Thread: Editing and updating metadata on the device
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Old 01-20-2022, 08:51 PM   #13
davidfor
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JJ Johnson View Post
Someone remind me again... How do I simply update a book on the device when I change metadata? Emphasis on "simply". I've read through the above again, and it's not making much sense.

Typically, I'll update a cover, fix an author name or book title. I either keep getting duplicate books or else the metadata never updates on the device.
If all you are updating is the metadata, such as the title, comments or series info, then the driver will handle it. There is configuration in the driver to do this. The default option is to only update the series info, but the rest of the metadata the Kobo devices can display can be updated. To set the option, you need to open the driver configuration and change the options on the third tab. The simplest way to get correct driver is to connect the device and right-click the device button and choose the option to configure the device. Otherwise, you need to go through the preferences. If you do this and it is still not happening, check that on the "Sending books to devices" page of the preferences that "Metadata management" is set to the automatic option. With this done, calibre will update the device each time it is connected with any changes made.

If you are changing the cover, you can use my Kobo Utilities plugin to send the changed cover to the device. But, the cover won't be in the book when you open it.

To change the book, you should be able to just send it from calibre. The driver does cheat. If you manually changed the book, the device would detect this and remove the original book from its database and add the replacement book as a new book. The driver can prevent this so that you do not lose your reading status or annotations. This will be safe if the changes are to styles or fixing text. If the internal structure of the book changes, it can cause problems, but, that can also be fixed.

If when you send replacement book to the device, you get another copy, it is probably because you changed something in the metadata that is used in the save template that generates the file name for the book on the device. The usual save template has the title and author in it, so changing either of those will result in a duplicate book. I don't have a good solution for that. The device has no issue with multiple copies of the same book. When I need to do this, I send the new version and remove the old version. If it is a book I am reading or have read, I let the device import it, connect again and restore the stored reading status.
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