[GUI Plugin] EpubMerge

[Archina]

Originally Posted by theducks

identical titles (same author) in calibre is not wonderful.

Find duplicates will flag.
Using a simple (the default) template to transfer will lead to as the file will self stomp.

Always include a tie breaker in the title. (ep, Vol, Bk...)

Epic ep 1
Epic ep 2
Epic ep 3

I've changed the title but when I bring it back into calibre it reverts back.

Is there any other way to change the name so that it sticks when I brink it into calibre?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Archina

I've changed the title but when I bring it back into calibre it reverts back.

Is there any other way to change the name so that it sticks when I brink it into calibre?

Bring it back?
You change it IN CALIBRE right after you add it. Then you embed, polish or modify EPUB to get the book updated (calibre does not update internals of the version IN the library on its own. You need to force it using one of the above tools)

Is this fan fic that you get all episodes rather than JUST those since last load?

[JimmXinu]

EpubMerge uses the Calibre title when merging, so just changing the title of the input input EPUBs in Calibre before merging should be sufficient.

(Using Polish Book or Modify Epub plugin to update the embedded metadata in the source epubs isn't necessary.)

[Archina]

Originally Posted by theducks

Bring it back?
You change it IN CALIBRE right after you add it. Then you embed, polish or modify EPUB to get the book updated (calibre does not update internals of the version IN the library on its own. You need to force it using one of the above tools)

Is this fan fic that you get all episodes rather than JUST those since last load?

I did change it in calibre but I didn't know about the other. I've downloaded and installed modify epub and just have to work out how to use it. Is there a step by step guide somewhere that can help me?

Thanks mate

[Archina]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

EpubMerge uses the Calibre title when merging, so just changing the title of the input input EPUBs in Calibre before merging should be sufficient.

(Using Polish Book or Modify Epub plugin to update the embedded metadata in the source epubs isn't necessary.)

I've used EpubMerge before.

When I tried to change the titles of these 3 bundles I did it this way.
In calibre I clicked on edit metadata and just renamed the title. It looks changed in calibre then and on my laptop but when I bring it back into calibre the title has reverted back to it's original.

I did download and install modify epub but confused on how it works.

[JimmXinu]

Where is this 'bring it back into calibre' step coming from?

I would expect the only steps would be:

1. Import EPUBs into Calibre
2. Change title of each book in Calibre
3. EpubMerge the books in Calibre
4. New Merged book exists in Calibre. The end.

Remember it's also an option to edit the merged book after the fact and change the Table of Contents however you would like. Calibre's Edit Book as a good ToC editing tool.

[Archina]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

Where is this 'bring it back into calibre' step coming from?

I would expect the only steps would be:

1. Import EPUBs into Calibre
2. Change title of each book in Calibre
3. EpubMerge the books in Calibre
4. New Merged book exists in Calibre. The end.

Remember it's also an option to edit the merged book after the fact and change the Table of Contents however you would like. Calibre's Edit Book as a good ToC editing tool.

OMG I can't believe I didn't think to do it that way.

Thank you so very much

[JimmXinu]

EpubMerge keeps the CSS files embedded in the source epubs.

The only thing I can think of is that you are using a tool (or reader?) that doesn't handle nested directory structure well. I know that Sigil used to have that problem, but I thought it was fixed years ago.

And are you looking in the right places? In the content.opf file all the CSS files are grouped after the text files, not interspersed with the text files. And in Calibre's Edit book file browser, they also appear after the text files.

I'll need to see an example (ie, source and merged epubs) for myself before I can do more than speculate.

[JimmXinu]

JCalibre got me an example.

What's happening here is that the second of the source epubs is an epub3. EpubMerge automatically converts to epub2 using Calibre Convert before merging.

In this case, the conversion is what's changing the CSS. Calibre's Convert significantly rewrites basically everything because internally it first converts to a common format/structure before outputting the selected format.

At this time, I don't have any easy fix for you. In your shoes, I'd just try to fix up the output file, or convert the 2nd input to epub2 myself and fix that up before merging.

I have been (and continue to be) reluctant to try and support epub3 natively in EpubMerge. Epub2 Table of Contents is relatively consistent. Epub3 ToC is just an HTML5 file. Could be <ol> lists, could be nested <div> tags, who knows. And that's just a lot harder to deal with.

[theducks]

I use the Quality check Plugin to Search : OPF for "package version="3.",
Then I apply an EPUB3 tag (so I know up front)

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by JCalibre

Was it only the second and not the first that was an epub3? Next, by Calibre's Convert, do you mean the default Convert Book function in Calibre? That one seems to only have one epub output option.
Lastly, how would the amount of work required to fix up the second book after converting to epub2 compare to manually unpacking and combining both books?

Yes, 2nd book only. Yes, Calibre's built-in Convert feature. You have to select EPUB output first (upper right corner), then the 'Epub Output' section of the Convert settings has an 'EPUB Version' setting.

How much work depends on the complexity of the source books, what needs fixing, how good you are it, etc.

Originally Posted by JCalibre

Can you at least put in a warning if the user is attempting to combine epub3 books and that the result might have issues?

The background job log does show when an epub3 has been converted, click 'Jobs' in the lower right corner of Calibre, then double click the EpubMerge job after it's finished.

To warn before starting the background job merge would require opening and reading each epub in the foreground thread. Not a problem for small jobs like this, but significant overhead for others merging many books.

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version

2023-11-26
- Update translations

Issue reported here

[JimmXinu]

New Version Released

Version 2.17.0 - 2023-11-29
- Update Translations

[Wandering Cloud]

Hey man, love the plugin. Do you take feature requests?

If so, I was wondering if you could create settings to:

*Put a chapterlist at the start of the merged epub of all the books merged, for easy reference.
I know can do this manually currently if you edit the epub, but with 15+ epub's merged together it takes a while to do.

*Annotate the chapter headings so instead of being (chapter), they're ((book title)chapter)).
I'm sure that this can be done somehow, because my kindle knows the correct chapter title to display whenever I activate the UI while reading. But I've no idea how to edit this in calibre.

[JimmXinu]

Not very much anymore.

As for your specific requests:

You can use Calibre's Convert epub->epub or Edit book (under Tools) to inject an in-line ToC. And if you're converting to AZW3 for Kindle, the ToC at the end of the book.

EpubMerge doesn't actually look inside the book contents at all, it only reads/writes the metadata. And nothing says chapter headings inside have to match what the ToC says, or have any consistent formatting to find. So annotating chapter headings is non-trivial.