Frequently Asked Questions

[kovidgoyal]

click the little arrow next to the add books button

[Student1]

Thanks! Cn't believe i missed that! Thanks again!

[peaceridge]

I think I need a Calibre for Dummys! I know this is mentioned previously as not being implemented, but I still have a question. Sony 700 on the way, Windows XP, have not yet used Calibre. I'm trying to get my books in order to be ready.

All my books are titled by author last name, author first name, series name, number in series, title of book. Do I need to change the title to Calibre's first name, last name, title (thus loosing the series and series number?) I know I can edit the metadata to get the series name and number (I think), but how does it show up on the Sony 700 - still author, title?

If I make series name, series number part of the books title will it show up in the order of the books in the series? If so, I know I would be losing the actual title, but maybe it is worth it.

Thanks for any help.

Lynn

[ilovejedd]

Similar question. I have my books named:

Author - Series ## - Title
(?P<author>[^_]+) - (?P<series>.*?) (?P<series_index>[0-9]*?) - (?P<title>.+)

Author - Title
(?P<author>[^_]+) - (?P<title>.+)

How do I combine the two so they're just one regular expression?

[kovidgoyal]

Once you start using calibre, file names become un-important. calibre stores all information in its own database. When you send the files to the reader, calibre will create a "collection" for each series and (provided you send all the books in series over at once) arrange the order of the books in that collection by series number

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Similar question. I have my books named:

Author - Series ## - Title

(?P<author>[^_]+) - (?P<series>.*?) (?P<series_index>[0-9]*?) - (?P<title>.+)

Author - Title

(?P<author>[^_]+) - (?P<title>.+)

How do I combine the two so they're just one regular expression?

Surround the series + number + - part in parentheses and follow it by {0,1}

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Surround the series + number + - part in parentheses and follow it by {0,1}

Thanks for the quick response.

The modified expression works ok with files named Author - Title

For:
Author - Series ## - Title

it gave me the following:
Title: Title
Author: Author - Series ##
Series: No match
Series Index: No match
ISBN: No match

I also tried (?P<author>[^_]+) - ((?P<series>.*) (?P<series_index>[0-9]*) - )?(?P<title>.+) but it gave me the same result as above.

Question, what does [^_] signify? Is it necessary for Calibre to make the author match or can I change it to something else? I've tried grouping the ' - ' with other parts of the expression and the series info always ends up as part of the author name unless both instances of ' - ' are present. Methinks the regex for author might be a bit too greedy?

[ilovejedd]

Fix found:
(?P<author>[^_]+?) - ((?P<series>.*) (?P<series_index>[0-9]*) - )?(?P<title>.+)

Thanks for the help. Really loving Calibre.

[Abelturd]

Can I do this in Calibre: import books to the Calibre library from a compressed archive? The hypotetical situation is like this - for the sake of saving some disk space there are more ebooks (different formats) compressed into one zip or rar file. Is there a way in Calibre how to work with the books in the archive w/o having to extract them first? If not can I propose it as a requested feature? Thanks.

[kovidgoyal]

calibre assumes archives contain single ebooks as this usage is more common.

[Sweetpea]

I just decided to import my ebook library into calibre.

I notice the "Series" column is empty, no idea how to get that one filled, I should look it up I guess...

But another thing I noticed, and can't explain.

Some titles come back as "Unknown". And I can't figure out why (all my books are in the mobipocket format)

Example:

<dc-metadata ...>
    <dc:Creator>Herbert, Brian; Anderson, Kevin J.</dc:Creator>
    <dc:Title>Legends - 00 - Hunting Harkonnens</dc:Title>
    .....
</dc-metadata>

(Herbert, Brian - [Legends of Dune 00] - Hunting Harkonnens.prc)

<dc-metadata ...>
    <dc:Creator>Herbert, Brian; Anderson, Kevin J.</dc:Creator>
    <dc:Title>Legends - 01 - The Butlerian Jihad</dc:Title>
    .....
</dc-metadata>

(Herbert, Brian - [Legends of Dune 01] - The Butlerian Jihad.prc)

It will show "Hunting Harkonnens" as "Unknown", while the "Butlerian Jihad" shows with the complete title.

I also noticed it shows Kevin Anderson as Author and no mention of Brian Herbert...


How can I correct this, because I don't want to update all missing data...

[scaza]

Hello there ^^ (excuse me, it's my first message and I'm already complaining XD)
I have downloaded the calibre file for Mac and impossible to open it (it says that the image disk is corrupted or broken). Can someone help me ?

[kovidgoyal]

@sweetpea

If you're importing te prc flies from a directory that contains OPF files, the metadata in the OPF files may take precedence. Also some PRC files have missing metadata and there is no alternative to correcting them

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

@sweetpea

If you're importing te prc flies from a directory that contains OPF files, the metadata in the OPF files may take precedence. Also some PRC files have missing metadata and there is no alternative to correcting them

Nope, that directory only contains PRC files and all OPF files are the same (except the name of the files, naturally). I made them all myself, and it was all done with copy/paste and change some titles and file names...

[kovidgoyal]

where are these OPF files?