Saving cover results in illegal filename on Windows

RobertJSawyer · 01-05-2020, 04:00 PM

Hi, Kovid.

If a book in the calibre library has a title such as this:

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

or, say:

What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers

and you right click on the cover in the preview pane and select "Save cover to disk," choosing "Save" from the Windows dialog that appears results in this error: "The file name is not valid."

And, indeed, it is not -- because of the colon in the first example and the question mark in the second.

As a writer and editor, I use this feature a fair bit to harvest a bunch of covers at a time to show to artists and art directors so they can see similar results to what I'm hoping they'll achieve.

Is it possible to have calibre either TRUNCATE the proposed file name at the first illegal character (colon, double quote, question mark, or asterisk -- the last sometimes used in titles that employ curse words) or SUBSTITUTE a legal character or characters in place of the illegal ones (perhaps a space followed by two hyphens and then another space -- like this, producing a typewriter em-dash -- rather than the colon-space combination so often used to separate titles from subtitles)? Either solution would be fine.

Many thanks for your kind consideration!

Rob

kovidgoyal · 01-06-2020, 01:23 AM

https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...067dab787b1089

RobertJSawyer · 01-06-2020, 05:06 PM

Thank you, Kovid! You're the best!

01-05-2020, 04:00 PM	#1
RobertJSawyer Guru Posts: 737 Karma: 4306712 Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Toronto Device: Kobo Libra 2, Clara 2E, and Clara HD; Kindle PaperWhite	Saving cover results in illegal filename on Windows Hi, Kovid. If a book in the calibre library has a title such as this: American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer or, say: What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers and you right click on the cover in the preview pane and select "Save cover to disk," choosing "Save" from the Windows dialog that appears results in this error: "The file name is not valid." And, indeed, it is not -- because of the colon in the first example and the question mark in the second. As a writer and editor, I use this feature a fair bit to harvest a bunch of covers at a time to show to artists and art directors so they can see similar results to what I'm hoping they'll achieve. Is it possible to have calibre either TRUNCATE the proposed file name at the first illegal character (colon, double quote, question mark, or asterisk -- the last sometimes used in titles that employ curse words) or SUBSTITUTE a legal character or characters in place of the illegal ones (perhaps a space followed by two hyphens and then another space -- like this, producing a typewriter em-dash -- rather than the colon-space combination so often used to separate titles from subtitles)? Either solution would be fine. Many thanks for your kind consideration! Rob

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01-06-2020, 01:23 AM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,359 Karma: 27182818 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...067dab787b1089

01-06-2020, 05:06 PM	#3
RobertJSawyer Guru Posts: 737 Karma: 4306712 Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Toronto Device: Kobo Libra 2, Clara 2E, and Clara HD; Kindle PaperWhite	Thank you, Kovid! You're the best!

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