Save to disk - how to avoid underscore _?

manawydan · 08-23-2018, 05:07 PM

Whenever Calibre saves ebooks to disk which contain : or , or ? in the title, these (and other) characters will be replaced by an underscore _.

There must be an option to set a substitute but where?

I'd like to replace : with -
e.g. "you and me: a memoir" = "you and me - a memoir"
and , or ; with _
e.g. "you, he, me" = "you he me"

At the moment I can only do it with search/replace in edit metadata or outside Calibre with an additional software.

I can't find anything in tweaks and am not experienced enough to do it with plugboards or a regular expression in preferences-save to disk.

I have to use 1.47 and no, I can not upgrade.
However the principle of how to do it will most likely be the same regardless which version you use.

kovidgoyal · 08-23-2018, 11:04 PM

The way to do it is to use a template. https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/template_lang.html

Horus68 · 09-26-2019, 10:24 AM

Done reading that tutorial but its hard for me to understand the code partes without a live example. My bad... so much to learn and I'm not a programmer!
Can someone paste me an example for replacing a : in title with - (for the save to disk template)
Then I can play with it and find some other uses (as in removing punctuation marks form file name)!

Update, giving a copy/paste ready example:
Using re(pattern, replacement)
(the details are in the quoted tutorial: https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/template_lang.html )

Actual behaviour:
When a title field has a value with ":" (as in "Title: subtitle") the ":" would cause a filename with "_space" instead of the ":" as in the file name

Code:

Title_ subtitle.pdf

Instead... you can have a filename with "space-" as in "Title - subtitle".
For that use this in "Save to disk" Template (for the title field part)

Code:

{title:re(:, -)}

I'm sure there could be better solutions as I'm a newbie and probably only useful for other newbies like me.

Related topics with same question
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=263504
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=169516

mfaine1 · 01-03-2021, 04:29 PM

In case anyone else finds this while searching for a way to fix the underscore problem.
Here is my solution for now, though I wonder if a plugin that does something similar couldn't be developed. If I ever take the time to learn how to write plugins for Calibre this will be the first one I tackle. I think a template wouldn't work because the part of the code that replaces the special characters is applied after the template?? If I'm wrong about this that would be great.

Here is a script that you can run with the export directory path as an argument after exporting the files from Calibre and it will rename them based on the metadata in the opf file. If you want to improve on this and repost it that would be great. I'm sure there is a lot that could be improved.

08-23-2018, 05:07 PM	#1
manawydan Connoisseur Posts: 95 Karma: 5854 Join Date: Aug 2011 Device: none	Save to disk - how to avoid underscore _? Whenever Calibre saves ebooks to disk which contain : or , or ? in the title, these (and other) characters will be replaced by an underscore _. There must be an option to set a substitute but where? I'd like to replace : with - e.g. "you and me: a memoir" = "you and me - a memoir" and , or ; with _ e.g. "you, he, me" = "you he me" At the moment I can only do it with search/replace in edit metadata or outside Calibre with an additional software. I can't find anything in tweaks and am not experienced enough to do it with plugboards or a regular expression in preferences-save to disk. I have to use 1.47 and no, I can not upgrade. However the principle of how to do it will most likely be the same regardless which version you use.

09-26-2019, 10:24 AM	#3
Horus68 Zealot Posts: 143 Karma: 76596 Join Date: Feb 2015 Location: Portugal Device: Kobo Aura HD	Done reading that tutorial but its hard for me to understand the code partes without a live example. My bad... so much to learn and I'm not a programmer! Can someone paste me an example for replacing a : in title with - (for the save to disk template) Then I can play with it and find some other uses (as in removing punctuation marks form file name)! Update, giving a copy/paste ready example: Using re(pattern, replacement) (the details are in the quoted tutorial: https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/template_lang.html ) Actual behaviour: When a title field has a value with ":" (as in "Title: subtitle") the ":" would cause a filename with "_space" instead of the ":" as in the file name Code: Title_ subtitle.pdf Instead... you can have a filename with "space-" as in "Title - subtitle". For that use this in "Save to disk" Template (for the title field part) Code: {title:re(:, -)} I'm sure there could be better solutions as I'm a newbie and probably only useful for other newbies like me. Related topics with same question https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=263504 https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=169516 Last edited by Horus68; 09-28-2019 at 06:30 AM.

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08-23-2018, 11:04 PM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,345 Karma: 27182818 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	The way to do it is to use a template. https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/template_lang.html

01-03-2021, 04:29 PM	#4
mfaine1 Member Posts: 16 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2020 Device: Kindle	In case anyone else finds this while searching for a way to fix the underscore problem. Here is my solution for now, though I wonder if a plugin that does something similar couldn't be developed. If I ever take the time to learn how to write plugins for Calibre this will be the first one I tackle. I think a template wouldn't work because the part of the code that replaces the special characters is applied after the template?? If I'm wrong about this that would be great. Here is a script that you can run with the export directory path as an argument after exporting the files from Calibre and it will rename them based on the metadata in the opf file. If you want to improve on this and repost it that would be great. I'm sure there is a lot that could be improved.

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