For the record, if you started your book collection back before the days when a program would maintain metadata for you, and thus don't need the series index because you've saved the file as such many many moons ago... *grin* Typing the plugboard transformation as this will work wonders:

{series:| |: }{title}

I just removed the plain series parameter, then took the _index out of the second parameter - previously it was : {series}{series_index:| |: }{title}

The books are on my iPad in the desired format now:

Series 01: Book Title.epub
Author Name

Maybe I'll work out the syntax to use a dash instead of a colon next...or not. LOL

Thanks again

~Yira

[MerLock]

I'm sorry if this has been answered elsewhere but I did a search on metadata and calibre and couldn't find my answer.

I'm currently importing books into my iPad using Calibre's content server (via Safari). I got a question on how the metadata is handled. I've imported a book into Calibre and then I used "tweak ePUB" option in Calibre to change the title in the "content.opf" file.

When I download the book on my iPad via Safari, the title the book uses is the title displayed in calibre and not the one I just updated to in the "content.opf" file. I was wondering how the book on the iPad is getting the title information if not from the content.opf file.

Thanks!

[Archon]

Did you maybe consider the iPad gets the title from the filename?

At least iBooks seems to get the titles of PDFs from the filename.

I don't know which reader you are using to access the files but try changing the file name and see what happens.

Happy Tuesday
Archon

[kovidgoyal]

When epub files are sent by the content server, they have their metadata set to whatever is in the calibre library automatically.

[MerLock]

Thanks for the reply Kovidgoyal. I'm still new at this.

Just to be clear, I'm guessing that calibre has it's own metadata file that gets used when a book is sent by the content server? Therefore, the content.opf file in the ePub itself is ignored and the content.opf file in the ePub is not changed?

And I'm sure you heard it enough already, but great program. I've had calibre since you first released it but I'm just starting to learn how to use it. And a lot of great features has been added since then. (tweaking epubs and using the content server to download books into iBooks to just name a few)

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by MerLock

Therefore, the content.opf file in the ePub itself is ignored and the content.opf file in the ePub is not changed?

I may be wrong but I think he is saying that calibre updates the content.opf info as it heads out the door. So the content.opf isn't ignored it has been changed by calibre.

Generally speaking calibre updates metadata in epubs on export from the database.

Save to disk
Send to device
and I guess being served from the content server.

So your change to the content.opf was written over.

[kovidgoyal]

The epub file is updated with the metadata as shown in calibre. So changing the opf inside the epub file will have no effect. Instead change the metadata in calibre.

[MerLock]

Thanks for the clarification!