Troubleshooting mobi2mobi mac? need to fix title

[RadicalxEdward]

I'm having an issue with a file that I converted from a pdf to jpg's, to mobi just so i could have it look nice on my kindle. But now the title and author have been set by kindle comic converter, not what I put in the meta data fields in calibre. When I view it in my library on my mac in calibre it shows proper info. but if i preview it, or view it anywhere else, it shows the wrong title / author.

I've seen multiple threads here that say you need to convert the file (yet again) to fix this (which seems odd. Never had to do that to change meta data before) but that there can be problems with that and to use mobi2mobi, which is windows only.

So is there a mac solution to this problem?

[eschwartz]

Use the cross-platform http://calibre-ebook.com

[RadicalxEdward]

...to do what? Like I said in my post my problem is with calibre.....

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by RadicalxEdward

...to do what? Like I said in my post my problem is with calibre.....

Sorry, I overlooked that.

calibre will only write the metadata to the ebook when exporting via send-to-device or save-to-disk, or when explicitly using the Embed Metadata feature.
This is meant to save people from accidentally scribbling all over the good metadata in the library copies, which can potentially happen say when Adding books is set to derive metadata from filenames.

[RadicalxEdward]

That's what happened. It pulled the author and title from the File name. Now even though I've updated the meta data in calibre it doesn't change in the mobi file. I've tried save to disk, I've tried deleting it from my kindle and resending it and nothing makes a difference. When I go to edit the metadata it looks perfect. But when i "view" the file in calibre (or anywhere else) and click the info button, it still shows the old title and author like it does on the kindle. That's what I want to fix.

[RadicalxEdward]

The red arrow info should match the green arrow info, but obviously doesn't. The red arrow info is what shows up in any reader including the one built into calibre.



And before anyone asks or gets huffy about rules, yes i do own the physical copy of this book, I just don't want it getting beat up and ruined any more than it already has over the years.

[eschwartz]

Oh, it's a dual-MOBI. That would explain it. calibre cannot properly handle updating the meta fields in dual-MOBI ebooks.

[RadicalxEdward]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Oh, it's a dual-MOBI. That would explain it. calibre cannot properly handle updating the meta fields in dual-MOBI ebooks.

What is a dual mobi? I've never heard of that before.

Here's the conversion process i went through, if it clears anything up.

Started with PDF which was scans of the book (images of the pages, not raw text)
I used photoshop to export each page into a folder as jpegs. I then used kindle comic converter to crop all of those, optimize them for kindle, and combine them all into a single mobi file like you would with a comic/manga. I then imported that into calibre where i corrected the meta data. And then I synced it to the kindle where i first noticed the problem.

[eschwartz]

It seems Kindle Comic Creator creates dual-MOBIs -- these are .mobi files which contain both MOBI and AZW3 sections, in order to work well on new devices and also fallback on old devices which don't support AZW3.

Unfortunately, manipulating the metadata in one appears to be a PITA.

KindleUnpack can split these apart, which will also save wasted space on devices which support AZW3.
You can also try mobiperl, which contains the core manipulation tools including mobi2mobi. What you are thinking of as mobi2mobi is actually a GUI frontend. But I have a feeling it will do no better than calibre at manipulating the EXTH fields in both sections (i.e. the AZW3 section as well).

[shamanNS]

@RadicalxEdward: Dual mobi = file containing both old mobi formatting and new KF8 formatting (which is needed to be able to use things like "Panel view"). kindlegen commandline tool (which KCC uses to produce mobi files) by default outputs that type of file.

Java Mobi Metadata Editor should be cross-platform and work on Mac. And if I remember things correctly it handles dual mobi files.

Even better you should probably install "Kindle Unpack" plugin for Calibre and use it to split KCC generated (dual) mobi file to .mobi and .azw3, and transfer the azw3 one to your Kindle. In this scenario you would probably edit metada for azw3 file using JMMM Editor.

EDIT: Blah, I'm too slow

[RadicalxEdward]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

It seems Kindle Comic Creator creates dual-MOBIs -- these are .mobi files which contain both MOBI and AZW3 sections, in order to work well on new devices and also fallback on old devices which don't support AZW3.

Unfortunately, manipulating the metadata in one appears to be a PITA.

KindleUnpack can split these apart, which will also save wasted space on devices which support AZW3.
You can also try mobiperl, which contains the core manipulation tools including mobi2mobi. What you are thinking of as mobi2mobi is actually a GUI frontend. But I have a feeling it will do no better than calibre at manipulating the EXTH fields in both sections (i.e. the AZW3 section as well).

Very interesting. I don't know where you got all that information from but I'm grateful. I will try that. I mainly use KCC for manga and the file sizes are big enough without duplicate data like that.

[RadicalxEdward]

Originally Posted by shamanNS

@RadicalxEdward: Dual mobi = file containing both old mobi formatting and new KF8 formatting (which is needed to be able to use things like "Panel view"). kindlegen commandline tool (which KCC uses to produce mobi files) by default outputs that type of file.

Java Mobi Metadata Editor should be cross-platform and work on Mac. And if I remember things correctly it handles dual mobi files.

Even better you should probably install "Kindle Unpack" plugin for Calibre and use it to split KCC generated (dual) mobi file to .mobi and .azw3, and transfer the azw3 one to your Kindle. In this scenario you would probably edit metada for azw3 file using JMMM Editor.

Thank you. I'm assuming azw3 is the only one of the two that supports panel view? I've never actually used that feature (and in this one instance it wouldn't work as there are no panels) I always thought it had to be built into the book from the start.

I downloaded the plugin and am installing it now. I'll check out JMMM and once i've fixed this issue I'll post my solution in the original post so people who have this issue going forward can see it easier.

[shamanNS]

Yeah, Panel View is feature of KF8 format. Also, "real" panel view which would zoom correct part of the image has to be manually hardcoded for each page/image... KCC is "faking it" somehow, always zooms 1/4 of the image , or something like that? I don't really remember anymore since I've only used KCC once or twice more then year ago

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by shamanNS

Java Mobi Metadata Editor should be cross-platform and work on Mac. And if I remember things correctly it handles dual mobi files.

AFAIK, Java Mobi Metadata Editor cannot handle .mobi files that contain both the old and the new formats correctly. This was one of the reasons, why KevinH created a special dual metadata tweaker python script, which add ASINs to both mobi and azw3 parts.

@RadicalxEdward: Try the following:

a) Ask AcidWeb, who's an MR member and KCC co-author, whether he can implement user definable title/author metadata fields.

b) Simply generate an ePub with KCC, edit the metadata with Sigil and manually convert it with Kindle Previewer/KindleGen.

[eschwartz]

Once you have split apart the file into an AZW3, calibre will be able to handle it just fine, as well.