Importing books without calibre creating a copy

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by AZBooks

If I understand this correctly, you can "Remove All Formats from Selected Files" to get rid of those redundant books created by Calibre.

However, if you've already updated the metadata on your original files, and use Windows Explorer or other way to manage files, why not just "Remove Selected Files (Delete)".

Sorry bout the questions, I'm use to MusicBee & MP3Tag editors and that industry practice with metadata - self contained files. I'm guessing book vendors haven't agreed on standards like music has done with ID3 and such.

I think people like gabby98 want to retain the calibre database as a rough equivalent to the card index theducks mentioned - in that situation all you want to remove is the format files.

If you Remove the Book then its gone from the database, the book folder is removed and if empty the author folder too. If you only want to use calibre to convert and sort out the metadata and save to your preferred locations then remove the book is fine.

If you use calibres command line interface then you're not wedded to its database or folder structure

BR

[LadyKate]

I was also resistant to not having full control over the directory structure BUT when you consider the size of hard drives today and how important our book collections are to most of us, it only makes sense to make full use of calibre's features. This includes keeping a "no touch except through the program" attitude to the directory structure of the library.

We can maintain our collections, add to them, and view them through calibre and for those who are as ocd as I am, do a save to disk in our own naming format.

Having two copies of every book is just normal backup for me anyway.

The only complaint I have is not being able to add a book in another format to an existing entry. Or maybe I still need to find how to do that

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by LadyKate

The only complaint I have is not being able to add a book in another format to an existing entry. Or maybe I still need to find how to do that

Select the book you want to add the new book format to and right-click on the Add Books button. Choose 'Add files to selected book records' (see http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/gui.html#add-books)

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by LadyKate

The only complaint I have is not being able to add a book in another format to an existing entry. Or maybe I still need to find how to do that

You can also use drag-and-drop to drop a new format on an existing entry.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by LadyKate

The only complaint I have is not being able to add a book in another format to an existing entry. Or maybe I still need to find how to do that

Further to mbovenka's reply, a Shift+A will get you straight to the Add files to selected book records option

Also if you change the file type selector to All (*.*) you can add non ebook files, e.g. the movie of the book. They will show up in Book Details

You'll find a related discussion about having more than one file of the same format within the same Book in this thread ===>>> https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=219182

BR

[LadyKate]

I guess I'm dense but don't we all keep backups of our libraries?

If you like calibre for it's organization and love your own file structure for day to day use why not use calibre for your organization and backup on another drive. It works very well with the library on my external usb hard drive.

I was very resistant to the file structure thing until I started using epub as the main reading format after purchasing a tablet.

Once I got used to the various methods of exporting it made me rethink my problems. I had been resistant because my device didn't read metadata and the only way I could read a series in order was to have the series name/number in the title.

When I saw that I can do this so easily on export it removed the last of my resistance to using calibre for maintaining my entire library in all formats, not just epub.