Problem converting with GUI vs command line

[kelemvor]

Howdy,

I have a folder with about 150 books in it. Each book is in a folder based on the series the book belongs to. One of the things I *HATE* about calibre is that it groups the books by author on the hard drive which sucks.

What I want to accomplish is to take the books exactly as they are organized now and convert them from EPUB to MOBI.

I did this using the ebook-convert command line tool that comes with Calibre and it worked but none of the cover art shows up in the Kindle for Android app. I tried using the --share-not-sync option per the FAQ but that had no effect. Anyone know if there's a different flag/toggle I need to use to make this work?

Anyway, I took 3 of the books and put them into Calibre and converted them via right-click | convert. Those books do show the cover art just fine on my phone. It seems like converting from the GUI vs the command line is doing something differently but I don't know what.

I'm guessing that putting all the books into Calibre and doing a bulk conversion would work but it will destroy the organization of the books and will take a long time to get things sorted back out so I really don't want to do that option.

Anyone have any ideas on how to convert from EPUB to MOBI while leaving the files in their original folders and having the covert art work?

Thanks!

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by kelemvor

I'm guessing that putting all the books into Calibre and doing a bulk conversion would work but it will destroy the organization of the books and will take a long time to get things sorted back out so I really don't want to do that option.

@kelemvor - I can't answer your question about covers, might be an idea to post the command you used

But, after converting in the GUI you could use the Save to Disk feature. You can control both the folder structure and folder/file names to which files are saved via the Save Template in Preferences->Save to Disk.

Then delete the books from the library.

BT

[eschwartz]

ISTR that that option is not available in the conversion pipeline.
Possibly because the whole PDOC/ASIN mess is handled during send-to-device rather than during the conversion.

Given that, I am not sure why the command-line switch is registered as available.

[kelemvor]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@kelemvor - I can't answer your question about covers, might be an idea to post the command you used

I just used ebook-convert File.epub File.mobi
After I saw the thing about the shear/sync I added --share-not-sync to the end which I got from here.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

But, after converting in the GUI you could use the Save to Disk feature. You can control both the folder structure and folder/file names to which files are saved via the Save Template in Preferences->Save to Disk.

Then delete the books from the library.

BT

I tried that but it didn't work. The epub files don't have the Series metadata in them. I did a Download Metadata from within Calibre and it brought down a bunch of stuff but not the series information.

[kovidgoyal]

You will see covers if you send via calibre, because the calibre kindle driver works around amazon's various cover related bugs. If you are using some other method to send the files to your kindle, then you are on your own. Your best bet is to use a mobi metadata editor program to set the cdetype field to PDOC, then the book will show with cover on the kindle, but as a personal document.

Feel free to complain to amazon about their endless idiocy.

[kelemvor]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

You will see covers if you send via calibre, because the calibre kindle driver works around amazon's various cover related bugs. If you are using some other method to send the files to your kindle, then you are on your own. Your best bet is to use a mobi metadata editor program to set the cdetype field to PDOC, then the book will show with cover on the kindle, but as a personal document.

Feel free to complain to amazon about their endless idiocy.

On the one that worked, All I did in Calibre was a straight convert. I then just copied the mobi file to my phone manually and the cover showed up.

I'll look into an editor I guess. Happen to know of any that can bulk convert 150 mobi files to set that field all at once?

[kelemvor]

I did notice that when I'm on the "Home" view of the Kindle Android app the covers don't show up. However, if I change to the "On Device" view, then some of the covers do show up. Seems really strange.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by kelemvor

I tried that but it didn't work. The epub files don't have the Series metadata in them. I did a Download Metadata from within Calibre and it brought down a bunch of stuff but not the series information.

For the record - My understanding of calibre is that the Save to Disk template takes values from the calibre metadata database, not from the book files, of course if there is no series data in the database then there's not going to be any in the folder & file names it creates.

Did you try using different the metadata sources - eg somewhere like Goodreads might yield series information.

Curious - why convert EPUB to MOBI if you have a Android device, there's dozens of Android apps for reading EPUBs.

BR

[kelemvor]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

For the record - My understanding of calibre is that the Save to Disk template takes values from the calibre metadata database, not from the book files, of course if there is no series data in the database then there's not going to be any in the folder & file names it creates.

Did you try using different the metadata sources - eg somewhere like Goodreads might yield series information.

Curious - why convert EPUB to MOBI if you have a Android device, there's dozens of Android apps for reading EPUBs.

BR

I went into the metadata configuration area and checked all the boxes. I didn't try going through and only doing them one at a time.

The reason I'm trying to convert is simply because I like the Kindle Reader app so I can read everything in one place. If I buy a book from Amazon or paste in my own files, they all show up in the same place.

However, I don't really buy stuff from Amazon very often any more so I guess I can look into checking out newer readers.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kelemvor

I went into the metadata configuration area and checked all the boxes. I didn't try going through and only doing them one at a time.

The reason I'm trying to convert is simply because I like the Kindle Reader app so I can read everything in one place. If I buy a book from Amazon or paste in my own files, they all show up in the same place.

However, I don't really buy stuff from Amazon very often any more so I guess I can look into checking out newer readers.

checking the MD source configuration boxes only affects what gets DOWNLOADED

Downloading MD only happens if you do it. (and IMHO, don't blindly trust it)

Conversion uses the metadata in the LIBRARY DB

You can't skip steps GIGO

[kelemvor]

Yeah. I told Calibre to go download the metadata. it download a bunch of information but no Series information for the books I tested.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kelemvor

Yeah. I told Calibre to go download the metadata. it download a bunch of information but no Series information for the books I tested.

As I said:

"Don't trust what you get"

Some sites are better than others. But it also depends on the genre

TLC is the only way

[kelemvor]

Looks like Google Play Books lets me upload ePubs and syncs my progress across devices so I think I'll just switch over to that since Amazon's App can't figure out how to make this work. No converting necessary.

[BetterRed]

@kelemvor - have you considered the optional metadata source plugins, such as the one I mentioned -- Goodreads. You install them via Preference->Plugins. Have a look in the Index of plugins

When calibre adds books to a library it can get metadata in two ways, from the file name or from the book itself, it's controlled by Preferences Add Books. If your books are already in series folders then many bulk rename utilities have the functionality to inject the parent folder name into the file names.

BR