eBook language setting.

[Vizzy]

Hi everyone.

I'm sorry if a similar question has already been asked, but I couldn't find a corresponding topic.

I have a slight confusion with Calibre regarding the 'language' field in eBook metadata. Specifically, I noticed that when I convert the books that I imported into calibre to read on my iPad, calibre overwrites the language field in ebook metadata to 'en'. Now this is no problem if I want to read books in English, but it leads to a difficulty when I try to read books in other languages, particularly Russian. The problem is that I have a Russian dictionary on my iPad, but it is only activated when a book's metadata specifies that it is actually a Russian book ('ru'). Otherwise the iPad thinks that that book is in English and activates the standard Oxford English Dictionary, which of course is of no help in finding definitions to Russian words. However, when I manually set the language to 'ru' through command line, everything is fine, and the Russian dictionary is activated.

It is definitely not iTunes messing with metadata, as other Russian books which were already in epub and thus did not go through calibre are fine.

I don't mind setting the language for my books manually as long as it is in GUI. If it's command-line-only, however, it would be a nuisance.

So is there a way either to prevent calibre from overwriting a book's language metadata or to set the language during conversion?

Thanks.

[ichbindasauge]

Yes, that's something missing from the GUI: the language setting. Would be great to have that!

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Vizzy

I have a slight confusion with Calibre regarding the 'language' field in eBook metadata. Specifically, I noticed that when I convert the books that I imported into calibre to read on my iPad, calibre overwrites the language field in ebook metadata to 'en'.

...~~~...

I don't mind setting the language for my books manually as long as it is in GUI. If it's command-line-only, however, it would be a nuisance.

So is there a way either to prevent calibre from overwriting a book's language metadata or to set the language during conversion?

Currently there isn't a way to prevent calibre setting the language in the book to the same as you are running in calibre.

When the iPad was introduced many folks requested the language metadata be inserted for the reason you stated. As a quick fix I believe calibre was set to insert the language metadata for the language you have calibre setup to use.

Kovid says choosing the language is on the todo list.

[ichbindasauge]

Any chance the language setting will be available soon in the GUI?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by ichbindasauge

Any chance the language setting will be available soon in the GUI?

There is a way to control the language written to a file during send/save operations. Use metadata plugboards.

The steps are:
1. Create a custom text (single value) column. Call it #language.
2. Create a plugboard for the device & format (preferences -> metadata plugboards)
3. Add a line with the source template = {#language:ifempty(en)}, destination = language.

After this change, when a book is sent, its language will be set to the value in the column. If there is no value, then it will be set to en. Set that default to whatever you want.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by ichbindasauge

Any chance the language setting will be available soon in the GUI?

As always, you want to make it happen sooner rather than later, role up your sleeves and contribute the code. If you cannot do that, then wait, hopefully patiently