Add cover image from path

[steve j]

Currently I use Book Collector from Collectorz.com for my paper ("real") books and calibre for my ebooks.
I am thinking about ditching Collectorz and adding all my data into calibre.
I have managed to export all my data from Collectorz and using "Add books by ISBN" and "Import List" plugin I have added most details.
What I want to do is add my cover pictures automatically where the "download metadata" plugins cannot find them. They are all on my hard disk, and I can create a CSV file with the path, but I cannot see any way of getting calibre to use this information to add the picture to the calibre library.
Is there a plugin or feature which does this, or will I have to copy them across manually?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by steve j

Currently I use Book Collector from Collectorz.com for my paper ("real") books and calibre for my ebooks.
I am thinking about ditching Collectorz and adding all my data into calibre.
I have managed to export all my data from Collectorz and using "Add books by ISBN" and "Import List" plugin I have added most details.
What I want to do is add my cover pictures automatically where the "download metadata" plugins cannot find them. They are all on my hard disk, and I can create a CSV file with the path, but I cannot see any way of getting calibre to use this information to add the picture to the calibre library.
Is there a plugin or feature which does this, or will I have to copy them across manually?

You will need to wrap things in some sort of a script using this CLI section to insert.
http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/gene...book-meta.html

You will need to do more (use other CLI sections) , to match things up

[steve j]

Originally Posted by theducks

You will need to wrap things in some sort of a script using this CLI section to insert.
http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/gene...book-meta.html

You will need to do more (use other CLI sections) , to match things up

Thanks.
I feared as much.
Since this is a one-off exercise, and I don't know the programming language, and have never written code for calibre, it will probably be easier to do this manually.

[eschwartz]

Use whatever CLI language you do know to tear apart the CSV and feed the values therein to command-line switches passed to calibredb.

If you can provide an example of what the CSV looks like, people may be able to help.

[steve j]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

If you can provide an example of what the CSV looks like, people may be able to help.

Thanks for the offer. I can make the CSV file look like whatever you like. I have provided an example with line 1 as field names and the other three lines individual books, one book per line.
The file I have created is a tab separated file without delimiters, but I can change anything at all. I can also add other fields if necessary.

Title	Author	ISBN	Front Cover
The Meccano System Compendium	Gamble, Jim	9780904568158	C:\Documents and Settings\Stephen\My Documents\Collectorz\Book Collector\Images\The Meccano System Compendium 3010_f.bmp
Frank Hornby - the boy who made $1,000,000 with a toy	Gould, Maurice Philip	9780904568011	C:\Documents and Settings\Stephen\My Documents\Collectorz\Book Collector\Images\Frank Hornby - Gould, Maurice 6250_f.bmp
The Products Of Binns Road	Randall, Peter	9780904568066	C:\Documents and Settings\Stephen\My Documents\Collectorz\Book Collector\Images\The Products Of Binns Road - R2901_f.bmp

What I want to do is match an existing book based on author/title/isbn and add the picture to the calibre library to show in the browser as the front cover of the book. This will presumably include copy the picture to the correct folder in the library.

[steve j]

A simplification.

I can put the entire path of the image (eg C:\my pictures\pic1.jpg) into a custom field in calibre.

From that information all I really need to do is copy the picture to the appropriate calibre folder, and get calibre to recognise that as the Cover Picture.

[theducks]

the cover picture is always named cover.jpeg once it lands in the books folder
But there there is also an entry made in the DB and I don't think it is generated by discovery , but during the book or cover add processing.

[chaley]

Check Library (click on the Library, library maintenance, check library) checks for new and deleted cover.jpg files, offering you the option of updating (fixing) the calibre database.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by chaley

Check Library (click on the Library, library maintenance, check library) checks for new and deleted cover.jpg files, offering you the option of updating (fixing) the calibre database.

Wow!
I never messed up covers so I never discovered that bit.

[steve j]

Thanks for all your help.

What I actually did, which works well, is this
* Export all required data (including Cover path) from my existing (Collectorz) database.
* Import all this data into calibre (using Import List plugin). The original cover path is put into a temporary user field
* In calibre, I select all books and Edit Metadata in bulk|Create default cover - this is the critical step to create a placeholder for the cover, and also determine what the actual path is
* In calibre Convert Books | create catalog - to create a CSV file with two columns - cover path (calibre) and cover path from orig system (in temp user field)
* now I wrote a quick external program which copied the actual files from the original path to the new path

In my tests I didn't have to refresh the library.

I'm not sure I did what you suggested - indeed I'm sure I didn't - but without your help I wouldn't have found this solution.

Brilliant - thanks again to everyone.