12-28-2010, 02:34 PM | #1 |
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Import books from excel, csv or similar list?
Hi,
I'm new to calibre (fantastic app, by the way!). Until now I used to maintain a list of my paper books database in excel, with author, title, editorial and so on. With my eBook collection growing fast I was wondering if there would be an option to move my old database into Calibre. I know about the ISBN import possibility but my paper book collection is very big (+2000) and I really do not feel like going through all of the to note down the ISBN... Any ideas that would help? Thnx a lot, Ignacio |
12-28-2010, 03:30 PM | #2 | |
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(1) Write a custom UI plugin to read your CSV file and create books for each row. This would allow you to retain your editorial data if that is important to you and whatever other columns that have a Calibre equivalent. (2) Either write a macro in Excel or knock up your own standalone exe/script to create a directory structure of fake books named to match your calibre regex for each row in the csv. Each "book" could just be an empty text file. Then just bulk import to Calibre, and use the "Remove format" menu option to delete the fake book formats, and do a metadata retrieval to populate descriptions, covers etc. |
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12-29-2010, 01:57 AM | #3 |
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Thnks for the suggestions. Unfortunatelly both are way out of my knowledge so I'll have to keep the two databases for now. Rgds,
Ignacio |
12-29-2010, 03:40 AM | #4 |
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Another possibility is to write a batch file/script that processes the CSV file and uses the calibredb command to add each book in turn.
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12-29-2010, 04:52 AM | #5 | |
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You would want to test it on a single book first (I've never used the command line myself) but if you had title in column A and author in column B the formula could look something like this: =CONCATENATE("calibredb.exe -e -authors """&B1&""" -title """&A1&"""") |
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12-30-2010, 11:48 AM | #6 |
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Yes!
The command is slightly different: =CONCATENATE("calibredb.exe add -e -a """&B1&""" -t """&A1&""""), but it works!!!! You're great. Thnks, Ignacio Last edited by BadGandalf; 12-30-2010 at 12:39 PM. |
01-04-2011, 04:42 AM | #7 |
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I had the same question, how to get metadata from Excel into empty books. Your solution worked for me too on Mac OS X, after dropping the .exe off the calibredb command. You guys are awesome. Thx.
1. Formula in new column on Excel spreadsheet containing a table of Title & Author metadata, filled down to end row of table (for Mac OS X, it's calibredb, for Windows it's calibredb.exe): =CONCATENATE("calibredb add -e -a """&Table1[@Author]&""" -t """&Table1[@Title]&"""") yields list of values in that column that looks like this: calibredb add -e -a "Abercrombie, Joe" -t "Best Served Cold" calibredb add -e -a "Acevedo, Mario" -t "Jailbait Zombies" calibredb add -e -a "Acevedo, Mario" -t "Werewolf Smackdown" calibredb add -e -a "Adrian, Lara" -t "Kiss of Midnight" calibredb add -e -a "Adrian, Lara" -t "Kiss of Crimson" 2. No need to write script or create other file, on Mac. I copied the range of values and pasted it directly into Terminal window, yielding: . Mac-5:~ unboggling$ calibredb add -e -a "Abercrombie, Joe" -t "Best Served Cold" Backing up metadata Notifying calibre of the change Mac-5:~ unboggling$ calibredb add -e -a "Acevedo, Mario" -t "Jailbait Zombies" Backing up metadata Notifying calibre of the change Mac-5:~ unboggling$ calibredb add -e -a "Acevedo, Mario" -t "Werewolf Smackdown" Backing up metadata Notifying calibre of the change Mac-5:~ unboggling$ calibredb add -e -a "Adrian, Lara" -t "Kiss of Midnight" Backing up metadata Notifying calibre of the change Mac-5:~ unboggling$ calibredb add -e -a "Adrian, Lara" -t "Kiss of Crimson" Backing up metadata Notifying calibre of the change And that's it, except for populating metadata in the new empty books from the metadata sites. Awesome. Thx again. Last edited by unboggling; 01-06-2011 at 10:31 PM. Reason: changed my name |
01-04-2011, 04:45 AM | #8 |
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Though I'm not sure how big the clipboard buffer is. With many thousands of records it might need a script after all.
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01-05-2011, 02:34 AM | #9 |
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Mino worked with over 2000 books. Rgds, Ignacio
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01-05-2011, 02:59 AM | #10 | |
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01-05-2011, 04:19 AM | #11 | |
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01-05-2011, 05:02 AM | #12 | ||
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Quote:
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To effectively backup your entire library, copy the library folder and all contents and the configuration folder and contents to a backup location. You can do incremental syncs between the two locations (local and backup) nightly to keep your backup current. Last edited by DoctorOhh; 01-05-2011 at 05:05 AM. |
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01-05-2011, 05:03 AM | #13 |
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I see your point. I was thinking about overall consistency in metadata in the db, but that's already covered by the empty book metadata. How about consistency in the files? Thinking further about it, yes, there's no need I can think of. Thx for the response.
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01-05-2011, 05:33 AM | #14 |
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Something that might be of interest: calibre automatically creates an OPF file in the book folder in the library. This file will be created whether or not there are any book formats. Its purpose in life is to permit rebuilding the database in the event the db gets corrupted and the user has no backup.
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01-05-2011, 05:43 AM | #15 | |
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I need to bulk change a bunch of metadata in the format files on a bunch of books, both e and p, because i just changed from FN LN to LN, FN in authors and I want to incorporate all those metadata changes in the actual book format files which I had previously set to contain the old FN LN metadata. Normally as I understand it I accomplish this by doing a send to disk then creating a new library and then bulk adding all my books to it. But, the empty books in Library1 aren't there in Library2. What do I have to do to get them there? Add them to Library2, which is a clunky should-be-unnecessary extra step. And if I later add eBook formats to those empty book files, as I gradually convert from p to e, I'll have inconsistent metadata within my library and have to hand edit it when that could have been avoided. It's not a huge issue. A temporary solution now would be for me to write a script for empty txt files after all, as earlier suggested in this thread. I assume in a send to disk, calibre would write the new metadata to the dud-book empty txt files if I had them, which would solve the problem. But it is a consistency issue. There may be other cases. |
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