Folder customization when importing

[Heathen]

Greetings,

I have been trying Calibre out, and it looks like it should be able to do everything I want with one exception: when importing my ebooks, calibre saves them to /author name/book/files. Is there any way to get that first author folder to be Last Name, First name? I have seen many examples searching through the forums of how to customize the folder structure and filename, (so I think I can get it how I want for the rest), but what about that top level folder?

In the Preferences/Add/Save section the first tab for adding books has a check box for Swap Author Firstname and Lastname, but that doesn't seem to change the folder name...

Any help would be appreciated, and sorry if this has been asked before, I have been unable to find it after searching for a couple of hours...

[kovidgoyal]

http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual...tory-structure

[Worldwalker]

Are you talking about calibre's own library structure, or about where books go when you export ("save to disc") them?

If it's the former, ignore how it's set up. Pretend it doesn't exist. Put a tent over it and forget that it was ever there. Paint it pink and set up a Somebody Else's Problem Field. In short ... don't mess with it.

Calibre doesn't exist to organize files; it exists to organize books. What files they're in, and where, doesn't matter. If you need to do something with the actual file, then export it from calibre to wherever you want.

A lot of people are accustomed to using their computer's filesystem to store metadata. That is, you might have a book stored as \fiction\mystery\doyle\baskervilles.epub. And that works, kind of ... but what if you want to zip up all of Arthur Conan Doyle's books, even the ones that aren't mysteries, and send them to a friend? Or what if you want to do something with all your Sherlock Holmes stories, even the fanfic your friend Joe write that you have filed under \fiction\mystery\fanfic\joe1.epub, etc? You'd have to go rummaging around in an awful lot of folders to find the right ones. Or what if you have a book with two authors -- which one does it get filed under? If it's written by Smith and Jones, if you file it under Jones, you'll miss it when you're looking for all of Smith's books, and vise versa. Computer filesystems really aren't very good for storing book metadata.

With calibre, the database manages metadata -- that's kind of the whole point. It doesn't matter where any given file is; if you want all your Doyle books, you just select the author name and there they are, ready to do anything you want with them. The way I have my tags set up, for instance, I can search for all the SF written by David Drake but without Eric Flint as co-author, or all the David Weber novels that aren't military SF (he did write a few!).

That's what calibre is for.

[Heathen]

Thank you both for your responses. I understand the point of only using Calibre for library management. However, you never know what will happen in the future, and there may be a reason to quit using the program. In that case, it is nice to have a fall back method for finding files, and folder structure is the easiest to me...

Anyways, 2 further questions then:

1. What does the option for "Swap Author Firstname and Lastname" do? Is that just for the author tag in the library?

2. Out of curiosity, when the files are imported and saved to the Calibre library folder, why was it decided to save them to folders named by the authors firstname lastname? Was it to avoid a comma or some other special character? I am pretty sure that in the English speaking world everybody is trained from the first time they go into a library or bookstore to look for authors based on their last name...

Many thanks.

[JvdW]

Originally Posted by Heathen

Thank you both for your responses. I understand the point of only using Calibre for library management. However, you never know what will happen in the future, and there may be a reason to quit using the program. In that case, it is nice to have a fall back method for finding files, and folder structure is the easiest to me...

When you decide to stop using Calibre just select all of your books and then hit the 'Save to Disk' button which will save all of your books with your chosen structure and then delete the whole library Calibre used.

See Preferences->Add/Save->Saving books

Regards,

Joop

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by Heathen

1. What does the option for "Swap Author Firstname and Lastname" do? Is that just for the author tag in the library?

It's for the author field in the library. When a book is added, Calibre gets the author name. It may come from the filename or from internal metadata. Sometimes the author name in the metadata is in LN, FN format (usually when obtained from the filename). Sometimes it's in FN LN format (Usually when obtained from internal metadata). The option just swaps LastName and FirstName before storage.

[tazem]

Originally Posted by Heathen

2. Out of curiosity, when the files are imported and saved to the Calibre library folder, why was it decided to save them to folders named by the authors firstname lastname? Was it to avoid a comma or some other special character? I am pretty sure that in the English speaking world everybody is trained from the first time they go into a library or bookstore to look for authors based on their last name...

Many thanks.

You can set the Save pattern to any thing you want. Just go to the Add/Save section in Preferences and select the Save tab. This will show you all the tags yor can use to set the file structure.

Like you, I prefer the Last, First format, often I don't remember the first name. This is what I use :
{author_sort}/{series}/{series_index:0>2s} - {title}

and this is what I get :
L:/My Library/eBooks/Calibre/Steele, Allen/Near-Space/02 - Clarke County, Space

tazem

[Heathen]

Thanks for your reply's everybody. They have been enlightening and helpful!

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by tazem

You can set the Save pattern to any thing you want. Just go to the Add/Save section in Preferences and select the Save tab. This will show you all the tags yor can use to set the file structure.

Like you, I prefer the Last, First format, often I don't remember the first name. This is what I use :
{author_sort}/{series}/{series_index:0>2s} - {title}

and this is what I get :
L:/My Library/eBooks/Calibre/Steele, Allen/Near-Space/02 - Clarke County, Space

tazem

Just so folks don't get confused, the above does not effect Calibre's internal file structure which is what was asked.

The above is great for backing up your files in a file structure that suits you but it does not change the internal calibre file structure.