Is It Possible To Use Calibre As A Converter-Editor Without Creating A Library?

[fidvo]

Originally Posted by At_Libitum

be prepared though, contrary to popular belief amongst those comfortable with Calibre, program mode templates ain't all that simple if you're not comfortable with the language, AND know a bit about python.

Very true. The hardest part of using Calibre is coming up with the right save-to-disk template. No way around that, though. The template system has to be complex in order to be powerful enough to cover all possibilities. And fortunately, you only have to set this up once and never worry about it again.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by LouieChuckyMerry

EBooks/FIRSTNAME.LASTNAME/{year} - BookTiltle{year}/BookTitle{year}.extension
Any series I would create manually as:
EBooks/FIRSTNAME.LASTNAME/{year-year} - SeriesTitle{year-year}/{year} - BookTitle{year}/BookTitle{year}.extension
Any book(s) with multiple authors would be stored in:
EBooks/VARIOUS.AUTHORS/{year} - BookTitle{year}/BookTitle{year}.extension
That's it, books are sorted chronologically by author. Could you point me to a good tutorial for save templates so I can attack ?

I think that this is possible to do in template language.

If you have the books named this way, it should be possible to create a script that will make one long filename from your complicated path and then you can configure Calibre to extract metadata from the long file name when you drag and drop the file into Calibre.
The script would have to be made using some external tool. (I use Krusader file manager in Linux for similar task)

The configuration dialog lists all the variables and there is also Template editor that has staggering number of additional options.

I personally am using following template
{authors}/{series}/{series_index:0>3s|| - }{title} - {authors}

The {series_index:0>3s|| - } means:
If there is no series, there is no series_index. In that case there is no string added before title. But if there *is* series, it will be left padded with zeros, like this: 001 or 075 followed by ' - '

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by At_Libitum

be prepared though, contrary to popular belief amongst those comfortable with Calibre, program mode templates ain't all that simple if you're not comfortable with the language, AND know a bit about python.

I totally agree. I find quite easier to define a python function which makes what I need than trying to use the program mode.

[LouieChuckyMerry]

Originally Posted by Adoby

I assume that year-year means min and max year? That is something that the save template can't handle. It can only "see" the current book and the metadata that is downloaded and stored in the current book. The rest should be no problem. Just read the manual and search the forum.

"year-year" does mean minimum and maximum year but, as I typed earlier, any series, regardless of length, would only require me to manually make a single folder of my preferred format into which I'd drag the (hopefully) already properly labeled books in the series. Basically, if I (we ) can configure just one save template:


EBooks/FIRSTNAME.LASTNAME/{year} - BookTiltle{year}/BookTitle{year}.extension


where "FIRSTNAME.LASTNAME" is the author, "{year}" is the year published in brackets, and "BookTitle{year}" is the book title, with the first letter of every word capitalized and no spaces between words (and I've no need for anything special regarding "a", "an", "the", etc.), followed by the year published in brackets, then I'd be set, as about 97% of the file-folder renaming would be automated. Heck, I can even move everything to the folder "EBooks" on my external drive manually, so a template:


FIRSTNAME.LASTNAME/{year} - BookTiltle{year}/BookTitle{year}.extension

for example

FRANKLIN.TIBBETS/{1966} - BirthOfGreatness{1966}/BirthOfGreatness.epub


would be just fine. Also, for what it's worth, I don't care a lick about any actual metadata or tags beyond their need for creating a save template; as long as my book files and storage folders are properly labeled I'm good to go. Could I do something with custom tags involving the authors name, the year published, and the book title? Even if I have to input the book title without spaces and the year published in brackets manually, at least the renaming of the folders would be automated. Thanks again to everybody for their help, I really do appreciate it .