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Old 10-02-2010, 08:14 AM   #1
dkritso109
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Calibre newbie needs help with author sort.

first off, i looooove calibre! i have over 10k books and it's a serious issue looking through all of these to find the ones i need. i just love it.

ok here's my problem, i have added about 3,500 books to my calibre library, it has taken me about a month. some have isbn's some don't, so alot i have done manualy. the problem is that when i go into the calibre library folder, every single author is in first name/last name format. but i want it in last name/first name format.

example:

Aaron W. Bayles

i want them like this:

Bayles, Aaron W.

it is not an issue when i use calibre because of course i can just type the last name and *bam*, but i have my books backed-up to an external hdd and when i use another device i have to know an author's first name to find the book i want. to tell you the truth i mostly remember author's last names and alot of authors have the same first names. so you can see my dilemma. how can i change the author sort for all 3,500 books i have added, and how can i make it so that all new books are added in the "Bayles, Aaron W." format?

thank you very much in advance for any help with this and donate to calibre this is one of the coolest software i can remember in recent history.
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Old 10-02-2010, 08:25 AM   #2
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If you are taliking about the way that books are stored in the Calibre library, then I am afraid you have no control over the naming convention used and cannot change it. It is always tied to the Author and Title fields.

If you export files from the Calibre library, then you can specify the folder/filename naming format to be used.

Having said all that, with the latest 0.7.21 release you should find it easy enough to copy the author-sort field (which is probably already formated as LN, FN) and that will cause the folders to be renamed to match. You might want to also look at Preferences->Advanced->Tweaks for options on how the Author-Sort field should be constructed from the Author field when adding new books.
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Old 10-02-2010, 08:53 AM   #3
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As itimpi says, you have no control over the template that calibre uses to store books in its library. It is something like {authors}/{title}. Don't become one of the zillion people who start into a discussion asking that this be changed. It won't be.

What you *do* have control over is what is in the authors box. itimpi is suggesting that you change how you store authors in calibre from FN LN to LN, FN. Although rather tedious to do, you only do it once.

Follow his advice. Change the author sort tweak to 'copy', restart calibre, then use the 'manage authors' dialog to copy the author_sort values to Author. While you are there, fix any that aren't right. Press OK and calibre will redo your library. From this point on, enter authors as LN, FN.
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Old 10-02-2010, 09:26 AM   #4
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hey thanks for the quick response, but i am a little confused.

so, you guys are saying there is no way to change the way they are stored in the calibre library folder, but i can change the the author sort so it is LN, FN while inside the calibre database???

oh wait i just re-read your post.
are you saying that if i delete the FN, LN, and just have the author sort it will rename all the folders to LN,FN as it is in the author sort category?

Last edited by dkritso109; 10-02-2010 at 09:29 AM.
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Old 10-02-2010, 09:31 AM   #5
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We are saying that the template used to store the books in the calibre library cannot be changed. It will always use author and title. It doesn't care *what* you put in author and title. If you put 'Joe Blogs' in the author field, then calibre will use 'Joe Blogs'. If you put 'Blogs, Joe' in, it will use 'Blogs', Joe'.

If you change the authors to LN, FN (Blogs, Joe), then you must also tell calibre not to flip them back around when it computes the author_sort. Otherwise your sort values will be 'Joe, Blogs,'. That is what the tweak is for.
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Old 10-02-2010, 09:37 AM   #6
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i think i gotcha, in the metadata card leave author sort blank but input the author as LN,FN in the "Author(s):" input box?
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Old 10-02-2010, 09:59 AM   #7
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Originally Posted by dkritso109 View Post
i think i gotcha, in the metadata card leave author sort blank but input the author as LN,FN in the "Author(s):" input box?
Now that you have an idea of what they're telling you, know this, the files/books in the backup you are referring to will not have the metadata updated inside the file. Calibre updates metadata (Author, titles etc) when you use calibre to export the book from the database. This is done via the Send to Device, Save to disk, or Connect to folder option.
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Old 10-02-2010, 10:12 AM   #8
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ok i know you guys are prolly getting sick of me by now, but i got another question about this.

how do i use the tweaks so i can automatically change all the "Author(s):" to be in the LN,FN format? what do i type in to apply this tweak? it will take me forever to do this one by one.
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Old 10-02-2010, 10:27 AM   #9
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I don't think there's an actual tweak to accomplish that. You could do it by using the search & replace- feature.
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Old 10-02-2010, 11:06 AM   #10
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i think i gotcha, in the metadata card leave author sort blank but input the author as LN,FN in the "Author(s):" input box?
You can use all three sortings.
Install the latest Calibre.
Leave author names and author sort names as they are.
Right click on column headers, select Add your own columns, add a new column, call it fn_ln or whatever you want, give it column heading, select Column type "Column built from other columns" and to the template put {authors}
Add another column, call it ln_fn or whatever you want, give it column heading, select Column type "Column built from other columns" and to the template put {author_sort}
restart calibre (be careful, on windows you have to close calibre from icon on toolbar (Aaaargh!))

Now you can use all three sorting schemes.
- The default, where authors are shown FirstName LastName, but are sorted by lastname
- where authors are shown FirstName LastName, and are sorted alphabeticaly by FirstName
- Where authors are displayed LastName, FirstName and are sorted alphabeticaly by LastName
- any combination of the above

This is only very short example what you can do with your own columns, templates ...

You do not have to do the above in order to find authors. You can simply type part of the name to the search bar.

If you need to access files and you do not like default calibre folder naming scheme, you can use "save to disk" function and you can use any elaborate naming scheme using author names in whatever format, series, dates, isbn numbers, book titles, any custom columns ... the possibilities limited only by your imagination. Just read the documentation on the calibre site
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Old 10-02-2010, 11:23 AM   #11
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how do i use the tweaks so i can automatically change all the "Author(s):" to be in the LN,FN format? what do i type in to apply this tweak? it will take me forever to do this one by one.
If you don't want to use search/replace (which is a good idea), then use the manage authors box. When I did my switch-over from FN LN to LN, FN, it took me around a second per author to copy the author sort column to the author column.

In either case, back up your library before proceeding.
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Old 10-02-2010, 11:59 AM   #12
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If you don't want to use search/replace (which is a good idea), then use the manage authors box. When I did my switch-over from FN LN to LN, FN, it took me around a second per author to copy the author sort column to the author column.

In either case, back up your library before proceeding.
did you mean that it is NOT a good idea to use the search/replace function? so this is how to fix the LN,FN for existing books, now what about new books i add. when i fetch metadata from server, it changes all the author and title info. would i have to redo them manually? or can i have this be done automatically at that moment?

again thank you all for this incredible help, and sorry for my extreme noobiness.
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Old 10-02-2010, 12:03 PM   #13
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No. I meant that using search/replace *is* a good idea. Apologies for tortured grammar.

Calibre sets the author_sort field for new authors by following the tweak. If the tweak is set to what you want (and I am no longer sure what that is), then it will happen automatically.

Fetching metadata is another issue. Sometimes that metadata changes the values of author and/or author_sort for the books in question. If you don't like the results, you must fix them manually.

You could actually try it and see what happens.
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