Multiple Authors with wrong separator

[Ptaker]

I am using Calibre 3.48.
My problem: I have several authors for one book that are separated by "," instead of by "&". I am looking for an easy way to change the separator for over 500 books now in Calibre.

EXAMPLE #1:
FROM: Tom Mix, Rex Reed, Pete Sampras - [Series 01] - I Love This Book
TO: Tom Mix & Rex Reed & Pete Sampras - [Series 01] - I Love This Book

EXAMPLE #2:
FROM: Tom Mix, Rex Reed, Pete Sampras - I Love This Book
TO: Tom Mix & Rex Reed & Pete Sampras - I Love This Book

Not sure if I need a plug in or some other method of achieving this within Calibre.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Ptaker

I am using Calibre 3.48.
My problem: I have several authors for one book that are separated by "," instead of by "&". I am looking for an easy way to change the separator for over 500 books now in Calibre.

EXAMPLE #1:
FROM: Tom Mix, Rex Reed, Pete Sampras - [Series 01] - I Love This Book
TO: Tom Mix & Rex Reed & Pete Sampras - [Series 01] - I Love This Book

EXAMPLE #2:
FROM: Tom Mix, Rex Reed, Pete Sampras - I Love This Book
TO: Tom Mix & Rex Reed & Pete Sampras - I Love This Book

Not sure if I need a plug in or some other method of achieving this within Calibre.

Thanks in advance for your help.

If they are all the same:
Select all the books with the SAME 3 wrong: Tap 'E" (bulk mode Metadata edit): Enter/edit the list ( copy the wrong authors field to the clipboard Before Bulk mode, paste into Authors) and replace the , with & ( remember to tick auto set author sort) OK

[Ptaker]

Thank you for the reply on how to convert , to &.
QUESTION: Is there an automated way to do the same thing. Have the program review all the authors and convert any comma to a <space>&

If not, I will do as you suggested in your reply.
Many thanks for the response.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Ptaker

Thank you for the reply on how to convert , to &.
QUESTION: Is there an automated way to do the same thing. Have the program review all the authors and convert any comma to a <space>&

If not, I will do as you suggested in your reply.
Many thanks for the response.

Then how do you detect when you have: Ln, Fn vs Fn Ln, ...
Sometimes the old eye is better than just letting Auto run amuck .

Hopefully this is a rare occurrence and you only need to do a few times

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Ptaker

Thank you for the reply on how to convert , to &.
QUESTION: Is there an automated way to do the same thing. Have the program review all the authors and convert any comma to a <space>&

Yes, using Bulk Edit Search & Replace (regular expression mode). Search for authors containing ", " and replace it with &.

However, as theducks says, you could end up with a worse mess. What happens if the example is not "Joe Blogs, Some Person" but is instead "Blogs, Joe, Person, Some"? Doing it mechanically will turn this example into "Blogs & Joe & Person & Some". You would then need to fix these authors, probably using the Manage Authors dialog to merge them.

[dunhill]

With Division of multiple author names, it should work

Preference / settings
ID: authors_split_regex

By default, caliber splits a text containing multiple authors into the characters "&" and the words "and" and "with". You can customize how division is done by changing the regular expression below. Texts are divided into any position that matches the expression, in addition to "&".

Sorry I uploaded the photos in Spanish