Duplicate file names on books, another long file name effect.

[C Alberga]

I've searched, but not found (doesn't mean it's not there) a "fix" for this.

I have several sets of e-books which when I try to extract, let's say, the .epub files give me a set of files with identical names which I have to manually rename to be able to put them in a single directory. As an example:

The Year's Best Science Fiction, First Annual Collection
The Year's Best Science Fiction, Second Annual Collection
etc. up to 35

With the Author (editor, in fact) Gardner Dozois

Results in 35 .epub files all named:

The Year's Best Science Fiction - Gardner Dozois

Is there any way to get Calibre to avoid creating duplicate names, other than manually changing the titles to something other than their original name?

[Sirtel]

Don't copy them from the library folder. Use Save to Disk to save them outside Calibre.

[C Alberga]

That doesn't change the names of the .epub files. If I want to collect them into a single directory I still have to rename them. Similarly, if I want to attach them to an e-mail (assuming my mail program allows attachments with identical names -- haven tried THAT) the recipient has the same problem, and has to same them one at a time, either to different directories, or changing the names.

As a general rule, it is not a good idea to have non-identical files having identical names. The only reason that comes to mind is back-ups, where having the in the same directory would never occur.

[Sirtel]

Do you mean they have identical titles in the GUI? That's bad metadata and not the fault of calibre. You can set calibre to get titles from the file names, not metadata, when adding books.

[C Alberga]

If, by the GUI you mean the program calibre.exe, yes I'm using that. I select the "Save Single Format to Disk" from the "Save to Disk" icon on the toolbar. That copies the selected books' sub-directory, with all but one e-book file plus the Cover.jpg and the .opf file. So the desered "books" are still wrapped in a couple of layers of directory, and the filenames are not changed in any way.

What I want (but can live without) would be an option which pulls the .epub file directly into a single directory, with NON-identical names. But please, do give me the latter!

[C Alberga]

I just reread your post and would like to expand a bit. If you look at my examples, this case the books metavalue for "title" is correct. It is long, and in the set the differences in the title are cut off in each case of creating a file name which does not need the "long title" feature of Windows 10. So, the file names for all 35 editions of "The Years Best..." (see above) as constructed by the "save to disk" option are identical. It is not the metadata that is bad, it is the calibre-constructed filename. That doesn't generally matter (although it has tripped up some clean-up programs which compare filenames), but it DOES matter if these ad hoc, constructed names replace the original, albeit long, filename (or names constructed faithful to the metadata) ginned up by Calibre!

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Don't copy them from the library folder. Use Save to Disk to save them outside Calibre.

↑ ↑ ↑ ✔

Which is configured in Preferences->Save to Disk:



BR

[C Alberga]

Thank you! That was what I was missing, I assumed (incorrectly) that the same shorten-file-names rule would be applied there. All is well not!