Using "Delete Duplicates" Plugin

[Beemerang]

Hi All,

I am brand-new to Cailbre and still trying to get to grips with this feature rich program.

I have imported several thousand ebooks into Calibre but have discovered that there are duplicates of several books. I located and installed the "Remove Duplicates" plugin and after running it, it presents me with a virtual library containing the duplicates (apparently).

Should I then delete all the books that appear in this subset or leave one of them?

Secondly, could someone provide me with some guidance on using the merge feature? I have the same titles in different formats and I am assuming that this is the feature I will need to use of I wish to retain only one format?

Apologies if this is addressed somewhere in the forum, I did sesearch but could not find anything that answers this for me.

Thanks!
Beem

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Beemerang

Hi All,

I am brand-new to Cailbre and still trying to get to grips with this feature rich program.

I have imported several thousand ebooks into Calibre but have discovered that there are duplicates of several books. I located and installed the "Remove Duplicates" plugin and after running it, it presents me with a virtual library containing the duplicates (apparently).

Should I then delete all the books that appear in this subset or leave one of them?

Secondly, could someone provide me with some guidance on using the merge feature? I have the same titles in different formats and I am assuming that this is the feature I will need to use of I wish to retain only one format?

Apologies if this is addressed somewhere in the forum, I did sesearch but could not find anything that answers this for me.

Thanks!
Beem

@Beemerang - AFAIK Find Duplicates doesn't create a Virtual Library.

What it does is to present groups of 2 or more book line-items that might contain the same book - I find it easier to look at each group at individually rather than altogether

Its up to you as to which book line-items you keep, merge, discard etc.

If you don't want a book-line item then delete it with the Del key

The merge function can be used to put different formats together so that they share the same meta data. So if you have Dickens Bleak House in MOBI and PDF as separate book line-items then you could merge them so that the MOBI and PDF formats are together in the one book line-item.

When Merging its the line item that's first in the list that will be 'kept', if the one I want is not at the top I change the sort order so that it is at the top- if I have to force it then I stick a value like '!first' into tags and sort on it - F2 on a cell in the book list will open it up for editing.

If you have a MOBI and a PDF in the same book line-item and you don't want the PDF, you can right click the PDF in the Book details and select Delete or hit Alt/Del and select PDF in the list.

Hope that helps a bit

BR

[Beemerang]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@Beemerang - AFAIK Find Duplicates doesn't create a Virtual Library.

What it does is to present groups of 2 or more book line-items that might contain the same book - I find it easier to look at each group at individually rather than altogether

Its up to you as to which book line-items you keep, merge, discard etc.

If you don't want a book-line item then delete it with the Del key

The merge function can be used to put different formats together so that they share the same meta data. So if you have Dickens Bleak House in MOBI and PDF as separate book line-items then you could merge them so that the MOBI and PDF formats are together in the one book line-item.

When Merging its the line item that's first in the list that will be 'kept', if the one I want is not at the top I change the sort order so that it is at the top- if I have to force it then I stick a value like '!first' into tags and sort on it - F2 on a cell in the book list will open it up for editing.

If you have a MOBI and a PDF in the same book line-item and you don't want the PDF, you can right click the PDF in the Book details and select Delete or hit Alt/Del and select PDF in the list.

Hope that helps a bit

BR

Thanks so much for the response, BR!

So I still have to delete whichever book line item I don't want manually? If two groups of the same book is returned, I should only delete one, not both, right?

Again, thanks for taking the time to response, I appreciate it.

Regards,
Beem

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Beemerang

Thanks so much for the response, BR!

So I still have to delete whichever book line item I don't want manually? If two groups of the same book is returned, I should only delete one, not both, right?

Again, thanks for taking the time to response, I appreciate it.

Regards,
Beem

@Beemerang - yes, its up to you to decide what to keep, all the PI does is to Find potential duplicates - its not an expert system with intimate knowledge of your personal preferences and pet peeves

Rather than deleting books you might want to have a 'set aside' library to which you copy the book-line-item you think you don't want (right click a book line-item an select Copy to Library with delete) that should enable you to cull your library back to one line item per book fairly quickly. And then over time you can make considered decisions about the books in the 'set aside' library.

So a MOBI of Love in a Cold Climate at first glance might look better than the PDF of the same book, so you move the PDF to the 'set aside' library. But on closer inspection you discover that the MOBI's spelling, grammar and punctuation have been altered to conform to 21st US conventions. If it were me I'd create a new MOBI from the PDF with its mid 20th century UK spelling, grammar, and punctuation conventions, and it would replace the Americanised MOBI tout de suite. I would do the same with a Britishized Hemingway

Backup your libraries, establish a process to enable you to do it frequently. And backup the configuration data just as often - you can find its location via Preferences->Miscellaneous>Open configuration directory.

If you want to use a cloud service for backup steer clear of Google Drive, and avoid running calibre and the cloud storage synchronisation processes concurrently.

BR