Removing Authors after &

[raafayawan]

So I have a very big library of books, and at least 5000 of them have multiple authors, some books even 15+ of them. Is there a way to remove all the extra authors except for the first one? I have tried the search and replace option with &.* but it is not working. Is there an easy way to do that?
Really will appreciate your help, thanks in advance
Raafay

[Karellen]

Is that a good idea? If they are all authors of the book, they all deserve the credit.

Sorry, can't help with the solution. But did you escape the ampersand?

[raafayawan]

Originally Posted by Karellen

Is that a good idea? If they are all authors of the book, they all deserve the credit.

Sorry, can't help with the solution. But did you escape the ampersand?

Yes I agree and I have done that for many years, but it is just for library management purposes, just like Calibre adds the book in one Author's folder only and goodreads shows one author on the main page, very big library just getting difficult for me to manage it.

Yes I did try that, and some solutions recommended by AI as well but all have failed for now.

[chaley]

You can do this using global search and replace, with "template* as the input field. The template will be "{authors}" (no quotes). Use regular expressions to remove everything after the first &. I'm not near a computer so I can't show you any more about how to do it.

[theducks]

I am in the @Karellen camp (plus it allows me to find any with that Authors work) so I created a Custom Authors type column and move them there (ore create from a list i scrape from inside the book.
Originally this column (#pseudo4) was was for pseudonyms as I like {Authors} to match the cover, but I found another use, most commonly Anthologies.
I also update Preferences: Searching: Grouped Searches (a tab) and Similar Books (a Tab) to look at that column.

I also do this for Series (limited to 1 other) for cases that bridge 2 distinct series. "<various>" when the count goes over 2, the Main is the first or my Fav series .

[isarl]

Originally Posted by chaley

You can do this using global search and replace, with "template* as the input field. The template will be "{authors}" (no quotes). Use regular expressions to remove everything after the first &. I'm not near a computer so I can't show you any more about how to do it.

Any day I learn a new Calibre feature is a good day!

Just to expand on this for anybody else who, like me, might need some help finding the global search and replace: select all of the books you wish to edit (in OP's case, all books), and Edit metadata in bulk. One of the tabs in the resulting window is for Search and replace. Remember, Calibre cannot undo this step without a backup of your database from before the edit, so you should consider taking the time to create such a backup before you make your edits.

Oh, and +1 for theducks' suggestion too!

[raafayawan]

Originally Posted by chaley

You can do this using global search and replace, with "template* as the input field. The template will be "{authors}" (no quotes). Use regular expressions to remove everything after the first &. I'm not near a computer so I can't show you any more about how to do it.

Actually I was able to figure it out and this worked, thank you so much

[raafayawan]

Originally Posted by theducks

I am in the @Karellen camp (plus it allows me to find any with that Authors work) so I created a Custom Authors type column and move them there (ore create from a list i scrape from inside the book.
Originally this column (#pseudo4) was was for pseudonyms as I like {Authors} to match the cover, but I found another use, most commonly Anthologies.
I also update Preferences: Searching: Grouped Searches (a tab) and Similar Books (a Tab) to look at that column.

I also do this for Series (limited to 1 other) for cases that bridge 2 distinct series. "<various>" when the count goes over 2, the Main is the first or my Fav series .

Actually this sound like a very interesting idea I'll try it as well