kindle, plugboard, series & renaming existing books

[whismerhill]

hi,
I found out how to use the plugboard thanks to this website : http://www.howtogeek.com/114063/how-...-ebook-series/

that said it's apparently in the stickies here too xD

Anyway, the point is :
this works fine
but I have existing books which are on the kindle for which I synchronized the metadata but who are named using the old name template
so they don't contain the "Series-xx-bookname" but just the bookname

is there a way to update this while keeping the lastread page ?

I fear deleting & reuploading it from the calibre library would fix the naming template but would probably delete the reading progress right ?

Thanks.

[eschwartz]

When deleting a book with calibre's Device View, calibre deletes the ondevice metadata (current page, annotations, pagenumbers, etc.)
So... don't do that.

Instead, just resend the book. Assuming the send-to-device filename template remains the same and none of the metadata fields have changed in calibre, calibre will overwrite the old file with the new file.
The Kindle will notice the file was changed and reload it with the new metadata.



Note: The Kindle doesn't always handle that well -- if the book is in a collection it will turn the book into a "ghost". Instead, you need to delete it (the old copy) from the Kindle, unplug and let the Kindle realize the book is gone, and then re-add the book with the updated metadata. Do NOT accidentally delete (or let calibre delete) the *.sdr/ folder!

I typically update my purchases with fixed metadata + plugboards before adding them to collections, so I don't bother to delete them first. It is only an issue if the book is currently in a collection (because the updated book leaves behind a stale entry in the collections table linked to the same ASIN but the old title).

[whismerhill]

Thanks.
But in fact I also updated the metadata so the filenames are not the same anymore
so... when I resend I get two copies on the kindle xD

Sorry, I probably was not clear enough in my explanation.

[eschwartz]

You need to match the ebook filename to the filename of the companion *.sdr/ folder. That is all there is to it, the rest is just methodology.

[whismerhill]

ok so no automated way to do this then

I thought "harmonize" & "synch metadata" would do the trick by themselves

Thanks, anyway.

[eschwartz]

What "harmonize" and "sync metadata"?

I uee a file template set from a custom column containing the original Amazon-approved filename. That way, I can resend books downloaded from Amazon and have them seamlessly updated.

If you've changed the metadata in the filename template, you can probably just rename the *.sdr/ folder and contained files. I've never had to try but there is no reason it shouldn't work.

[whismerhill]

when I edited the titles & authors of books, sometimes the files on the kindle were not recognized as coming from the library. Therefore in the library view, with device connected, the book was shown as not present on the kindle.
I'm not sure how it's called in english, but when I right-click a book on the device in calibre (from the device view) I have an option that will re-sync the copy on the kindle with the copy in the library.
This results in the library (library view) showing correctly that the book is currently present on the kindle.

the other option is "metadata cache update" or something like that in the device drop down menu

[eschwartz]

That is Match Book To Library and is completely irrelevant.

It is used solely for teaching calibre which books are what for the purpose of providing an "ondevice" check mark.
Update cached metadata will force-reload the metadata.calibre file which caches that info on the device drive.

The "book is on device" column is not used for sending books to the device, noway nohow.