Alphabetize list of multiple authors for single book [anthologies]

[meghane_e]

Hello, sort of new here. Was wondering if there's a way to alphabetize the list of authors for say an anthology?

As in [Title] [Author C & Author F & Author A] will end up
[Title] [Author A & Author C & Author F].

Of course most of my anthologies have many more authors than that. And there are a hundred or more anthologies in my library.

Sometimes publishers list authors by first name, sometimes prevalence or category or last name, etc. Sometimes I add them manually and it's prioritized initially based more on my recognition. I had hoped there was something that would work like the Tag editor which automatically alphabetizes the tag names. But the Manage authors looks like it's to edit spelling of individual authors' names and preferred sort order of [Pref., First, Last, Suf.].

Thank you!

[Tarana]

I would think you'd have to create a book file for each and every author. The SEARCH feature is very powerful and probably a better way of doing it. I do know when listing multiple authors in AUTHOR, you have to alphabetize them.

I don't list every author for my anthologies, just my favorite ones. I'm not much of a rereader, but if I have a favorite series, I want to be able to find all the books. For instance, I'm listening to Dark and Stormy Knights right now and I would certainly list Jim Butcher as I have all the other Dresden books. I don't really know the other authors in the series, but would list them if they had a particularly good short story. I do the same thing for magazines. I list the authors of particularly good stories and that's it.

If you really want to do a sorting of all the authors in all the books, I think a spreadsheet would work better for you. Title, Author and maybe a tag for genre.

[DaltonST]

ABCH is for users interested in co-authors for books with multiple authors. The hierarchy constructed for each book is sorted first by number of books in your library for each author, and second alphabetically.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=243873

[BetterRed]

@meghane_e - Assuming the 'authors.name' column is a list, you could perhaps define a composite column -- '#ordered-authors' -- that is set using the list_sort template function on the 'authors.name' column.

BR

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@meghane_e - Assuming the 'authors.name' column is a list, you could perhaps define a composite column -- '#ordered-authors' -- that is set using the list_sort template function on the 'authors.name' column.

BR

You could also use "Template mode" of bulk-edit search and replace with the same function, replacing the existing authors with the sorted list. This works only if the authors are in LN FN order or if you use "author_sort" as the source. There is no template function that will alphabetize a list of authors in FN LN order.

This screen capture shows how to do it.

[maddz]

One thing I noticed when exporting some of the Serial Box titles I have is there seems to be a character limit in the export so I now have to search for the lead author and list them under that name. I export: genre / Author Sort / Series / Series + index - subseries + index - Title Sort - Author - Short fiction flag. The Serial Box titles with five or more authors messed up the genre field.

I've one last thing to do and that's to create an author list column so I can list a single lead author for series with multiple different authors (1632, Elves on the Road). Then the Author Sort will be Author List else Author Sort.

[meghane_e]

Thanks everyone! I'll have to check those options out and report back.

[meghane_e]

Originally Posted by chaley

You could also use "Template mode" of bulk-edit search and replace with the same function, replacing the existing authors with the sorted list. This works only if the authors are in LN FN order or if you use "author_sort" as the source. There is no template function that will alphabetize a list of authors in FN LN order.

This screen capture shows how to do it.

This is the one I preferred and it works! Now to swap_around_comma() to set them back after the sort