Help please!

[BarbaraElsborg]

I've just downloaded Calibre and was feeling very pleased with myself when I managed to get my books in the library - 3 of them anyway. But when I came to open one of my docs today on my laptop - all my docs have been sort of sucked up by Calibre and I can't just open and use them. I obviously either pressed or didn't press something to do with default opening but will I have to uninstall Calibre to sort this out? Because it would take hours to go through every doc I have and change from docx back to what I need. Thanks in advance!

[theducks]

Uninstalling does not change the Library or settings.


Are you saying that you can't USE THE OS to (default) open non-book files?

This is a File Association issue.
What you may need to do is open the APP you want to normally use and have it take BACK those associations (as the Default App)

I had that happen on W10. I blamed a fumble finger... but,

maybe Windows is making these types as the Default, instead as simply registering that Calibre is CAPABLE (place on the right-click 'open with' list) of opening.

[BarbaraElsborg]

Yes, that's right. I went into settings to look at the default and it was still on word so I don't get what's happened. And yes, I'm on Windows 10. I swear I did nothing. LOL

[BarbaraElsborg]

Well guess what - all my files have gone back to the normal settings. Maybe because I have so many - it took a while after I reset the default. Breathes out sigh of relief....

[BetterRed]

This is a consequence of calibre nominating itself as a 'capable' of handling various file types - I think it correspond to one of the lists in Preferences->Behaviour - the intent being to show Calibre as an option in File Explorer's Open With list.

There seem to be circumstances whereby the Default handler (e.g Word for .DOCs) is replaced by 'one' of the candidate handlers, I suspect it's the first alphabetically. One such circumstance is if the Default handler is removed/uninstalled - given the frequency of updates to Word that could explain why this happened. And there do seem to be delays before the setting for a new Default 'kick in' - a logoff/logon will force the change, or a restart of explorer.exe would probaly work too..

Kovid has referred to the latest incarnation of Windows File Association management as an an 'unholy mess'. In posts 2 and 9 in the following thread he told me how to 'undo the mess' ==>> Install/Uninstall Windows 10 calibre. It involves using a command line program, and setting an Environment Variable.

What Kovid calls an 'unholy mess', I call a PITA or 'Calamities on Toast'.

An alternative to having the Calibre GUI in the Open With lists, and in my opinion a better one, is to put a shortcut to calibre.exe in the Send To folder, you can use this to add any file type to the current library. I had already done that when I first installed calibre, so I didn't lose anything by removing calibre from the Open With lists.

BR

[crane3]

If you want to use Word to open/read any .doc or .docx file, then you can just set those file types to use Word.

On win10, right-click on the mouse on the windows icon in the tray. Select Programs & Features & click (probably the 1st on the list); this give you a list to change/delete so just do a "back up" by selecting the "Program" in the title menu/drop-down thingy. This will get you a couple of selections.

Select the "make a file type always open on a specific program" within the "Default Programs" section. Then hunt for you .doc & .docx... hmmm mine says the default is the free Microsoft Word Viewer....

How did you try to open your doc files? I just double-clicked on a .doc file & the word viewer opened the file for viewing.....

Not sure I'm doing any good here.

[BarbaraElsborg]

Thank you!!

[BarbaraElsborg]

Thanks! I'm going to interested to see what happens when I add a new book!