No synopsis in books - paste your own?

[marp68]

Anyone know where the synopsis field of a book is located i Calibre and how I can write text to it?

I've noticed that the most books don't have a synopsis text in the Detail section of the book.

Some times I have downloaded books for later reading. When I several weeks later is choosing between a lot of books on the device, I noticed that I no longer remembered the synopsis of the book.

When looking in Calibre it's the same problem.

I now think that it might be good idea to copy the synopsis text from the downloading site (or write your own) and paste it in the synopsis field in the Detail section about the book.

Any thoughts?

[oren64]

In Calibre you can downloud metadeta from sites like Goodreads, Amazon, B&N..., Edit metadeta > Downloud metadeta and covers\Downloud metadeta individually.

The metadeta you can download (Authours, Comments, Languages, Published Date, Publisher, Rating, Series, Tags, Title) and covers.

To update the metadeta in the device use Kobo Utilities plugin (Update metadata in device library), after you update the metadata with Kobo Utilities the new comments will show in synopsis.

You can also add more information from other columns to synopsis, by using the template editor in Kobo Utilities, example.

[GeoffR]

I usually go to the publisher's website to get a high-res cover and complete the missing metadata for the ebooks I buy. For the synopsis, I just copy-and-paste from the publisher's description into Calibre's Comments field, but beware copy-and-paste will sometimes copy a whole lot of markup from the website so best to go to the HTML Source tab after pasting and clean it up. Also remove any blank lines between paragraphs to avoid an extra blank line showing up in the Synopsis on the Kobo.

Calibre will update the metadata in the book when you send it to the device, so the first time you sideload a book the Synopsis will be read from the book the same way the Title, Author, etc. are. To update the Synopsis for books already on the device, use the "Update metadata in device library" function of the KoboUtilities plugin. (This can also update some other metadata that the Kobo doesn't load from the book itself such as publication date.)

[marp68]

Thanks

I want to use the Swedish descriptions for books in Swedish, though, so I stick with the copy and paste, since I'm already on the Swedish site. But I will try and see if it's possible to get some Swedish results as well, but then I think I have to link the search to Swedish publisher, right? But for English or other languages it might work well.

Using the Update metatext in device-function did it. I first thought that it had to be some specific Synopsis field, since sending the book again didn't update the metatext and no synopsis showed up.

But the font size in the synopsis field on the device is very small, even though I could use bold or heading style, etc. I even tried to paste it larger in the comment field when editing the metatext, but it didn't work. I then used the template editor function in the Update metatext in device settings, choosed 14 and then pasted the text in the template field, then updated the metatext in the device. The synopsis text then showed up in bigger fonts.

Or should it be possible to make the font bigger in the comment field in metatext editor?

Now it looked like this:

<div><p><sup><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; widows: 1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Under Vintergatans alla stjärnor</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; widows: 1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> är en intelligent och trovärdig feelgoodroman om en sönderstressad och vilse karriärkvinnas väg mot inre utveckling. I romantrilogins första del tvingas Emma lämna sin på ytan bekväma tillvaro i storstaden. Hon kastas ut på resa som blir

[marp68]

Ah, now I lknow what you mean. I used the html editor and cleaned it up.

[oren64]

Originally Posted by marp68

I want to use the Swedish descriptions for books in Swedish, though, so I stick with the copy and paste, since I'm already on the Swedish site. But I will try and see if it's possible to get some Swedish results as well, but then I think I have to link the search to Swedish publisher, right? But for English or other languages it might work well.

You have this plugin ADLIBRIS_SE [Metadata Source Plugin] in Swedish http://www.adlibris.com/se.
To add the plugin go to Preferences>Plugin>Get new plugin, after installing and restart, go to Edit metadeta > Downloud metadeta and covers>cunfigure download, and add ADLIBRIS_SE.

[marp68]

That's great. Thanks

So it's possible to find the metadata by just adding the link to the starting page of the site? Does that work with other Swedish book sites as well?

[oren64]

Originally Posted by marp68

Does that work with other Swedish book sites as well?

It's the only matadata plugin in Swedish that i find, see Index of plugins and Introduction to plugins here.

[howyoudoin]

Originally Posted by marp68

Ah, now I lknow what you mean. I used the html editor and cleaned it up.

An easy way to do this is to copy the synopsis from your source --> paste it into plain old notepad --> copy the plain text from notepad into the calibre field editor.

If you're on windows, you can remember the shortcut to do this as "Ctrl+VAX"

Ctrl+V pastes the text into notepad
Ctrl+A selects all the text from notepad
Ctrl+X cuts that selected text so you can paste it into calibre

[marp68]

AHa, so one need to program a plug in first. If it's not to difficult, it could be intresting to make another one for other sources, maybe like the library site, from where I borrow books.

BTW, since the comment field is used for the synopsis text and other texts, like annotations, how does calibre and device know how to distinguish synopsis from annotation in the comment field when transferring to the synopsis field in the device? I updated the device with the synopsis that was stored together with annotation text in the comment field, and it managed to only copy the synopsis text.

[marp68]

And yes, using notepad to clear formatting is a good tip. Thanks

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by marp68

AHa, so one need to program a plug in first. If it's not to difficult, it could be intresting to make another one for other sources, maybe like the library site, from where I borrow books.

Writing a metadata source plugin isn't that hard. Any of the existing plugins can be used as a starting point. They "simply" read the web page and extract the appropriate bits of data. How hard it is to do this depends on how complex the code is.

BTW, since the comment field is used for the synopsis text and other texts, like annotations, how does calibre and device know how to distinguish synopsis from annotation in the comment field when transferring to the synopsis field in the device? I updated the device with the synopsis that was stored together with annotation text in the comment field, and it managed to only copy the synopsis text.

It doesn't. Calibre puts the contents of the comments filed into the "dc:description" attribute of the metadata. The device reads this and puts it into the synopsis. Calibre doesn't change the comments when writing them to the book.

[rraod]

Once you manage to download the metadata and book covers from internet, by default they will be saved in the book folder in calibre library. You may see this data in Calibre but they are not automatically updated inside the book and not visible when the book is loaded in a device.

Kovid has included a command "Polish Books" in Calibre for updating these data inside the books very easily. This command will replace the existing old book cover with the new downloaded cover. This also creates a jacket page (see image below) containing the book details and the synopsis.

By default this button is not added to the main toolbar. To get this button, go to Preferences->Toolbars and add the Polish Books command from left to main toolbar.

The Polish Books button has various options. for the above task, enable the below settings with a check mark.

1. Update metadata in the book files.
This setting will update the old metadata inside the book with the new downloaded/modified metadata.

2. Update the covers in the book file.
This setting will replace the existing cover of the book with the new downloaded cover.

3. Add/Replace metadata as a "book jacket" page
This setting will insert a single or multiple pages of the metadata in a neat tabular form at the beginning of the book.

I always keep these three settings checked.

There are other useful selections included in the Polish Books dialog box. use them as per your needs.

The beauty of this Polish Books command is that it will not rewrite the entire ebook file (which happens when you do a epub-epub conversion in Calibre). It does only the above commands without disturbing the book pages and page formatting. You can use this command repeatedly any number of times without damaging the book.

[davidfor]

Personally, Polish books is overkill if all you want is to update the metadata in the book. There is also "Embed metadata" that does it. And whenever you send the book outside of calibre (send to device or save to disk), the metadata and cover will be updated. If you want the jacket, then Polish books or a conversion is needed, but as the Kobo devices can display most of the metadata, it isn't needed as much as for other devices.

[marp68]

Thanks both all of you.

I have now started to use either Download metadata or just simply copy the text from a site, and then edit the synopsis text in the comment field to suit me, and finally use Kobo Utility to update the books already on the device. Further on I will update before sending to device.