[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Alpha o

That wasn't the main question. I want to know about renaming the formats that are on the screen with the cover of the book. If I can get all the converted books into EPUB and have that listed as the main format, I can sort out the HTML, DOC, Mobi, PRC, Kindle, and some PDF and find the darn duplicates and/or triplicates.

I bought "The Martian" from Amazon and converted it. Downloaded to computer.
After conversion the line under the cover of the book reads AZW3,EPUB.

That is a list of formats that you have the book in. It is sorted alphabetically. NOT in the order the format was created for you. If you don't want to keep a format of a book, don't keep it. You can right-click on the format name in the details pane and select delete it from there.

Since there is a converted EPUB can I rename the format to just EPUB and delete the duplicate Amazon format? Or is the dual name format the default?
That seems to make the book list twice in the Kobo. Once in Amazon format, and once in EPUB.

If you have multiple copies in different formats on your Kobo device, it is because you put them there (with one exception). At some point, you have copied both the "Amazon format", which will be MOBI, and the ePub to the device. As the Kobo device can handle both formats, it displays them both in the library list as separate books. The fix is simple: decide which you don't want and remove it.

The exception to the above is the kepub format for books bought from Kobo. These can be downloaded directly to the device via WiFi. If you sideload an ePub or other version as well, you will have multiple copies of the book on the device.

If that naming convention on the original page is the default, then I probably can't change the order.

The details are based on what is in the book and in the library. As I said, the list of formats is simply a list of the formats of that book you have in the library. The other details, such as title and author, are extracted from the book when you add them to calibre. The details come from either the internal metadata or the file name, depending on your configuration and what is available. These can be changed. You can fix the title and author for any book along with any of the other details.

I got a lot of the originals from Gutenberg or Smashwords, and they have different ways of naming a book. Sometimes it's just a number, author can be omitted, but the file format is EPUB, so it shows up. I have forgotten and downloaded other copies that were named conventionally, and being lazy, never went back and corrected the name on the off-beat download. That's another reason for unknown books and general mess.

That can only be fixed with work. You need to go through those books and fix the metadata. Open them one at a time, work out the title and author and then you can download the rest of the metadata easily. But, Smashwords books usually have at least the basic metadata. You can get calibre to read the metadata from the book.