Simple process to import books without use of metadata

[droodled]

Dear All,

I hope this is not to stupid a question. I'm new to calibre, and am having problems importing books in it. I have been looking in the forum, and on internet, but am not able to find anything on this.

In the past I used an android app moon+ reader, which worked well for me. I renamed all books I have, numbered their titles relative to release date, and put them in a folder with the authors name. So finding something was easy, and logical with regard to hierarchie.

I now have an epaper reader, which works a bit differently, so was looking into using calibre. Whatever I do though, it always imports and orders the books according to metadata in the files, of from the internet. It does not add from filename/folder. This is really annoying, since even books from the same series aquired over the years suddenly have completely different titles, etc.. I can change it using the edit metadata option, but then I have to go over more then 900 books 1 by 1.

-Is there a way to just simply import books by title, and ignoring every piece of metadata?

I can then use tags to combine them into collections easily accessible instead of having to edit metadata 1 by 1.

I've searched the forum, but am thinking that this might not be possible, and if I would want to use calibre, to have edit all my books metadata 1 by 1 :-(

But maybe there's a simpler way that I'm currently overlooking.

Thanks for any insight.

Best regards,

[pdurrant]

calibre/Preferences/Adding books

Uncheck "Read metadata from file contents rather than file name"

Work out what regular expression you'll need to extract book title, author name, series name and series number from your book file names, and enter that in the Regular Expression field.

If you're unfamiliar with regular expressions, give an example of your book files names, and someone will probably help with the magic incantation needed.

[droodled]

Hi pdurrant,

Thanks very much for this one. I'm gonna have a look into it, als the regular expressions you mention. I'd 1st like to try finding out myself before asking, as that's half the fun.

Best regards,

[kacir]

Originally Posted by droodled

I'm gonna have a look into it, als the regular expressions you mention.

There is a book for that ;-)
Called Mastering Regular Expressions from O'Reilly publisher.
Nowadays an AI - I have good experiences with ChatGPT and Aistudio from Google - can craft an AI for you and even explain how it works. Just give them info that Calibre uses Python dialect of the Regular Expression Language.

When I was importing lots of books that required RIs to process the filename I used a plugin that let me quickly select the RI suitable for that particular bunch of imports. That was long before the rise of our AI overlords, but I have been using Regular Expressions for quite a long time for various things.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=118776

[PeterT]

You also might like to look at the GetFileName plugin (only applicable to books added after installing it).

This will store the info about the original location of a file when it is added to calibre.

[droodled]

@kacir
-There is a book for that
Yeah, found it, but that one goes way over my head. I'm currently trying using the "adding books" option under preferences. Also tried using regex101.com, but some of the things I tried and worked, did not work properly in calibre, so stopped using that one.

@PeterT
-look at the GetFileName plugin
Thanks for the suggestion, will have a look to see if it helps.

For me the most important part is to get it in the hierarchial order I'm using now in a very simple manner like Author, Series, ID in series, and title. I don't need all the other metadata for now. I will probably start using the tag option to combine certain books, but thats for later.

I've been testing here, but already have some issue. Under "Adding Books, there's a "series_index". I was hoping to be able to use that for index in the series and thus determine its listing order. When using it though, adding e.g. "10" for it, it lists it as 10.0. Additionally, there's no column with that name under "Add you own columns" to activate as viewed column in the booklisting. Trying to add it as an own column, calibre tells me the word index in a custom column can't be used because its reserved for series.

So I thought of being a smart ass, and made another column "series_order" as integers, but that doesn't pick it up. The added column in the booklisting stays empty when adding a book.

Example bookname:
11 - Een Kuil Voor Een Ander - Baantjer, A.C. - Baantjer en de Waal.epub

(?P<series_index>.+) - (?P<title>.+) - (?P<author>.+) - (?P<series>.+)
Shows a number with floating point, this case 11.0

(?P<series_order>.+) - (?P<title>.+) - (?P<author>.+) - (?P<series>.+)
Does not pickup the number 11 to be used in the custom Series ID column

[droodled]

Dear All,

Is there someone that can help me with this one.

Been trying many things using regular expressions, but seem to not be able to grasp it to get it working.

All I want is using the book title, and extract from it 4 items.
-Series index
-Title
-Author
-Series

Tried below expressions, but can't get it to work. Only when I leave the index in the booktitle part will it of course use alphabetical order, but that's not what I'd prefer.

Example bookname:
11 - Een Kuil Voor Een Ander - Baantjer, A.C. - Baantjer en de Waal.epub

(?P<series_index>.+) - (?P<title>.+) - (?P<author>.+) - (?P<series>.+)
Shows a number with floating point, this case 11.0

(?P<series_order>.+) - (?P<title>.+) - (?P<author>.+) - (?P<series>.+)
Does not pickup the number 11 to be used in the custom Series ID column

Thanks for any hints or tips.

Best regards,

[theducks]

You can not have a naked series_index

You MUST have a Series to have the series-index

[droodled]

Thanks for reply.

I though I had that when I tried "(?P<series_index>.+) - (?P<title>.+) - (?P<author>.+) - (?P<series>.+)". It interpreted the series-index though as a floating point number. So for the exampl book "11 - Een Kuil Voor Een Ander - Baantjer, A.C. - Baantjer en de Waal.epub", it interpreted it as 11.0. Additionally, the series_index was not available as a column in the book listing.

-Am I interpreting calibres help information completely wrong here then?

I thought series, and series_index would be 2 columns.

-Can you give an example please using my information, or maybe I need to rename the ebook titles differently?

Best regards,

[kacir]

Originally Posted by droodled

@kacir
-There is a book for that
Yeah, found it, but that one goes way over my head.

That is why I was suggesting you consult an AI to help you to craft the RE.

Originally Posted by droodled

... there's a "series_index". I was hoping to be able to use that for index in the series and thus determine its listing order. When using it though, adding e.g. "10" for it, it lists it as 10.0.

Sometimes there is a prequel to series and you might want to number it 0.5, sometimes there is a short novelette between part 3 and 4 and you number it 3.5
It is a nice thing to have a series order a float not an integer.

Originally Posted by droodled

I thought series, and series_index would be 2 columns

Try it in Calibre. It will display it as "series [series index] in a default column called series. The individual series index field is for you when you write a template for filename for writing books to the disk, for example.