Best practices for folder of PDFs?

[duckturduck]

I have multiple folders containing PDFs that are different chapters or sections of a book in sequential order.

Is there some sort of best practice for getting these into Calibre under one book listing? I don't need to transfer the files to another device, but just hoping to get my library under control.

Thanks!

[jhowell]

Simplest would be to merge them into a single PDF before importing to calibre.

Calibre supports only one instance of a format per book. Alternatives include importing an archive or creating a link to the external folder. Both have drawbacks.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Alternatives include importing an archive or creating a link to the external folder. Both have drawbacks.

Note that if you want to use the archive, you'll want to disable the built-in "Archive Extract" plugin first.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by duckturduck

I have multiple folders containing PDFs that are different chapters or sections of a book in sequential order.

Is there some sort of best practice for getting these into Calibre under one book listing? I don't need to transfer the files to another device, but just hoping to get my library under control.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by jhowell

Simplest would be to merge them into a single PDF before importing to calibre.

I would do this if the PDFs were a single work.

Originally Posted by jhowell

Calibre supports only one instance of a format per book. Alternatives include importing an archive or creating a link to the external folder. Both have drawbacks.

In this context I favour the calibre:// URL scheme over alternatives such as common-or-garden file:// URLs.

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Note that if you want to use the archive, you'll want to disable the built-in "Archive Extract" plugin first.

Or use an archive format that the AE plugin doesn't process. It's description claims it handles ZIPs, RARs, CBZs and CBRs; it makes no reference to 7Z, but I have a feeling that may have changed.

BR

[Elfwreck]

You can use one of the free online sources that lets you combine PDFs, like https://smallpdf.com/merge-pdf or https://combinepdf.com/

I haven't tested those; I use Acrobat Pro to combine or split PDFs, but that's pricey for anyone who doesn't actively need all its features. Check the output before using it multiple times - see if they put a watermark on the pages or something like that. It may help to make sure the filenames are in the correct order first; maybe add a prefix of "01-, 02-," etc. as appropriate.

The other option is to import them to Calibre, convert to Epub, and use the EpubMerge plugin to combine them. However, you're likely to wind up with line breaks at the ends of pages, and possibly matching original lines in some cases, and table conversion is terrible.

If you want them converted to another format, I recommend using an online combine-PDF service, then using something to convert that to Word, then reformatting as needed, then importing & converting to epub. Which is a pain, but would get you a functional epub. But if you just need a single PDF for personal use... there are plenty of online "throw in multiple PDFs; download a single combined file" options.

[Karellen]

You can also use open-source PDFSam which has split, merge, extract etc options... https://github.com/torakiki/pdfsam

[ownedbycats]

I like PDFtk: https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/