Keep 2 books of same format in record?

[id2d]

Hi

I've been mostly using Calibre to convert books I want to transfer to my Kindle. But sometimes the the conversion doesn't work too well and I use Briss to make a cropped PDF version.

I'd like to be able to keep both the original version and the cropped version in the Calibre library. When you have different file versions it's easy to "Merge book records" but is it possible to keep two versions of a pdf in the same record? And if so make sure I can identify the one that's cropped for when I want to transfer it to Kindle?

[itimpi]

Not directly - the Calibre at abase schema only allows for a single instance of a particular file extension (format) to be stored for a given book record. One way to achieve what you want might be to give one of them a non-standard file extension (e.g. Filename.pdfx) as that would then be treated a if it was a different (unknown) format.

[Asawi]

When working with ePUbs there is the "original epub" that stays as well, but maybe that's just for ePub? Either way I like this workaround:

Create a separate library for book to convert. Copy the book to it (keep it in the main library as well), fiddle around with it until your happy. Should all go horribly wrong, delete from the conversion library and copy it once again.
Once you're happy, remove it from the main library and then bring your converted copy there.
It doesn't solve the "merge" thing though...

[jackie_w]

If you do a pdf -> pdf conversion, the original will be renamed with the .ORIGINAL_PDF extension. Then throw away the converted pdf (.PDF extension) and replace it with your cropped pdf version.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

If you do a pdf -> pdf conversion, the original will be renamed with the .ORIGINAL_PDF extension. Then throw away the converted pdf (.PDF extension) and replace it with your cropped pdf version.

This should work well, but makes accessing the original somewhat cumbersome.

Another approach is to use slightly differnt titles for the two versions by:

1. Use Save to Disk to export a copy of the file to be altered
2. Rename the book in calibre by appending some suffix (e.g. MyBook > MyBook-foo)
3. Make changes to exported version (crop, ...)
4. Import altered version into calibre; it should appear with the original title
5. Retitle the newly imported book (e.g. MyBook > MyBookCropped)
6. Retitle the original back to its original.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by dwig

This should work well, but makes accessing the original somewhat cumbersome.

As long as you associate (in your Op sys) the extension .original_pdf with the same program you have associated with extension .pdf, you should be able to view it easily enough.