Changing Author Name when Importing from Kindle

[africalass]

Hi!

I would be grateful if someone could advise me on how to deal with the names of authors as I import from my Kindle.

At the moment the author 'Patricia Briggs' appears in the 'Author(s)' column as 'Briggs, Patricia'. I would prefer it to have the first name first, even if it still sorts on the last name. I currently sort this individually by going into the 'manage author' dialogue. I wondered if it could be done automatically or in bulk. However, I don't want to do something to my whole library as there are other books there I got from other sources, and the ones from Kindle I've already corrected, so I would be concerned about damaging them. I've tried to look at previous questions and been to: http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq....es-and-sorting, but am a little lost as to how this would apply to my situation. I've tried to think of different ideas:


Is there an option in 'calibrate this device' that would help (currently set to: {author_sort}/{title} - {authors})?

Or do I deal with this in preferences/tweaks? And then do I use 'invert' 'nocomma' or something else?

Or can I deal with it in the 'manage authors' dialogue somehow?

Many thanks for any help.



ps - I'm not sure what model of Kindle this is - it was purchased January 2011 and has a physical keyboard, no touchscreen.

[Synamon]

Have you ticked the 'Swap author first name and last name' box in Preferences > Adding Books? If you have, then untick it before adding books from your Kindle, if you haven't, then tick it before adding books from your Kindle. It will only affect the books you add, not your existing library, and you can manually tick/untick it depending on the source of your books if necessary. I found that having it ticked worked for most of my books.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by africalass

Hi!

I would be grateful if someone could advise me on how to deal with the names of authors as I import from my Kindle.

At the moment the author 'Patricia Briggs' appears in the 'Author(s)' column as 'Briggs, Patricia'. I would prefer it to have the first name first, even if it still sorts on the last name. I currently sort this individually by going into the 'manage author' dialogue. I wondered if it could be done automatically or in bulk. However, I don't want to do something to my whole library as there are other books there I got from other sources, and the ones from Kindle I've already corrected, so I would be concerned about damaging them. I've tried to look at previous questions and been to: http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq....es-and-sorting, but am a little lost as to how this would apply to my situation. I've tried to think of different ideas:


Is there an option in 'calibrate this device' that would help (currently set to: {author_sort}/{title} - {authors})?

Or do I deal with this in preferences/tweaks? And then do I use 'invert' 'nocomma' or something else?

Or can I deal with it in the 'manage authors' dialogue somehow?

Many thanks for any help.



ps - I'm not sure what model of Kindle this is - it was purchased January 2011 and has a physical keyboard, no touchscreen.

{authors} is how you see it in Calibre
{author_sort} is how you have it set

[africalass]

thanks so much for replies.

I have tried ticking 'Swap author first name and last name' box in Preferences > Adding Books (it was unticked). However it made no difference for some reason. I tried several times doing it backwards and forwards with shutting Calibre down between times.

Thanks for the info on {authors} etc. Can this info be used to help change how the {authors} is set on import?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by africalass

thanks so much for replies.

I have tried ticking 'Swap author first name and last name' box in Preferences > Adding Books (it was unticked). However it made no difference for some reason. I tried several times doing it backwards and forwards with shutting Calibre down between times.

Thanks for the info on {authors} etc. Can this info be used to help change how the {authors} is set on import?

Import? From Kindle

Note: if those books have DRM Calibre will not be able to do much with the contents (if the Read Metadata from contents.. is ticked) of the file, only store the file.

I am terrible at the import RE game and fix the problems by hand

[africalass]

Thanks. I don't know what I should say here, but I have removed the DRM (only because OH has the Kindle 95% of the time, I can't use Kindle for PC, so the only way I can read the books I purchase on Amazon is to import into Calibre on my laptop - I don't pass them on).

So although it does read metadata from contents (I did try reading from title, but that just made a mess) it does a fine job - just that the {authors} thing is identical to {author_sort}.

I'll continue to just work out individually, though I may play with some 'search and replace' later to see if I can find authors with commas in and change them around.

[africalass]

By the way, what is the 'link' thing in the 'manage authors' dialogue?

thanks

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by africalass

By the way, what is the 'link' thing in the 'manage authors' dialogue?

It lets you configure a website link to go an author's website page, when your authors are displayed as hyperlinks such as in the book details panel on the right-side (if you have them displayed). I think the default behaviour is to link to Wikipedia, but if your author is not on Wikipedia or you want to go to a different site like the author's home website you can edit it using that Manage Authors dialog.