Cant figure out how to catalog using calibredb

[Dan Goodale]

Hi folks. I have 45,000 books across 7 Calibre libraries. I want to use calibredb to create catalogs for all the libraries and merge them into one .csv file to make it easier to find all of an authors books, regardless of genre.

The documentation for calibredb isn't clear enough to help me do this successfully. For my test, I tried to catalog my archive library
C:\"Program Files"\Calibre\calibredb catalog archives C:\batch\test\archives.csv

But I get:
Failed to initialize plugin: 'C:\\Users\\Dan\\AppData\\Roaming\\calibre\\plugin s\\DeDRM.zip'
Usage: calibredb.exe command [options] [arguments]

Can someone explain to me how to write a script that actually works, please?

Thanks!

Dan Goodale

[georgemk]

The syntax is

calibredb catalog outputfilenamehere --library-path=path to the archive library


For a full list of what options are available use

calibredb catalog outputfilenamehere --help

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Dan Goodale

Hi folks. I have 45,000 books across 7 Calibre libraries. I want to use calibredb to create catalogs for all the libraries and merge them into one .csv file to make it easier to find all of an authors books, regardless of genre.

The documentation for calibredb isn't clear enough to help me do this successfully. For my test, I tried to catalog my archive library
C:\"Program Files"\Calibre\calibredb catalog archives C:\batch\test\archives.csv

But I get:
Failed to initialize plugin: 'C:\\Users\\Dan\\AppData\\Roaming\\calibre\\plugin s\\DeDRM.zip'
Usage: calibredb.exe command [options] [arguments]

Can someone explain to me how to write a script that actually works, please?

Thanks!

Dan Goodale

Your issue may be because you are using 5.x, which precludes the above mentioned PI. Uninstall the PI.

AFAIK calibredb has no ability to append to a single CSV

[Dan Goodale]

So I used "C:\Program Files\Calibre\calibredb catalog c:\batch\archives.csv" and actually got a catalog for my Fantasy library.

How do I tell it what library to catalog? I need one for all 7 libraries so I can merge them all into 1 file.

[BetterRed]

See the --library-path, --with-library Global options in ==>> calibredb — calibre 5.5.0 documentation

BR

[Dan Goodale]

Sorry folks, I'm not good at understanding manuals. But, I've got it pretty much figured out through trial and error. Now all I need is a way to exclude, or only include, certain columns. It looks like you can choose fields if you're generating a list but, I don't see how to exclude them in a catalog without using the GUI.

Any helpful suggestions?

[georgemk]

Just add the --fields option at the end of your command line

--fields=FIELDS The fields to output when cataloguing books in the
database. Should be a comma-separated list of fields.
Available fields: all, title, title_sort, author_sort,
authors, comments, cover, formats, id, isbn,
library_name, ondevice, pubdate, publisher, rating,
series_index, series, size, tags, timestamp, uuid,
languages, identifiers,
plus user-created custom fields.
Example: --fields=title,authors,tags
Default: 'all'
Applies to: CSV, XML output formats

calibredb catalog mylibary.csv --fields=title,authors

creates a file containing all my books showing only the title and author

[Dan Goodale]

AWESOME George! You have NO idea how helpful that was. My library grows almost daily and since authors don't stay in one genre, a spreadsheet is really the only way to find an authors books across all libraries, as far as I know. Building it by hand stunk!

Thanks!!!!!

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Dan Goodale

AWESOME George! You have NO idea how helpful that was. My library grows almost daily and since authors don't stay in one genre, a spreadsheet is really the only way to find an authors books across all libraries, as far as I know. Building it by hand stunk!

Thanks!!!!!

You could use virtual libraries instead of actual ones. That way you would retain the option to search for all books of an author.

[Dan Goodale]

Yeah, I was doing that, Sirtel, but my searches start slowing down as soon as I get more than about 18,000 books in a library so I had to split them all up, darn it!

Thanks for the suggestion though!