Book or Document??

sjoa · 08-07-2011, 07:35 AM

Apologies if this has been answered many times, I have tried to search.

On my Kindle (3) some books when I view the details appear as a Book,

ie "Search This Book" and "Book Description" are some of the options.

Some however are just 'Documents' and instead say "Search This Document" but there is no Description option etc.

Now I have a mixture of books from Amazon and Books from other stores that have mostly been transferred using Calibre, at first I thought that was the issue but there are many books that have been transferred from Calibre that show up as Books not Documents..

Can someone please tell me the magic to make something a book not a document!?

Thanks..

jswinden · 08-07-2011, 02:15 PM

I've never noticed this, but I wonder if those showing up as documents rather than books are PDF files or some format other than mobi?

DiapDealer · 08-07-2011, 02:27 PM

If the books from other stores were already flagged as personal documents, calibre won't change that metadata (though I admit to being puzzled as to why any "other store's" mobi's would be flagged as personal documents). Perhaps you sent one of these books to your kindle's email address for conversion? That would definitely mark them as pdocs.

The only magic I know of to alter that metadata is mobi2mobi from the MobiPerl tools.

sjoa · 08-08-2011, 12:28 AM

Sorry I should have added Calibre will convert most of these books to .mobi for the kindle so for some I have both .mobi and .epub and I assume the .mobi version has come from Calibre doing a conversion. I can only think of one PDF and that is for a public domain book about L.Ron Hubbard that I downloaded, it shows up as a book, it would also be the only one that I had emailed to my kindle because I didn't like the formatting and was hoping that might correct it (it didn't). I also ended up converting it to and from all sorts of formats to try and get the formatting better so I don't actually know how the version on my kindle now was achieved (which clearly doesn't help!) ..

So there is metadata that flags something as a book or a document? I did experiment with different converters before I found Calibre so perhaps I have done something early on that has changed this and perhaps it is simply newer books converted properly are fine.. I will try the mobi2mobi tool as suggested thanks.

DiapDealer · 08-08-2011, 06:38 AM

Quote:

I will try the mobi2mobi tool as suggested thanks.

You'll be looking for EXTH record type 501... it contains either 'PDOC' of 'EBOK'. Making sure it's 'EBOK' or just deleting the record entirely should solve your problem.

Giggleton · 08-09-2011, 12:31 PM

And here I thought this was going to be a thread about what exactly should we be calling these things we are reading...

Books is a bit archaic and documents is too general. Deciding on this sort of thing now will stem future problems such as the OP had...

08-07-2011, 07:35 AM	#1
sjoa Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2011 Device: Kindle	Book or Document?? Apologies if this has been answered many times, I have tried to search. On my Kindle (3) some books when I view the details appear as a Book, ie "Search This Book" and "Book Description" are some of the options. Some however are just 'Documents' and instead say "Search This Document" but there is no Description option etc. Now I have a mixture of books from Amazon and Books from other stores that have mostly been transferred using Calibre, at first I thought that was the issue but there are many books that have been transferred from Calibre that show up as Books not Documents.. Can someone please tell me the magic to make something a book not a document!? Thanks..

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08-07-2011, 02:15 PM	#2
jswinden Nameless Being	I've never noticed this, but I wonder if those showing up as documents rather than books are PDF files or some format other than mobi?

08-07-2011, 02:27 PM	#3
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 27,553 Karma: 193191846 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	If the books from other stores were already flagged as personal documents, calibre won't change that metadata (though I admit to being puzzled as to why any "other store's" mobi's would be flagged as personal documents). Perhaps you sent one of these books to your kindle's email address for conversion? That would definitely mark them as pdocs. The only magic I know of to alter that metadata is mobi2mobi from the MobiPerl tools.

08-08-2011, 12:28 AM	#4
sjoa Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2011 Device: Kindle	Sorry I should have added Calibre will convert most of these books to .mobi for the kindle so for some I have both .mobi and .epub and I assume the .mobi version has come from Calibre doing a conversion. I can only think of one PDF and that is for a public domain book about L.Ron Hubbard that I downloaded, it shows up as a book, it would also be the only one that I had emailed to my kindle because I didn't like the formatting and was hoping that might correct it (it didn't). I also ended up converting it to and from all sorts of formats to try and get the formatting better so I don't actually know how the version on my kindle now was achieved (which clearly doesn't help!) .. So there is metadata that flags something as a book or a document? I did experiment with different converters before I found Calibre so perhaps I have done something early on that has changed this and perhaps it is simply newer books converted properly are fine.. I will try the mobi2mobi tool as suggested thanks.

08-09-2011, 12:31 PM	#6
Giggleton Banned Posts: 1,687 Karma: 4368191 Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Oregon Device: Kindle3	And here I thought this was going to be a thread about what exactly should we be calling these things we are reading... Books is a bit archaic and documents is too general. Deciding on this sort of thing now will stem future problems such as the OP had...