[Old Thread] Is there a setting to change how Calibre names a file?

[adrenaline]

Hello

I've been using Calibre for a while and it's been phenomenal.

When I drag and drop PDF and ePub files to Calibre, this is how Calibre names the file :

"Book Title" - "Author"

For eg: Salty Snacks - Cynthia Nims.epub

under C:\Users\John\Documents\Calibre Library\Cynthia Nims\Salty Snacks (42)

I was wondering if there's a way that I could set Calibre to just use the Book Title to name the book. I organize books in different folders and I have to manually remove the Author name every time (to decrease the number of chars).

I prefer the file name to be just Salty Snacks.epub

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[theducks]

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=119175

[calvin-c]

This is the antithesis of 'personal' computing but it's hardly the 1st example-and none of them change. You either use the program, warts & all, or you use something different. If you want to use something different then you're in the wrong forum.

[PeterT]

@calvin-c: Sigh; If calibre were to use a database to store everything, including eBooks as BLOBS would you still complain that it's the antithesis of 'personal' computing?

Why can't people just accept that that the calibre library structure IS a black box database.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

This is the antithesis of 'personal' computing but it's hardly the 1st example-and none of them change. You either use the program, warts & all, or you use something different. If you want to use something different then you're in the wrong forum.

Personal computing.

You are free to Uninstall at any time.
You are free to write your own. You are even allowed to make your own hack on the Open Source. (as long as you abide by the terms)

All those gripes you listed, would make Calibre more fragile, require CPU hours of continuous indexing just to keep track of any changes YOU make outside of Calibre.
Calibre may not be perfect, It may not do everything I want, butt... IT WORKS

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by adrenaline

I was wondering if there's a way that I could set Calibre to just use the Book Title to name the book.

No. The files calibre places in its folders are for calibre's use and not user configurable.

Originally Posted by adrenaline

I organize books in different folders and I have to manually remove the Author name every time (to decrease the number of chars).

You don't need to manually do anything of the sort. Calibre provides ways of customizing the export of any books from its library. Use the Save to disk feature and adjust the Save template under the Saving books to disk area of preferences.

[adrenaline]

Thanks so much, everyone. Tbh, didn't really expect these many answers.. Greatly appreciate them..

I have a feeling that I wasn't clear in my OP:

I really like the folder structure created by Calibre but just wish it was possible to configure the file to be named only by 'Book Title' but if it isn't possible, that's no biggie.

Will just stick with manual renaming, if need be.

I usually maintain my eBooks and Audiobooks by category and that's why I copy the ePub/PDF files from Calibre folders to other destinations. But, if there's an easy way to create categories on Calibre, I'd love to know.

On a separate issue, it isn't possible to do a search on "Adobe Digital Editions" right? I could create a separate topic but thought I could give a shot here.

Thanks again for your time.

[Adoby]

Calibre will automatically rename books for you, and even create subdirectories and other nice stuff.

But calibre does this when you send books to a device or to a folder on a disk. You just change the save and send to device templates.

Inside the calibre internal library, where all the books are before you send them to device or save to disk, it is different. You should stay out of there and not touch or change anything! Preferably not even look! Calibre maintains everything there, if you change anything calibre will most likely loose track of it. And you may lose books and metadata.

Use the functions in calibre to save and send books instead.

[adrenaline]

Thanks Adoby..

Sorry, guess I wasn't clear again

I don't mess around Calibre folders. I usually copy the ePub and PDF files from Calibre folders to my folders and THEN rename them. So I leave Calibre naming as it while making changes on my copied files.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by adrenaline

Thanks Adoby..
I don't mess around Calibre folders. I usually copy the ePub and PDF files from Calibre folders to my folders and THEN rename them. So I leave Calibre naming as it while making changes on my copied files.

If you used the "Save to Disk' function of Calibre rather than copying them at the OS level then you can get Calibre to do the rename to your preferred style as part of the export process by setting an appropriate Save Template in Calibre. Have you tried changing the Save template to your preferred style to see how that works?

[Adoby]

Originally Posted by adrenaline

Thanks Adoby..

Sorry, guess I wasn't clear again

I don't mess around Calibre folders. I usually copy the ePub and PDF files from Calibre folders to my folders and THEN rename them. So I leave Calibre naming as it while making changes on my copied files.

That is a big no-no!

Metadata and covers and so on are NOT automatically updated in the books stored in the calibre library. Only author and title, and sometimes even that may be truncated. Instead metadats is stored in a central database file. The books are only updated with the new metadata and covers when you use calibre to save the books to disk or send them to device. When the books leave the calibre library in other words.

So I say again: Stay out of the calibre library! Don't copy anything from inside it. Instead use calibre to save selected books to disk or send to device, and then also use calibre to rename the books automatically for you, using the save and send to device templates.

[adrenaline]

Thanks a lot, itimpi and Adoby..

That helps.. I'll stay out.

[paoletto]

Originally Posted by Adoby

That is a big no-no!

Metadata and covers and so on are NOT automatically updated in the books stored in the calibre library. Only author and title, and sometimes even that may be truncated. Instead metadats is stored in a central database file. The books are only updated with the new metadata and covers when you use calibre to save the books to disk or send them to device. When the books leave the calibre library in other words.

So I say again: Stay out of the calibre library! Don't copy anything from inside it. Instead use calibre to save selected books to disk or send to device, and then also use calibre to rename the books automatically for you, using the save and send to device templates.

I would like to resurrect this thread because i am also one of those users who would like to have their library named in a different way to be able to access it also outside calibre.
Save to disk works great (well, when it works. sometimes it fails, and i filed a bug report for it, but it's another thing).

My question is: is there a way already to keep track of what books have been already saved to disk, so that one can incrementally save to disk the whole calibre library in order to have a backup, and have it in a custom-named way?

And my second question is: if not, is there an easy way to do it (e.g., by writing a plugin) without having to use a custom tag (like "non-exported", "exported") by hand?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by paoletto

I would like to resurrect this thread because i am also one of those users who would like to have their library named in a different way to be able to access it also outside calibre.
Save to disk works great (well, when it works. sometimes it fails, and i filed a bug report for it, but it's another thing).

My question is: is there a way already to keep track of what books have been already saved to disk, so that one can incrementally save to disk the whole calibre library in order to have a backup, and have it in a custom-named way?

And my second question is: if not, is there an easy way to do it (e.g., by writing a plugin) without having to use a custom tag (like "non-exported", "exported") by hand?

Simple answer: NO

Your proposed, incremental method has basic flaws.

If you tag (any method) and send only once, the record (book) never gets revisited upon metadata changes that affect that book.

If you add/delete a format: No change to your archive

Calibre is a DB with tight linkage to the file system. This pair is 'A Calibre Library'. Doing stuff piecemeal, can break the linkages, leaving orphans (obsolete files/folders) or othe damage in its wake.

[paoletto]

Originally Posted by theducks

Simple answer: NO

Your proposed, incremental method has basic flaws.

If you tag (any method) and send only once, the record (book) never gets revisited upon metadata changes that affect that book.

If you add/delete a format: No change to your archive

Calibre is a DB with tight linkage to the file system. This pair is 'A Calibre Library'. Doing stuff piecemeal, can break the linkages, leaving orphans (obsolete files/folders) or othe damage in its wake.

Make sense. i guess that upon metadata change one should re-save the file to disk (potentially deleting the previous one), which would imply having some sort of modification timestamp , and export timestamp together with the previous export filename/filepath.

I see that developers probably do not care about such feature, so okay

(as for the multi format, i consider multiple formats of a book really different books)