Sort on data+time entered into the column "title"?

[nikoski]

I give some of my PDFs on the PC under windows names containing date+time, like in this example ...

28.07.2017-11.20
25.08.2017-09.10

Afterwards i import them to calibre and get those names as "titles" and assign to them a tag "appointments".

After syncing them to CC i'd like to be able to sort those PDFs under "appointments" according to the data+time as entered in "title". This does not seem to work.

How could i achieve that otherwise?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by nikoski

I give some of my PDFs on the PC under windows names containing date+time, like in this example ...

28.07.2017-11.20
25.08.2017-09.10

Afterwards i import them to calibre and get those names as "titles" and assign to them a tag "appointments".

After syncing them to CC i'd like to be able to sort those PDFs under "appointments" according to the data+time as entered in "title". This does not seem to work.

How could i achieve that otherwise?

Title is sorted as text. It cannot be sorted as a date. This is true in both CC and calibre.

I can think of two ways for you to solve this problem.

• Create a datetime custom column and store your "title" in that column. Add that column to CC's sort menu. Getting the date from the title into the new column could present a challenge because your "title" matches no current calibre date format.
• Use a text format for the date that sorts correctly as text, such as 2017.08.25-09.10. You would need to use a 24-hour clock.

[nikoski]

Thanks a lot for your hint!

datetime column: this way i'd need to enter the data+time under windows and again in calibre.

The "reverse" date+time in the "title" seems to work ok and it's good enough for my purpose

[theducks]

Originally Posted by nikoski

Thanks a lot for your hint!

datetime column: this way i'd need to enter the data+time under windows and again in calibre.

The "reverse" date+time in the "title" seems to work ok and it's good enough for my purpose

You can use Bulk )mode) metadata edit to 'copy' one field into another, including combining other metadata data or literals

[chaley]

Originally Posted by theducks

You can use Bulk )mode) metadata edit to 'copy' one field into another, including combining other metadata data or literals

The date/time format used by the OP makes this difficult. Calibre cannot parse dates that are separated by periods, so the "copy" would require some rather complex template regular expressions to convert it. For example,

25.08.2017-09.10

needs to become

25/08/2017 09:10

Once that template was worked out then indeed bulk edit S/R can be used to copy the title to a date column.