In Download_Metadata, why does "Comments" end with double asterisks ** ?

[droopy]

When I download metadata, the text in the Comments field almost always ends with a pair of asterisks. Why is that?
And how can we prevent that?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by droopy

When I download metadata, the text in the Comments field almost always ends with a pair of asterisks. Why is that?
And how can we prevent that?

That is the way most of the metadata I download from Amazon ends. Ask Amazon. You can't prevent them so just delete them.

[droopy]

Is there an automatic way to delete double asterisks with a Calibre patch/program/plugin/whatever?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by droopy

Is there an automatic way to delete double asterisks with a Calibre patch/program/plugin/whatever?

You might be able do it with a regex search for the '**' at the end of Comments, then a Bulk Metadata Edit->Search and Replace regex to remove the last line. If you want 'more' than that then you'd need to write a plugin.

BR

[droopy]

BetterRed,
If I understand you correctly, it's a two-step process, yes?

[DNSB]

Some metadata has the ** in the middle of the page, some has it appended to the last line, some has it as a separate last line.

For me, automating the process wasn't worth the time it would take to automate it.

[droopy]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Some metadata has the ** in the middle of the page, some has it appended to the last line, some has it as a separate last line.

For me, automating the process wasn't worth the time it would take to automate it.

DNSB, thanks for your reply. When the ** is in the middle of the page, does it function the same way as when it's at bottom of the page (by function, i mean it's just as useless)?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by droopy

DNSB, thanks for your reply. When the ** is in the middle of the page, does it function the same way as when it's at bottom of the page (by function, i mean it's just as useless)?

I sometimes suspect the * or ** in the middle of the page replaces emphasizing the text. I.E. a multibook omnibus where instead of bolding the book titles, they are wrapped in *booktitle* or **booktitle**.

And yes, it is pretty much useless. For some of the worst, I've copy/pasted the HTML content into Sigil and done the cleanup there.

[droopy]

Hi DNSB,
too bad there's no way to automatically clean up the Comments field, at least not at this time.
There's a way to auto-fix the name field, but not the comments field. Maybe one day.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by droopy

Hi DNSB,
too bad there's no way to automatically clean up the Comments field, at least not at this time.
There's a way to auto-fix the name field, but not the comments field. Maybe one day.

In the name field, the contents are pretty obvious. For the comments field, it's much more a whatever goes freeform block of text. My favourite are the ones where they put fonts, font sizes, etc. in the dc:description field. One sample is below:

<p style="font-family: 'sans-serif'; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: 2px; text-align: left;"><strong>

At least, the QT widget used to edit this field automagically removed the letter-spacing and text-align entries.