Viewing & editing questions

[ackleybj]

Have been using Calibre for about 7 years (love it), but am behind in loading books. So am now in process of inputting groups of books and have a couple of questions about how to do this efficiently.

1) I have author field same as author sort field. I prefer this so that folders created on computer can easily spot variations, such as Doyle, Arthur Conan and Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. Then can make them same. However, many books come in with first name first. I can't figure out how to copy author sort field into author field on a mass update. Maybe can't be done since author sort is calculated from author field. I have been doing copy & paste on individual book metadata edit screen, but this is very time consuming. Hope someone has a better solution for me.

2) This is more of a general viewing question instead of loading books. I have several user created columns and have arranged so most of the info I want to see is visible. But sometimes have to scroll right to view a column & the title & author disappear off left of screen so that I have to remember row# to be sure looking at correct book. Is there a way to lock the title column to the left like you do in Excel so that it remains visible when scrolling right to look at additional information? Seems like a very useful feature to me so thought it had probably already been addressed, but can't find how to do it.

[theducks]

1) Quality check Plugin: Fix to fix various author issues . It will use system rules for the sort so fixing Fn Ln to Ln, Fn should fix the sort also


2)Move the title column a few to the right. IIRC The only col locked is ondevice

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by ackleybj

Have been using Calibre for about 7 years (love it), but am behind in loading books. So am now in process of inputting groups of books and have a couple of questions about how to do this efficiently.

1) I have author field same as author sort field. I prefer this so that folders created on computer can easily spot variations, such as Doyle, Arthur Conan and Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. Then can make them same. However, many books come in with first name first. I can't figure out how to copy author sort field into author field on a mass update. Maybe can't be done since author sort is calculated from author field. I have been doing copy & paste on individual book metadata edit screen, but this is very time consuming. Hope someone has a better solution for me.

My preferred way to spot inconsistencies is via the Manage Authors list. It shows Author Name and Author Sort, both of which are sortable. And you can make corrections on the spot, including changes such as 'Maurier, Daphne du' to 'du Maurier, Daphne'

Originally Posted by ackleybj

2) This is more of a general viewing question instead of loading books. I have several user created columns and have arranged so most of the info I want to see is visible. But sometimes have to scroll right to view a column & the title & author disappear off left of screen so that I have to remember row# to be sure looking at correct book. Is there a way to lock the title column to the left like you do in Excel so that it remains visible when scrolling right to look at additional information? Seems like a very useful feature to me so thought it had probably already been addressed, but can't find how to do it.

You may find the View Manager plugin useful in this regard, albeit not in the manner you've envisaged.

I keep different Views in which the column layouts (presence, position and widths) and sort sequences are 'tailored' to specific tasks. It also allows me to do ad-hoc column sorts, drags and resizes and then re-select a view to get back to a 'known state'. And I specify a view to be used when calibre starts or a library is opened. In combination with specifying a starting VL, this results in my libraries always opening in the same state - which I much prefer.

View Manager is a very useful optional plugin - IMO more so than any other.

BR