[deback]

I use the F2 button to manually rename single files. If I have lots of files to rename, then I use the Ant Renamer software, which is great to quickly rename files.

Then after I've dragged the files into Calibre, I use the Modify Epub plugin to update the metadata to the current filenames (or I'll use the Polish plugin when I have only one or two files to update the metadata). I also use the Modify Epub plugin to do a lot of other things, like remove a lot of the junk that needs to be removed, etc.

Then I run the Calibre conversion to add a certain font, to justify the text, change the side margins to 30pt each, plus make other changes and fixes that I have set up in Styling and Transform in the Look and Feel settings. When the conversion creates a duplicate cover image (happens often for some unknown reason), then I use Edit Book to remove the duplicate HTML file for the cover image that gets created during the conversion (and placed either under the top cover image page or at the bottom of the HTML list).

Then I use Edit Book to check for errors and have it automatically fix them. Then I will manually fix any of the formatting that needs to be fixed, fix the ToCs, fix the CSS codes for images when they were coded incorrectly (like indenting an image that should be centered, centering images when the code is "justify" and should be "center," changing the width and height codes to "100%" from "auto" for full-page images, etc).

At some point during this process, and after conversion, I'll highlight all the files and run the ToC plugin to fix any ToCs that need to be fixed. Doing it this way loads up the next file after I click OK.

Then after checking each EPUB file to make sure it's satisfactory (using ADE 1.71), I move the files back to the author folders (using Windows Explorer).

I'm using the current Calibre version, which is 3.15.

I don't know if any of the above will answer any of your questions, but this is what I do, and the results are fantastic.