MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - MOBI format, Baen Books and Kindle questions.

NormHart · 02-18-2009, 01:42 PM

I’ve been reading this forum for a short time although I’ve been reading ebooks for several years in html and text formats from both Baen Books and PG on my PCs. I have looked at several ebook reader devices and decided on the Kindle 2 based on ease of use, availability of new books, and compatibility with my existing e-library (I am able to download PRC/Mobi formatted copies of my Baen books).

This decision lead to the discovery of the MobiPocket Reader which I downloaded and have been exploring. One of the first things I noticed was that apparently a large number of the Baen books (252 out of 296 files) did not include full metadata. I was unsure if this represented a failure of MobiPocket Reader or a problem with the files themselves. Today I downloaded Calibre and found that it had a similar problem with the files. So, I am assuming that older Baen files have issues with the metadata and I’ve been using the tools mobi2mobi.exe (win) and Mobi2Mobi_GUI.exe to update the Baen files’ metadata for my own use.

I did about thirty or forty books so far when I realized that there might be compatibility issues with the Kindle and that there seemed to be issues with the format of several metafile data fields. I hope you all can help clear up my concerns.

So questions;
1) Since there are apparent problems with the Baen metadata how do current Kindle users see Baen books? That is to say do you see and can you sort by the Author, Subject, and other fields?

There appear to be varying opinions as to how the Author(s) are entered in the MOBI format. Examining various source files I see “first_name last_name”, “last_name, first_name” and others; not to mention the question of how multiple authors are entered (most typically separated by an “&” although I’ve also seen the “;” used).. Exploring with MobiPocket Reader lead me to discover that it apparently has no capability to parse the author field and sorts based solely on the field’s alphabetical order without regard to first_name last_name order which is how the few Baen books I have with working metadata author fields are organized.
2) Is there a generally accepted format for the Author metadata field?
3) How does the Kindle sort on this field since they claim to be able to sort by the author’s last name?
4) Does the Kindle parse the Author field and extract the last name or are the Kindle files organized in some other format? (my understanding is that Kindle’s AWZ format is a super or sub set of the MOBI format)
5) How can I (or is it even possible to) organize the author field to permit both the Kindle and MobiPocket to recognize secondary authors in the author field?

Well I have about ten-thousand more questions but that will do for a start.

Thanks in advance for any answers.

Norm

02-18-2009, 01:42 PM	#1
NormHart Semper Carpe Bufo Posts: 537 Karma: 21676 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Napa Valley, California Device: Kindle2 & Kindle3	MOBI format, Baen Books and Kindle questions. I’ve been reading this forum for a short time although I’ve been reading ebooks for several years in html and text formats from both Baen Books and PG on my PCs. I have looked at several ebook reader devices and decided on the Kindle 2 based on ease of use, availability of new books, and compatibility with my existing e-library (I am able to download PRC/Mobi formatted copies of my Baen books). This decision lead to the discovery of the MobiPocket Reader which I downloaded and have been exploring. One of the first things I noticed was that apparently a large number of the Baen books (252 out of 296 files) did not include full metadata. I was unsure if this represented a failure of MobiPocket Reader or a problem with the files themselves. Today I downloaded Calibre and found that it had a similar problem with the files. So, I am assuming that older Baen files have issues with the metadata and I’ve been using the tools mobi2mobi.exe (win) and Mobi2Mobi_GUI.exe to update the Baen files’ metadata for my own use. I did about thirty or forty books so far when I realized that there might be compatibility issues with the Kindle and that there seemed to be issues with the format of several metafile data fields. I hope you all can help clear up my concerns. So questions; 1) Since there are apparent problems with the Baen metadata how do current Kindle users see Baen books? That is to say do you see and can you sort by the Author, Subject, and other fields? There appear to be varying opinions as to how the Author(s) are entered in the MOBI format. Examining various source files I see “first_name last_name”, “last_name, first_name” and others; not to mention the question of how multiple authors are entered (most typically separated by an “&” although I’ve also seen the “;” used).. Exploring with MobiPocket Reader lead me to discover that it apparently has no capability to parse the author field and sorts based solely on the field’s alphabetical order without regard to first_name last_name order which is how the few Baen books I have with working metadata author fields are organized. 2) Is there a generally accepted format for the Author metadata field? 3) How does the Kindle sort on this field since they claim to be able to sort by the author’s last name? 4) Does the Kindle parse the Author field and extract the last name or are the Kindle files organized in some other format? (my understanding is that Kindle’s AWZ format is a super or sub set of the MOBI format) 5) How can I (or is it even possible to) organize the author field to permit both the Kindle and MobiPocket to recognize secondary authors in the author field? Well I have about ten-thousand more questions but that will do for a start. Thanks in advance for any answers. Norm