Lost on Metadata...

[iossif]

Hello everybody,
this is my first post.
Thank you for Calibre!

I am lost with metadata editing.
After having done a very thorough clean-up of irrelevant tags, having changed the covers in a series to be all graphically similar and generally treated my epubs so that they are all beautifully organized, I made a copy of my library on a microSD card in order to read them on my android tablet.

There I discovered that all the old covers, and the old, messy tags where still there. Even though my Calibre library shows them all neat and nice.

I am imagining the original metadata on the epub file itself never gets changed, and all my changes are stored on the metadata.opf file.

Is there a way to put all the good stuff that's on the metadata.opf file, on the epub file itself?

(I searched and searched keyword metadata but I couldn't find relative discussions. If the answer has been supplied elsewhere and I just couldn't find it, please be so kind as to point me to it.)

Thank you!
Iossif

[PeterT]

I believe you need to use the POLISH function or SAVE TO DISC to update the files. POLISH applies the changes to the Calibre library, whereas SAVE TO DISC updates the copy it exports and leaves the library unchanged.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by iossif

I made a copy of my library on a microSD card in order to read them on my android tablet.

There I discovered that all the old covers, and the old, messy tags where still there. Even though my Calibre library shows them all neat and nice.

PeterT is correct the metadata in the files in calibre's library are not updated. Instead calibre updates the metadata on the fly whenever a book is exported from calibre using methods Provided by calibre such as the Send to Device or Save to Disk features. If you want to bypass calibre's method of getting books to your device then you will have to use calibre's polish feature to embed the metadata and covers in the books that in the calibre folder structure.

Calibre's manual describes this feature as follows:

Polishing books is all about putting the shine of perfection onto your carefully crafted ebooks.

Polishing tries to minimize the changes to the internal code of your ebook. Unlike conversion, it does not flatten CSS, rename files, change font sizes, adjust margins, etc. Every action performs only the minimum set of changes needed for the desired effect.

You should use this tool as the last step in your ebook creation process.

Note that polishing only works on files in the AZW3 or EPUB formats.

Here is an article on the polish feature.

[iossif]

Thank you both very much.
I couldn't find the polish function but the Save to disk worked beautifully for the transfer of books.

After the second reply I could also find the "polish" function and now I can fix my calibre library as well.

Thanks!!!

[BetterRed]

@iossif - the Polish Book function will only process EPUB and AZW3 formats, there's a more general tool, Embed Metadata, that will inject metadata into other formats (including EPUB and AZW3), to the extent that the format allows.

You can add the tool to a toolbar/menu, or just tap Ctrl+E and select the formats you want to update. BTW the standard kb shortcut for Polish Books is 'P'.

BR

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by iossif

I couldn't find the polish function but the Save to disk worked beautifully for the transfer of books.

If you wish to continue to use the microSD card you might consider using the Connect to folder feature. This will allow you to connect to a folder on your SD card as if it was a device. Then you can use the Send to device feature to update your card in the future the same as if you were connecting to any device.