Sort on format when device is not supported!

My apologies if this FAQ but I did search.

My family has 3 eBookWise 1150's and 9000 books in many formats. Calibre is letting me organize and remove duplicates BUT....

I'm slowly converting everything to ePub for the future and getting rid of old formats starting with the most wasteful (size). Since Calibre does not support either the 1150 nor conversion to imp, I need to convert externally using mostly Book Designer and store both formats.

If Calibre supported my device it would apparently take care of this automatically but it doesn't so I need to be able to sort on format: "Show me only books present in imp". These can then be "Save to disk" to the flash card reader/writer that my family is familiar with from their digital music players. It will also help with the conversion to ePub i.e. "Show me all txt files" so I can convert them.

I suppose I could export (copy) all imp to another directory and use another program to manage them but I would still have to keep them in Calibre to maintain order meaning two copies of every imp. Wasteful, especially for backup and I'm not that happy about staying current with any more software than I have to. This isn't my occupation.

It doesn't help with the format conversion either.

Can't be all that hard to do, can it?

[speakingtohe]

If you click on a format (formats) in the tag browser it will show all files with that format including formats it doesn't support.

Clicking on imp shows all imp
click again shows all non imp
Or you can shift click or control click to show combinations of formats etc

The individual edit metadata screen shows the size of each format for an individual book (upper left corner)

[chaley]

Originally Posted by johnb0647

My family has 3 eBookWise 1150's and 9000 books in many formats. Calibre is letting me organize and remove duplicates BUT....

I *think* I know what you are trying to do. Let me give it back to you, then give a solution.

You have books in multiple formats. Some, like 'epub', calibre knows about. Some like 'imp', calibre does not know about. You want to store both kinds in calibre's library. Further, you want to manipulate the unknown formats using an external program.

Calibre can store any kind of file you want with a book. There are two situations: you have the book in a supported format, and you don't.

In the first case, add the supported format to calibre normally, using add books. In the second case, add an empty book. In both cases, clean up the metadata and what-have-you.

Now, using the edit metadata dialog, add the unsupported format to the book. This is done using the book with a '+' on it, upper right. Change the file selector to 'all files *.*', navigate to where the unsupported format file is, select it, and add it. Press OK to quit editing metadata.

At this point you will see your format (imp?) in the list of formats mentioned by speakingtohe. You can search for them, etc. What remains is to be able to work on them to do your conversions or what-have-you. Two choices:

1) Use save to disk to retrieve all the formats and store them somewhere. Your 'imp' file will be saved along with the other formats the book has.

2) Use 'open containing folder' to get to where the 'imp' is stored, and copy that file to a folder outside the library.

Now do what you want to do. If you convert the imp to a new format, then use 'Add Format' again to put that format into calibre's library. If you modify the 'imp', then use edit metadata to remove the old 'imp' and re-add the new version.

Let me know if I have what you want to do wrong, and we can try again.

[itimpi]

Note even unsupported formats can be added via Add Books as long as you select the option to see All Files in the file selector dialog.

Another option is to add using the Drag-and-Drop method onto the main gui.

Thanks for the replies.

Speakingtohe's answer does it for me. Restricts the title list to only showing my desired format. My family can highlight what they want and "save to disk" to put them on their flash drives.

This feature is undocumented and even searching the on line manual on "tag browser" only gives the commands to turn it on or off.

On the other hand this program is free and volunteer supported so ya got to expect it. Could I suggest that the manual be structured as a wiki. That way anyone who feels inspired to expand on a topic can do so. Some of the wiki software now even allows for review before changes or additions are permanent.

Just a suggestion.

Thanx again.