Sorting by author first name

[Bytes]

Hey,
Currently my books are trying to sort by last name, this is a problem as a lot of my books don't have standard author entries, such as those showing 'Dan Simmons - Hyperion 01'. This means it sorts by the '01' part causing by library to be dreadfully cluttered. I've been looking for a while but haven't found a setting to change this. I often miss the obvious things so if someone would just point it out XD

Thanks,
Bytes

[theducks]

What you have is a Garbage Pile

There is a reason there is columns labeled Author, Title, Series.
This is so things are sortable, selectable.

If you don't want to put the entries into their respective columns, why use Calibre?

In addition, you also need to use the same entry stle for All Authors. Weter it be LN, FM Mi or Fn Mi Ln With Mi being optional for that Author

[Bytes]

I'm aware it's a mess, it's just how the data came when I got it. I intend to work through it but at 15,000+ books I'd like a temporary fix. How do I set it to be Fn Mi Ln?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Bytes

I'm aware it's a mess, it's just how the data came when I got it. I intend to work through it but at 15,000+ books I'd like a temporary fix. How do I set it to be Fn Mi Ln?

Sort and Entry are 2 different things.

IIRC The default entry is Fn Mi Ln with the Sort being Ln, Fn Mi

Preferences: Tweaks is how you override the default (Entry still has to be correct for the rule you choose)

There are N tweaks you should read their description before you proceed further:

ID: author_sort_copy_method

ID: per_language_title_sort_articles

ID: title_series_sorting

and maybe:
ID: categories_use_field_for_author_name



For the 'Mess' part:
You need to get up to speed FAST on the Bulk Metadata editor feature

With this available, you will select a group of books that share a identical entry problem:

You will then use the tool to pattern match and place the matched data item into the proper field. The last step is to clear all the moved data that remains . This will take time to learn, but then you will clean up big chunks at a time.