Series names in titles

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Gary_M_Mugford

Better would be to find out of the Library import routines ever have a moment of Title declaration where the title COULD be shaved of everything after a designated stop symbol. Maybe even several (some of the kids seem awfully found of '|' for example). Make it an option. Defaulting to off so that the great unwashed never need to know of its' existence.

And while I'm here, maybe a change to TitleCase option. It's ALMOST there, but All caps and all lower case still beat it. But I'm as happy as I can be and this is just digressing.

So, IS it feasible before I put it on Kovid's feature requested list?

Thanks, GM

Sounds fairly reasonable.

Errrr, what do you mean about the titlecasing?

[Gary_M_Mugford]

E,

Title Casing is having the first letter of appropriate words capitalized. I know the issue isn't all that simple. I mean, there are the usual words to leave alone, like the leading word, even if it is something like Of. Look at that, I ended a sentence with Of!! Whereas, you would leave it non-capitalized in the middle of a title. There's also the issue of getting FBI correct, and not Fbi. As it is, I'd say Calibre is something in excess of 98 percent correct these days, especially after retrieving meta data. But some truly odd exceptions seem to slip through and all of them aren't e.e. cummings' collections.

Speaking of which, one other question about the process. I'll do the lazy thing and get five new tomes highlighted and hit Ctrl-D. Calibre will then go out on the inner tubes and collect the meta data. Every now and then, the title of one of the books will be different. Indeed, the book will be transformed, meta data-wise, into a completely different book. The reason, upon further review, was that in the multi-book listing of potential books offered up by Calibre, the first one has a title VAGUELY resembling the one in question. And seemingly all the time, there is the EXACT title match listed second, occasionally third. Why does Calibre prefer a title in the ballpark rather than the exact match that is in the list of potential books and the meta data?

Doesn't happen often, but when it does, it just leaves one a little puzzled.

You'd think my teachers would have taught me not to answer a question with a question. But you'd be wrong [G].

Thanks for taking the time to answer the first one.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Gary_M_Mugford

Title Casing is having the first letter of appropriate words capitalized. I know the issue isn't all that simple. I mean, there are the usual words to leave alone, like the leading word, even if it is something like Of. Look at that, I ended a sentence with Of!! Whereas, you would leave it non-capitalized in the middle of a title. There's also the issue of getting FBI correct, and not Fbi. As it is, I'd say Calibre is something in excess of 98 percent correct these days, especially after retrieving meta data. But some truly odd exceptions seem to slip through and all of them aren't e.e. cummings' collections.

Ah, I see what you mean.

Yes, it is rather unfortunate that title casing cannot be smarter. It would require complex algorithms to approach the kind of humanlike intelligence needed to make those judgment calls, and perhaps beyond calibre's scope. Ultimately, there is something to be said of checking all metadata by hand, because a computer cannot truly match the human mind for comprehension of the issues.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Gary_M_Mugford

Title Casing is having the first letter of appropriate words capitalized. I know the issue isn't all that simple.

I guess I missed the context of this thought. Title case in calibre works fine. You can access it via the edit metadata window or by editing the title directly in the book list view (see attached).

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

I guess I missed the context of this thought. Title case in calibre works fine. You can access it via the edit metadata window or by editing the title directly in the book list view (see attached).

It does indeed catch the common usage of a/an/the/of/stuff, but it doesn't catch FBI and I guess possibly other things, which lies slightly beyond the scope of titlecasing... so perhaps it is more accurate to say that titecasing is not a panacea for fixing titles.

Also, it would insist on titlecasing e. e. cummings

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Also, it would insist on titlecasing e. e. cummings

Since it is only activated by the user it wouldn't "insist" on anything.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

Since it is only activated by the user it wouldn't "insist" on anything.

Besides which, e. e. cummings is a form not used by the man himself or his contemporaries, it's an affectation of the 1960's counter culture glitterati.

Another wrinkle in Title casing is that it varies by language, I saw this the other day - A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. It should be À la recherche du temps perdu.

Where did I see the Anglicized Français abberation, in that well known pseudo-intellectual socialist rag known as The Guardian. The Torygraph almost gets it correct, they omit the grave on the À. But for that, I won't bury them in...

BR

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Another wrinkle in Title casing is that it varies by language, I saw this the other day - A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. It should be À la recherche du temps perdu.

It is interesting that in French the rules for when one puts accents on capital letters have changed over time. For example, the French Imprimerie nationale said in 1971 that capitals must be accented except for the A. It was only in 1990 that they changed the rule and now require À. The original of the title you mention would have been typeset without the accent (easily seen on cover images), so it isn't really clear which is the correct form to use today.

All of this is to say that you are correct, it does vary by language, and it also varies within a language.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by chaley

It is interesting that in French the rules for when one puts accents on capital letters have changed over time. For example, the French Imprimerie nationale said in 1971 that capitals must be accented except for the A. It was only in 1990 that they changed the rule and now require À. The original of the title you mention would have been typeset without the accent (easily seen on cover images), so it isn't really clear which is the correct form to use today.

All of this is to say that you are correct, it does vary by language, and it also varies within a language.

It happens the same in Spanish.First, you didn't accentuate them, and now you can optionally accentuate them (the capitalization rules are similar in Spanish and English).

[Gary_M_Mugford]

Hi all,

Sorry about hijacking the thread. I asked for eons ago and was told not to expect incoming title casing. Then, either through programming or by the right combination of settings with meta data lookup, the issue automagically became a forgotten one. Until I would see a title that had skated through the process to stand there in it's non-title case defiance. I SHOULD be able to accept 98 percent success. I have no right NOT to accept it. But I plead guilty to a case of the niggles.

It's funny how the internet makes the whole world a small neighbourhood. In the last few posts, I see responses from around the globe. The French and Spanish speakers are the most aggrieved (legitmately), with the most accent marks to boot. We English speakers, of course, only keep accent marks with words we filch from other languages, French chiefly. Of course, we have our own specialist enclave here in Canada with les Québecois. Such is the laziness of the modern day reader that it's even permissable to use Quebecois and not strike up the most strident of language protectionists from la Belle Province. And outside of France itself, our good neighbours one province east are as protectionist as any around.

Good Doctor, I'm very aware of the ability to manually set title case. I was, and still am, talking about the import of dozens of essays. Hundreds at semester end. There was a time when added books en masse came in as they were. I stumped for the setting to be at least an option, if not the default, with the plea apparently falling on deaf ears. Then, some months later, automagically, title case became the norm through the addition process. I am thankful.

But as the orphan in Oliver bravely asked, "More?"

Kovid has declined my feature request as it falls outside his current work spectrum. He didn't give me hope that would ever change. Oh well.

GM

[bethohio3]

Thanks for the advice.

I just finished updating all of the titles, series, descriptions, and tags for my books, as well as making all the authors consistent.

I decided that I didn't care enough to add a subseries column, but I can see how it would be useful. I'm trying to find the right place (for me) in the balance of accurate and complete metadata and entering data that I won't really use.

Of course, I followed up my finishing organizing by downloading the most recent Humble Bundle so now I have 10 new books to organize, but that's the price of loving books!

The next step is to embed the metadata in all the epubs and then update everything on my iPad and iPhone.

One fun thing about this task has been being reminded of books I've acquired and want to read!

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Ah, I see what you mean.

Yes, it is rather unfortunate that title casing cannot be smarter. It would require complex algorithms to approach the kind of humanlike intelligence needed to make those judgment calls, and perhaps beyond calibre's scope. Ultimately, there is something to be said of checking all metadata by hand, because a computer cannot truly match the human mind for comprehension of the issues.

It would also almost need a user modifiable list of those "capitalized" words not to change. That allows for the user to add things like RIPD or whatever lol.

[OldLincoln]

My 2 cents:
1. Once in Calibre I first edit metadata individually and copy paste series into the series field. Then I download metadata and it overwrites the series info in the title most of the time. I shorten the impossible long titles, and for duplicate titles I add ": author name" to all dups.

2. I do change case when all uppercase but have found the change case won't go directly from uppercase to title case but instead you have to first go lowercase them title case.

For series number when all else has failed I Google search the author and often a hit that includes a reading order (Wickipedia is pretty good for that). If you search for "[Series Name] Reading order" you'll also find hits as if you want to know somebody else has already asked.

BTW: One my my serious gripes is when authors change the series name after 2 or 3 books, or includes 2 or 3 series names in the title. I can't decide if they love us or hate us.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by OldLincoln

BTW: One my my serious gripes is when authors change the series name after 2 or 3 books, or includes 2 or 3 series names in the title. I can't decide if they love us or hate us.

The authors have no control over their books whatsoever, that includes setting up the product page.

Any lousy metadata (lots of it) is the publishers' fault. (That isn't to say the authors would be any different given the chance, but I give them the benefit of the doubt.)

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by chaley

It is interesting that in French the rules for when one puts accents on capital letters have changed over time. For example, the French Imprimerie nationale said in 1971 that capitals must be accented except for the A. It was only in 1990 that they changed the rule and now require À. The original of the title you mention would have been typeset without the accent (easily seen on cover images), so it isn't really clear which is the correct form to use today.

All of this is to say that you are correct, it does vary by language, and it also varies within a language.

And it changes depending on the country. Quebequois french is somewhat different than Parisian French