Option to "convert non-English characters to English Equivalents"

riverteeth · 10-28-2011, 01:56 PM

Hi everyone. I have a large number of books in Chinese. I noticed that Calibre uses the romanization of Chinese characters when constructing its file structure on disk. I'm wondering if this behavior can be changed so that the original title/author (in Chinese characters) is preserved in the file/folder structure.

This is desirable because I sometimes want to share my books with classmates who don't use Calibre. If you didn't use Calibre and you regularly use Chinese and other Asian languages on your computer, you most likely would want the character version in the file name to aid in search, and just to make the file recognizable without opening it. One more reason is that Calibre uses the most common pronunciation for characters, and it often (understandably) gets the wrong romanization for some Chinese surnames and lots of Japanese names.

I see an checkbox for "convert non-English characters to English Equivalents" in the "saving books to disk" section of the preferences. However, having unchecked this box and then importing some new books / editing some old ones, I see that the file/folder names are continuing to be named in the old fashion. Am I misunderstanding the function of this checkbox, or is there some other way to accomplish my goal?

Thanks!

Starson17 · 10-28-2011, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by riverteeth

Hi everyone. I have a large number of books in Chinese. I noticed that Calibre uses the romanization of Chinese characters when constructing its file structure on disk. I'm wondering if this behavior can be changed so that the original title/author (in Chinese characters) is preserved in the file/folder structure.

My understanding is that the answer is "No." Support for non-ascii characters in file systems is very bad. Kovid has said it's not possible to support multiple operating systems, devices, etc and also write file names with non ascii chars. You may have some options when saving to disk, but not with calibre's file structure.

riverteeth · 10-28-2011, 11:11 PM

Ok, thanks for that answer. Just curious though... what does checking/un-checking the option "convert non-English characters to English equivalents" do exactly?

DoctorOhh · 10-29-2011, 01:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by riverteeth

However, having unchecked this box and then importing some new books / editing some old ones, I see that the file/folder names are continuing to be named in the old fashion. Am I misunderstanding the function of this checkbox, or is there some other way to accomplish my goal?

You do misunderstand the function of this checkbox. The internal file structure of calibre's library is rigid, but the export of books via Save to disk might be flexible. Uncheck the box and use the Save to disk feature and see what happens.

riverteeth · 10-29-2011, 04:16 AM

Perfect! This solves my problem entirely. Now I can enjoy the functionality of having my ebooks in Calibre's database, and easily export them with the original language title and author names for sharing. Thanks!!

DoctorOhh · 10-29-2011, 06:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by riverteeth

Thanks!!

You're welcome.

10-28-2011, 01:56 PM	#1
riverteeth Enthusiast Posts: 25 Karma: 18 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: iPhone	Option to "convert non-English characters to English Equivalents" Hi everyone. I have a large number of books in Chinese. I noticed that Calibre uses the romanization of Chinese characters when constructing its file structure on disk. I'm wondering if this behavior can be changed so that the original title/author (in Chinese characters) is preserved in the file/folder structure. This is desirable because I sometimes want to share my books with classmates who don't use Calibre. If you didn't use Calibre and you regularly use Chinese and other Asian languages on your computer, you most likely would want the character version in the file name to aid in search, and just to make the file recognizable without opening it. One more reason is that Calibre uses the most common pronunciation for characters, and it often (understandably) gets the wrong romanization for some Chinese surnames and lots of Japanese names. I see an checkbox for "convert non-English characters to English Equivalents" in the "saving books to disk" section of the preferences. However, having unchecked this box and then importing some new books / editing some old ones, I see that the file/folder names are continuing to be named in the old fashion. Am I misunderstanding the function of this checkbox, or is there some other way to accomplish my goal? Thanks!

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10-28-2011, 11:11 PM	#3
riverteeth Enthusiast Posts: 25 Karma: 18 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: iPhone	Ok, thanks for that answer. Just curious though... what does checking/un-checking the option "convert non-English characters to English equivalents" do exactly?

10-29-2011, 04:16 AM	#5
riverteeth Enthusiast Posts: 25 Karma: 18 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: iPhone	Perfect! This solves my problem entirely. Now I can enjoy the functionality of having my ebooks in Calibre's database, and easily export them with the original language title and author names for sharing. Thanks!!

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