Register Guidelines E-Books Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Go Back   MobileRead Forums > E-Book Software > Calibre

Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 01-21-2009, 06:45 AM   #1
FrancisT
Member
FrancisT is on a distinguished road
 
FrancisT's Avatar
 
Posts: 23
Karma: 65
Join Date: Mar 2008
Device: Cybook, Toshiba NB100
Mobi format metadata extraction issues

I have got a shedload of (mostly Baen) ebooks in Mobi format (either .mobi or older .prc extension). When I import them into Calibre they tend to be author "unknown" and not have other metadata fields filled consistently.

Is this a calibre problem? And if so is it soemthing that someone is working on fixing?

If not. Is there a way that I can examine the files to see if they are missing the meta-data? And how easy would it be to create a plugin that contacts (say) the Baen website to get the correct metadata for a file?

Now that I've imported all my books though I'm now having trouble manually adding metadata via the GUI. There is I see a way to add/modify metadata via the CLI. If I do this will it break things when I correct the Title/author fields?

[Alternatively I could probably use perl and sqlite support and edit the metadata.db file directly. I'm guessing this would be an even worse idea]
FrancisT is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-21-2009, 07:25 AM   #2
pdurrant
The Grand Mouse 高貴的老鼠
pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
pdurrant's Avatar
 
Posts: 71,406
Karma: 305065800
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Norfolk, England
Device: Kindle Voyage
Many of the Baen Mobipocket files have poor or non-existent metadata.

Best bet for automating the metadata, at least a bit, is to enter their* ISBN and try to get metadata from that.

Paul

(*Baen eBooks also don't have proper ISBN numbers - they tend to only have the hardpack/papaerback ISBN numbers mentioned in the ebook text. Since Baen eBook are really only sold from the webscription website, I think they feel an iSBN number for the ebook version is overkill. Especially as for they 'should' use a different ISBN for each format - a way to eat up ISBN numbers pretty quickly. They're not free... Hmm... considering they've published around 600 ebooks, in six formats, that would cost about $7000 to assign them all ISBN numbers. )

Quote:
Originally Posted by FrancisT View Post
I have got a shedload of (mostly Baen) ebooks in Mobi format (either .mobi or older .prc extension). When I import them into Calibre they tend to be author "unknown" and not have other metadata fields filled consistently.

Is this a calibre problem? And if so is it soemthing that someone is working on fixing?

If not. Is there a way that I can examine the files to see if they are missing the meta-data? And how easy would it be to create a plugin that contacts (say) the Baen website to get the correct metadata for a file?

Now that I've imported all my books though I'm now having trouble manually adding metadata via the GUI. There is I see a way to add/modify metadata via the CLI. If I do this will it break things when I correct the Title/author fields?

[Alternatively I could probably use perl and sqlite support and edit the metadata.db file directly. I'm guessing this would be an even worse idea]
pdurrant is offline   Reply With Quote
Advert
Old 01-21-2009, 07:37 AM   #3
FrancisT
Member
FrancisT is on a distinguished road
 
FrancisT's Avatar
 
Posts: 23
Karma: 65
Join Date: Mar 2008
Device: Cybook, Toshiba NB100
One other thing. Is there an easy way to do a global replace of '_' with ' ' (i.e. turn underbars into spaces? s/_/ /g ?) once stuff has been imported?
FrancisT is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-21-2009, 07:50 AM   #4
itimpi
Wizard
itimpi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.itimpi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.itimpi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.itimpi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.itimpi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.itimpi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.itimpi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.itimpi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.itimpi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.itimpi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.itimpi ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 4,552
Karma: 950151
Join Date: Nov 2008
Device: Sony PRS-950, iphone/ipad (Marvin/iBooks/QuickReader)
For the baen books, might it not be easier to simply re-download them in a format such as .LIT which DOES have good metaadata, and is handled well by Calibre? I tend to use the .LIT format as the amster for all my baen originated books.
itimpi is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-21-2009, 10:45 AM   #5
pdurrant
The Grand Mouse 高貴的老鼠
pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.pdurrant ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
pdurrant's Avatar
 
Posts: 71,406
Karma: 305065800
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Norfolk, England
Device: Kindle Voyage
Now there's an interesting idea. Once the Mobipocket export is in the GUI that could be a very good option.

Paul

Quote:
Originally Posted by itimpi View Post
For the baen books, might it not be easier to simply re-download them in a format such as .LIT which DOES have good metaadata, and is handled well by Calibre? I tend to use the .LIT format as the amster for all my baen originated books.
pdurrant is offline   Reply With Quote
Advert
Old 01-21-2009, 11:59 AM   #6
akash
Junior Member
akash began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 3
Karma: 10
Join Date: Jan 2009
Device: none
adding metadata

If not. Is there a way that I can examine the files to see if they are missing the meta-data? And how easy would it be to create a plugin that contacts (say) the Baen website to get the correct metadata for a file?

Now that I've imported all my books though I'm now having trouble manually adding metadata via the GUI. There is I see a way to add/modify metadata via the CLI. If I do this will it break things when I correct the Title/author fields?
akash is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-21-2009, 12:48 PM   #7
kovidgoyal
creator of calibre
kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
kovidgoyal's Avatar
 
Posts: 43,776
Karma: 22666666
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Mumbai, India
Device: Various
metadata in calibre is stored ina database, you can modify it from the commandline or the GUI, doesn't matter. The metadata in your original files is not touched unless you use save to disk or send to device at which time the metadata is updated in a *copy* of the original file
kovidgoyal is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-22-2009, 01:34 AM   #8
bwaldron
Wizard
bwaldron ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bwaldron ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bwaldron ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bwaldron ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bwaldron ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bwaldron ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bwaldron ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bwaldron ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bwaldron ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bwaldron ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.bwaldron ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
bwaldron's Avatar
 
Posts: 1,229
Karma: 543210
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Gatlinburg, Tennessee
Device: Kindles: Paperwhite Signature Ed., Oasis 2, Voyage
Quote:
Originally Posted by itimpi View Post
For the baen books, might it not be easier to simply re-download them in a format such as .LIT which DOES have good metaadata, and is handled well by Calibre? I tend to use the .LIT format as the amster for all my baen originated books.
Also, many of the Baen books have been updated to the newer Mobipocket format with proper metadata -- so you could re-download them if they were purchased some time ago.
bwaldron is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
mibo metadata baen

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
bulk metadata - 2 issues with series cybmole Calibre 7 09-27-2010 07:18 AM
metadata issues kwren Calibre 7 09-17-2010 03:39 PM
Mobi for Kindle issues jefffish Calibre 0 09-17-2010 11:16 AM
Issues importing mobi books from Fictionwise. splat Calibre 14 02-22-2010 02:35 AM
Metadata issues Eaque Calibre 9 01-14-2010 06:06 AM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 10:33 PM.


MobileRead.com is a privately owned, operated and funded community.