managing monthly newsletters

[syoreed]

I download a number of monthly newsletters (PDFs mostly). Does anybody have any ideas as far as Best Practices for metadata editing and management of these?

[syoreed]

Bump.

I'd really like some help with this. I've been editing the metadata thusly:

TITLE: [Newsletter Title]: [month year] ([title of main article])

AUTHOR(S): [Newsletter Author(s)]

SERIES: [Newsletter Title] Book [4-digit year].[2-digit month]

PUBLISHED: [Month] [year]

Is there a simpler, more obvious, more efficient way for Calibre to manage PDF newsletters or periodicals that don't have an RSS feed?

[Manichean]

Kinda depends on what you want, doesn't it? You haven't actually told us what you'd like to achieve, so we can't give any help. Basically, I'd say whatever works for you is good.

(Also, "bumping" threads is really unnecessary. You've gotten 50 views in two days, and I've never seen a thread being purposefully ignored on here. If noone posts, then noone has any good ideas.)

[syoreed]

Sorry about the bump. But in my defense, it got you to post!

Even after I do all that editing (which really adds up, since I have hundreds of pdf newsletters), Calibre still doesn't really act the way I'd like it to act with them. For instance: it doesn't keep them in order unless I arrange my ENTIRE Calibre collection by PUBLISHED or SERIES... hardly ideal.

Maybe for a future release, Calibre could have some way to separate books from non-RSS periodicals, with a set of tools tailored more for periodical metadata-editing? Just a thought.

[Perkin]

Originally Posted by syoreed

Maybe for a future release, Calibre could have some way to separate books from non-RSS periodicals, with a set of tools tailored more for periodical metadata-editing? Just a thought.

Give them a tag of 'RSS-Periodical', then you can exclude them or display just them, using the tags browser.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by syoreed

Sorry about the bump. But in my defense, it got you to post!

Yes, and I added about zero useful information to the thread. Way to go.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by Manichean

Yes, and I added about zero useful information to the thread. Way to go.

You added zero information, but his bump post added a little bit. As such, it wasn't really a bump so much as additional information. If he'd just left off the word "bump," no one would have mentioned it. Still, it would help to know a bit more about what he wants. It isn't clear to me if he's concerned that it takes too much effort to tag the books, or if he's unhappy with the sort order and sort options resulting from his tagging.

I'll mention in passing that recipes don't require an RSS feed. They can scrape a page and construct a virtual feed. They don't handle PDF's well, but if there are web pages or EPUBs, a recipe can be designed to automate the process by scraping a page having links.

[syoreed]

Originally Posted by Starson17

It isn't clear to me if he's concerned that it takes too much effort to tag the books, or if he's unhappy with the sort order and sort options resulting from his tagging.

Both, really. Like I said before, Calibre doesn't really act the way I'd like it to act with these PDF newsletters. It's clunky with its sorting.

You know how there's a category called NEWS? Wouldn't it be great if I could put my NEWSletter collection in the NEWS category?

While we're on the subject, wouldn't it be great if I had more control over the categories in general? Like, the ability to create a new one (not a sub-category; a regular category)?

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by syoreed

While we're on the subject, wouldn't it be great if I had more control over the categories in general? Like, the ability to create a new one (not a sub-category; a regular category)?

Why can't you? A category is just a tag, and you can create tags with any name that you like.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by syoreed

Like I said before, Calibre doesn't really act the way I'd like it to act with these PDF newsletters. It's clunky with its sorting.

In what way is it "clunky?"

You know how there's a category called NEWS? Wouldn't it be great if I could put my NEWSletter collection in the NEWS category?

Why don't you just add the NEWS tag?

While we're on the subject, wouldn't it be great if I had more control over the categories in general? Like, the ability to create a new one (not a sub-category; a regular category)?

I don't use categories much, but I'm not aware of any limits on creating them????

[syoreed]

Creating a category was a secondary desire, but just to be clear, I can't figure out how to create a new category. I can create a Tag, but that's a sub-category of the initial category, TAGS. I can't create a new category called NEWSLETTERS or something. As far as I can tell, this isn't possible.

Besides, due to the FETCH METADATA FROM SERVER feature (which is very useful, don't get me wrong), I have hundreds of tags. A tag labeled NEWSLETTER (or whatever) doesn't seem quite right, given the seeming intended purpose of tagging. It seems like tagging was meant to separate books into categories based on topic. NEWSLETTER is more of a format (not file format; more like a publication or reader-consumption format), not a topic. Given all that, a tag labeled NEWSLETTER wouldn't stand out from amongst the other tags the way I'd like it to.

As far as the sorting being clunky... Calibre doesn't keep the newsletters in chronological order unless I arrange my ENTIRE Calibre collection by PUBLISHED or SERIES... hardly ideal.

I think it might be useful if CALIBRE included a PUBLICATION FORMAT category (or something) that users can then create sub-categories for (newsletter, novel, textbook, periodical, whatever).

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by syoreed

I can't figure out how to create a new category. I can create a Tag, but that's a sub-category of the initial category, TAGS. I can't create a new category called NEWSLETTERS or something. As far as I can tell, this isn't possible.

You don't seem very familiar with your options in Calibre. There's nothing wrong with that, it has lots of features. These are all options:

1) TAGS: use a tag called "NEWSLETTER" You can click on that tag (something I seldom do), or type "tag:NEWSLETTER" (or just type "NEWSLETTER") into the search bar and you'll see only NEWSLETTERS. You can save that search and select it quickly from saved searches. You can even use it as a "Restriction" so you see only those items in your library and can search within that restriction.

2) Custom Columns: You can create a new field. It can be a text field - say "BookType" and you can put "NEWSLETTER" in that field for some, "NOVEL" for others, etc. Sorting by that field or searching on that field will work. You might prefer a Boolean Yes/No on a field/column called "Newsletter"

3) User created categories: You can have a category that shows only books that meet certain criteria: Tag must be NEWSLETTER and author must be a specific author.

Besides, due to the FETCH METADATA FROM SERVER feature (which is very useful, don't get me wrong), I have hundreds of tags. A tag labeled NEWSLETTER (or whatever) doesn't seem quite right, given the seeming intended purpose of tagging. It seems like tagging was meant to separate books into categories based on topic. NEWSLETTER is more of a format (not file format; more like a publication or reader-consumption format), not a topic. Given all that, a tag labeled NEWSLETTER wouldn't stand out from amongst the other tags the way I'd like it to.

I like the hundreds of tags; others don't. You can turn them off, but I use searches and saved searches so I don't care if they stand out.

As far as the sorting being clunky... Calibre doesn't keep the newsletters in chronological order unless I arrange my ENTIRE Calibre collection by PUBLISHED or SERIES... hardly ideal.

See above. You can sort on the custom columns in many ways

I think it might be useful if CALIBRE included a PUBLICATION FORMAT category (or something) that users can then create sub-categories for (newsletter, novel, textbook, periodical, whatever).

See above. This is easy to do. You may also be interested in the new hierarchical features of tags and categories.

[syoreed]

Thanks Starson17! Option # 2 was EXACTLY what I was looking for. I didn't realize you could make custom columns (which automatically creates a new category!).

Very nice.