Kobo ereader cuts short book titles

[MashaT]

Recently I noticed that Kobo tends to cut off book titles (if they consider it too long).
I spent a lot of time organizing my series using Calibre metadata and when I update my device and see what ends up there, its frustrating.

I get something like example: [Musicals 1] Phantom of....

Its started doing so recently, because I have lots of longer titles that were added from years back, but it only affects the titles of the books added within last year or so.

Does anyone know about Kobo title length limits or limiting file name length rules?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by MashaT

Recently I noticed that Kobo tends to cut off book titles (if they consider it too long).
I spent a lot of time organizing my series using Calibre metadata and when I update my device and see what ends up there, its frustrating.

I get something like example: [Musicals 1] Phantom of....

Its started doing so recently, because I have lots of longer titles that were added from years back, but it only affects the titles of the books added within last year or so.

Does anyone know about Kobo title length limits or limiting file name length rules?

Why are you adding the series to the ebook title? Your Kobo is quite capable of displaying the title, subtitle and series information. If you tap on the ... below the book status/type, you can view the full title in the book details.

[MashaT]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Why are you adding the series to the ebook title? Your Kobo is quite capable of displaying the title, subtitle and series information. If you tap on the ... below the book status/type, you can view the full title in the book details.

Attachment 191086

Sometimes I need to in big collections, or collections by author, since Kobo doesn't have subfolders.
But it doesn't matter since I had a book named the 22 Murders of Madison May. Kobo managed to cut it down to "The 22 Murders of..."

Funny thing is all books with far longer titles that I added more than a year ago, do not have their titles cut off.

And going thru details for every book in a big collection is not pleasant.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by MashaT

Sometimes I need to in big collections, or collections by author, since Kobo doesn't have subfolders.
But it doesn't matter since I had a book named the 22 Murders of Madison May. Kobo managed to cut it down to "The 22 Murders of..."

Funny thing is all books with far longer titles that I added more than a year ago, do not have their titles cut off.

And going thru details for every book in a big collection is not pleasant.

I'm having a good deal of difficulty trying to follow your work flow. A collection by author name is simply duplicating the Author functionality built into the firmware. Ditto for adding the series name/index to the title.

As for the title length, if I do not have a subtitle or series for a book, a title such as 'Harry Potter: A Journey Through a History of Magic' shows up in full though it is split across two lines in Books view.

[MashaT]

Originally Posted by DNSB

As for the title length, if I do not have a subtitle or series for a book, a title such as 'Harry Potter: A Journey Through a History of Magic' shows up in full though it is split across two lines in Books view.

This is what I have with books that were added over a year ago, longer title simply continuing on to 2nd line, but more recently added books have their title cut in half to fit in first line with and 3 dots (...) added in instead.

I don't know why its happening

[PeterT]

Maybe post screenshots

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[MashaT]

I figured it out. Its probably Calibre setup fault, for some reason 2nd line of the title is taken over by series name and index #, so instead of transferring over and continuing the title if its too long, it just truncates it.

I will need to figure out how to setup Calibre to stop doing that since its just redundant. Will move on to Calibre forum and ask them for help.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MashaT

I figured it out. Its probably Calibre setup fault, for some reason 2nd line of the title is taken over by series name and index #, so instead of transferring over and continuing the title if its too long, it just truncates it.

I will need to figure out how to setup Calibre to stop doing that since its just redundant. Will move on to Calibre forum and ask them for help.

No, it's not calibres fault. Or at least not exactly. The book details are displayed as:

Title
Subtitle
Series name - series number
Author

The title and author are mandatory. If neither the subtitle or series info is present, the title will wrapped over two lines before being truncated. If either the subtitle or series info are present, then the title will be truncated at about 26 characters (assuming I counted properly).

The only reason calibre is at fault is because that is what you are using to set the series info on the device. But, you can turn that off if you don't want it. But, reading your other posts, you appear to be adding the series info to the title, so you are probably getting longer titles that don't actually show as meaningful and duplicating information on the screen. And you can see the full title by going to the book details screen.

[MashaT]

Originally Posted by davidfor

No, it's not calibres fault. Or at least not exactly. The book details are displayed as:

Title
Subtitle
Series name - series number
Author

The title and author are mandatory. If neither the subtitle or series info is present, the title will wrapped over two lines before being truncated. If either the subtitle or series info are present, then the title will be truncated at about 26 characters (assuming I counted properly).

The only reason calibre is at fault is because that is what you are using to set the series info on the device. But, you can turn that off if you don't want it. But, reading your other posts, you appear to be adding the series info to the title, so you are probably getting longer titles that don't actually show as meaningful and duplicating information on the screen. And you can see the full title by going to the book details screen.

What is subtitle? All my books titles have 3 lines (title, series, author). I don't think I ever set it up using calibre, and why can't titles cant go on using subtitles line

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by MashaT

What is subtitle? All my books titles have 3 lines (title, series, author). I don't think I ever set it up using calibre, and why can't titles cant go on using subtitles line

Examples of subtitles are Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus or Horatio Alger's Ragged Dick; or, Street Life in New York with the Bootblacks.

You also have the style favoured by Amazon of stuffing the series, etc. into the title. An example being Jeannie Lin's Gunpowder Alchemy: An Opium War steampunk adventure

[MashaT]

By any chance do you know how long those subtitle fields are? 25-26 character limit or longer?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MashaT

By any chance do you know how long those subtitle fields are? 25-26 character limit or longer?

Firstly, the subtitle is exactly what it says on the tin. A subtitle given to the book by whoever created the metadata. Strictly, it only comes from books downloaded to the device from Kobo. But, the KoboTouch driver can populate it if you configure it to. And if you have not configure the subtitle option, the subtitle will not updated by calibre.

As to the length, I don't think there is a limit. If it is to long, then it will be truncated in the list and more will be displayed on the details page for the book.

But, I think you have completely missed the point. If either the subtitle or series is there, then a long title will be truncated. If neither are there, the title will wrap over two lines before getting truncated. What you need to decide is what information you want to display. Do you want to see the series info, or are the title of your books so long that you need to see the full title and are willing to not have the series information. And, you also need to look at the actual title you are putting on the device. From your examples, these are not just the title, but other information. Is that extra information really necessary? Maybe it would be a good candidate to go into the subtitle or series.

Of course, another alternative is to by a bigger ereader. The 8" devices will fit a few more characters before they are truncated or wrapped. There might also be a patch to change the size of the font used and let more characters be displayed. Or you could possibly use the large print mode, but, manually set the scaling to less than one in the config file. I'm not sure if that will give more characters or not.

[MashaT]

Thank you
Now I need to figure out how to edit subtitle field in Calibre.

[Sunlite]

Originally Posted by davidfor

If either the subtitle or series is there, then a long title will be truncated. If neither are there, the title will wrap over two lines before getting truncated.

@davidfor: I use the subtitle to show the wordcount on my books and I have some long titles break into the second line if series is NOT used, but subtitle IS used.

Funny that using serie but not subtitle is not doing the same, but maybe the font size or line height is different?

Do you have examples of long title that are truncated in the situation where I see two lines?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Sunlite

@davidfor: I use the subtitle to show the wordcount on my books and I have some long titles break into the second line if series is NOT used, but subtitle IS used.

Funny that using serie but not subtitle is not doing the same, but maybe the font size or line height is different?

Do you have examples of long title that are truncated in the situation where I see two lines?

It looks like I have the combinations wrong. I don't use the subtitle much, it is mainly populate for books from Kobo. And I don't think I had a book that had a long title, a subtitle and no series info on the device. I have created a test case and it appears the existence of the series info is what blocks the title from wrapping. That doesn't really make sense.

It is something that Kobo should be able to change. I'd suggest anyone that is interested in this tell Kobo so they know it is something to change.