How do i prevent Calibre from converting when sending books to a device?

[DMcCunney]

Am I missing the obvious, or do I have a feature request?

I have the current version of Calibre, with about 5,500 books in the library. I have books in a variety of formats, and in some cases I have the same title in more than one format.

I recently acquired an Android tablet, and I've been sending books to it via Calibre. I read the books via FBReaderJ, which gets the nod because it handles both ePub and Mobi formats, and saves me from having to do format conversions. PDFs are read with MuPDF, an open source Android PDF viewer, but while the PDFs are in Calibre's library, I don't use Calibre to place them on the device: the place I tell Calibre to put eBooks is not the location where I store PDFs and told MuPDF to look.

Because of the multiple formats, I've been using Calibre's "Send specific format to device" command. By default, I send ePub, with the intent to send Mobi in another pass if the file isn't in ePub format. The problem is, if there isn't an ePub format copy of the book, but there is another format Calibre thinks it can convert to ePub, it tries to convert and then send the ePub conversion. I don't want it to do that. I want it to send ePub if there is one and do nothing if not.

Is there a configuration choice I haven't found that controls that behavior?

Ideally, I'd like to select a list of titles to place on device, and tell it "If there is an ePub version, send it. If there is no ePub version, but there is a Mobi version, send that. It there is neither an ePub nor a Mobi version, send a message that no selected format exists for that title, and go on to the next one."

That may be a feature request. I'll settle for knowing how to prevent Calibre from trying to convert a different format if the one I specified doesn't exist.

Thanks in advance,
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Dennis

[theducks]

Which formats to send and what priority if multipe are set in each device driver (along with any template)

If the format is NOT ticked, calibre converts to the format set in
a)Preferences:behavior
b) the first enabled on the driver list (if the (a above) setting is not valid

[kovidgoyal]

Use a search to filter your books and send in batches:

formats:epub

Select all send.

formats:mobi

select all send

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by theducks

Which formats to send and what priority if multipe are set in each device driver (along with any template)

If the format is NOT ticked, calibre converts to the format set in
a)Preferences:behavior
b) the first enabled on the driver list (if the (a above) setting is not valid

Thank you, that's a partial solution.

I still have to fiddle with the formats configured in the driver, as I've still gotten a couple of attempts to convert. I'd really like a global option to tell Calibre not to try to convert at all, and simply skip the title if it isn't in the desired format, but I can deal with what I have.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Use a search to filter your books and send in batches:

formats:epub

Select all send.

formats:mobi

select all send

Hmmmm. Noted for future reference.

The underlying concept may solve another problem - getting a list of formats not in ePub or Mobi, like .LIT or zipped HTML, that I want to convert outside of Calibre.

Thanks!
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Dennis

[eschwartz]

Configure the device plugin to list EPUB on top, and MOBI as second option. It will send EPUB if available, and fall back on MOBI if EPUB is not available. If neither is available, it will ask you whether you want to convert the non-available books to a device-supported format.

If the book is being auto-converted, this is wrong!!! It means you have accidentally set calibre to automatically do that in the future. Go to Preferences ==> Interface ==> Behavior and use the tool to "Reset all disabled confirmation dialogs".

Now you will be prompted, instead of calibre automatically assuming you want them converted.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Configure the device plugin to list EPUB on top, and MOBI as second option. It will send EPUB if available, and fall back on MOBI if EPUB is not available. If neither is available, it will ask you whether you want to convert the non-available books to a device-supported format.

I did that, and hope that will be the last bit of the puzzle. It's a pity that dialog is only available when the device is plugged in, but I think I can see why it has to work that way.

If the book is being auto-converted, this is wrong!!! It means you have accidentally set calibre to automatically do that in the future. Go to Preferences ==> Interface ==> Behavior and use the tool to "Reset all disabled confirmation dialogs".

Now you will be prompted, instead of calibre automatically assuming you want them converted.

Yeah, I assumed it was wrong. Calibre is well designed, so my first assumption is a failure in my understanding, and not a flaw in Calibre.

I've been using Calibre to build/maintain an eBook library, and do occasional format conversion for a while. I've just started using it to send books to device, as my previous eBook reader was a Palm OS PDA where books got added by manually dropping them on the device SD card in the appropriate directory, and most books on that device are in a format Calibre doesn't support. (I have about 4,000 volumes converted from HTML to the format used by the Plucker offline HTML viewer for PalmOS package. I use FBReader on both Windows/Linux and FBReaderJ on the Android tablet. A big win for FBReader on Windows/Linux is that it views Plucker files, so I can read them on something other than my old PDA.)

I don't recall ever configuring that behavior in the fist place, but I did the Reset all disabled confirmation dialogs" bit, as well.

Thank you. This may just have fully resolved my problems.
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Dennis

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I did that, and hope that will be the last bit of the puzzle. It's a pity that dialog is only available when the device is plugged in, but I think I can see why it has to work that way.

I was going to say you can get at the device driver from Preferences ==> Advanced ==> Plugins, but then I realized not for the Android MTP Devices plugin.