iOS Device
 

Hi, not too sure where on the internet to post this query as googling it hasn't turned anything up for me so thought I'd start with a Calibre forum and see if some bright spark can help answer this question :thumbsup:

In the books app on an iOS device there is now a Want to Read section where you can add books that you want to read from the book store. When you click on the book it will pop up a description of the book, or if you view it in the Want to Read section you can see a partial description.

When I manually add a book to my device and add it to the Want to Read section, my manually added book doesn't show the description nor do I get a pop up when I tap on it, it just opens the book ready to be read.

In Calibre I've added a description in the comments section but it doesn't show up in the books app.

Anyone have any ideas on how to get this working? I like to add my books on to my device to read later but sometimes forget what the book is about so it would be handy to have the books app show the book description.

Image attached of a book added from the book store and one I've manually added to my iPad. The one added from the store shows a description which is what I want to happen for my manually added books.

Sorry for being so long winded.

Thanks heaps!

I think ;) it is simply the IOS app was not designed for integration with Calibre.

OR

You used the OS to copy books to the device and that way does not pick up the change you made to the LIBRARY data. (Books IN the library, do not get updated automatically. You can force this using the any of the tools (Polish, embed metadata, or Modify EPUB)

Not too sure what you mean? I've put my epub books in my onedrive and opened them up that way to the Book app

Were the epubs in a Calibre Library on a Windows, Linux or MacOS computer, before you put them on Microsoft OneDrive and opened them with Apple's Books app on your IOS device?

BR

Yes. I edit the books and add the book description in the comments section. Then I reconverted them and uploaded to my onedrive

It would help if you answered direct questions with a simple Yes or No Ψ³

If you open the epub in the OneDrive folder with calibre's ebook-viewer, can you see the Comments when you show the metadata?

It's the 3rd last button in the viewer. If you can't then see the second paragraph in post #2.

Otherwise, are you sure the Apple Books app is reading the epub file you uploaded to OneDrive and not some version its squirreled away in a cache?

BR

Yes, I can see the metadata

I did answer with a Yes, but just followed it up with more words to provide more information :2thumbsup

By the by, it doesn't let me do one word answers because I tried with my above answer and it wouldn't let me post it :chinscratch:

Presumably whatever app you are using is not reading the <dc:description> metadata from the EPUB in that case. You can either find a better app or workaround the problem by using the insert metadata as jacket function in the calibre Polish Books tool. This will at least mean you can see the comments as a regular page inside the book.

You should have seen an error something like: The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 5 characters.

I get round it by typing 'xxx..'

BR

Yeah I figured it might be the book app not working the same for manually added books.