ASIN, syncing etc.

[tomsem]

I'd like to understand how calibre supports placing ASIN's into mobi format metadata to enable syncing etc., and have not been able to find a simple 'how to' or even a not simple one, here or elsewhere. I'm not saying it isn't there, just that I could not find it after chasing a lot of search results.

I have a number of books from O'Reilly that are also offered in Kindle Store. I'd like to put the Kindle Store's ASIN in there so that it will sync reading locations between devices, if not back up highlights and notes that I may make (I assume I can't get Amazon to send me the .apnx file unless I actually purchase from them).

- assuming I figure out how to do it properly, will it enable anything other than syncing? that is will I also find my notes and highlights on kindle.amazon.com?
- when I have calibre Download Metadata, it gets the print edition's ISBN and Amazon ID. Obviously the latter is not going to work for syncing purposes, or even for launching the correct Amazon web page from calibre. Is that a bug?
- I've seen a thread here about calibre generating (randomly?) an ASIN for mobi content that enables syncing. What is that referring to?
- I've tried adding ID metadata with both 'amazon:' and 'asin:' tags, using the ASIN from the Kindle edition's amazon page. But it doesn't work.

In summary, what must I do to get this to work? and what will this not do that a real Amazon purchase would?

Thanks

[kovidgoyal]

calibre automatically inserts a random uuid into the asin field. That enables furthest page syncing. I have no idea what else works/doesn't work as I dont use the Amazon ecosystem.

[Popup]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I'd like to understand how calibre supports placing ASIN's into mobi format metadata to enable syncing etc., and have not been able to find a simple 'how to' or even a not simple one, here or elsewhere. I'm not saying it isn't there, just that I could not find it after chasing a lot of search results.

I've also been searching these fora for a solution to this problem, but so far with limited success. I got a Kindle 3 for my birthday, and I'd love to sync it with the Kindle application on my iPhone.

I'm starting from a much lower position - I only downloaded Calibre last week, and so far it seems very impressive. I have read that it ads either a random number, or the ISBN, as ASIN when converting a book, and that with this the Kindle device, as well as the kindle Application, would be able to sync the 'last read location'.

However, so far I haven't managed.

I downloaded a public domain work (The collected works of Sherlock Holmes) from project Gutenberg as an epub. I went into Calbre and downloaded the appropriate metadata (cover, ISBN, etc.). I then transferred this to both my Kindle and my iPhone (I had to jump through a few extra hoops here, as I can't access my work computer from my iPhone, as it's behind a firewall - instead I 'uploaded' it to iTunes, and synced it from there to the iPhone.)

I can see the book in both devices, but the location sync doesn't appear to work.

How would I go about debugging this?

How can I visualize the metadata of a file? Is it possible to show these things on the Kindle?