Possible to have 2 files of same format under one book record ?

[Riva3000]

As the topic says.
I have multiple readers and e.g. for plaintext (.txt) each reader supports one different encoding.
It would be nice to be able to have different (sub)versions of the same ebook format under one book record (instead of having to maintain duplicate book records for that).

Is there a way to do this ?

Thanks for advice.

[itimpi]

Not in principle - there can only be one file with a given extension.

However one possible work-around is to put multiple file into an archive (e.g. RAR) and attach that instead. Would that satisfy what you are trying to achieve.

[Riva3000]

Thanks itimpi.

Im affraid it wount.
As I wrote, I have several ereaders and each has different problems with different ebook / documents formats.

For example my iRex800 has trouble with books with national characters in text, combined with specified fonts. I have to strip those (eg.) EPUBs of all font tags in editor outside Calibre to make them readable. Then reimport to Calibre and sync.
But I would also like to preserve the original ePub with the fonts/styles for my other (and future) devices of course. ..and keeping them somewhere in separate hand-made dir structure ouside of Calibre kind of denies the purpose of Calibre as one-place, accessible ebook library.

Having them in rar makes them inpossible to sync to devices I guess ?

Another case is with mentioned txt documents. Again, iRex seems to support only specific encoding for non-ascii plaintext. My other reader supports other one.
I would really like to have all those sub-versions of the files under one ebook record in Calibre and just set which sub-version will be synced to each device.

Plus it would be generaly usable for keeping coversion history for each format, or having a eg. custom PDF for different ereaders screen sizes etc.

If there is no other way / workaround for this, is it possible to request / propose this feature somewhere ?

[itimpi]

You can request a change via the same system used to report bugs as described at http://calibre-ebook.com/bugs

However this feels to me like something that would require major changes to the database schema and associated code so unlikely to happen. I also do not see how it could be handled from a workflow perspective. However that does not mean it is not worth requesting it as always possible that one of the developers can see a way to implement it.

[kovidgoyal]

This is not going to happen. One file per format is a basic design decision that permeates all of calibre, it is not going to be changed.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Riva3000

As the topic says.
I have multiple readers and e.g. for plaintext (.txt) each reader supports one different encoding.
It would be nice to be able to have different (sub)versions of the same ebook format under one book record (instead of having to maintain duplicate book records for that).

Is there a way to do this ?

Thanks for advice.

@Riva3000 - Calibre will allow you to store 'strange' file types in its folders, you must add them via Add Books-> Add files to selected book records (Shift A)

So - maybe you could change the extension of files based on the reader for which they are optimal - eg .txt_irex, txt_iphone etc - they would not be convertible though - except maybe via the ebook_convert command line.

But they would be viewable via the OS file association, and/or via Open With extension.

What I don't know is if there's a way you can change the extension when the file is Sent to a Device. Maybe someone can give some advice on that -

Maybe change extension on send or save would be something to which Kovid would be amenable to doing - if it can't be done already.

Attached is a screen shot of the sort of thing I do - in this case I've added an FLV to a 'book', which is in fact a transcript of a Charlie Rose interview with Jeremy Grantham.

When you add the 'strange' file you'll need to change the file type selector on the Add book dialogue to All Files - in order to see the 'strange' file. Unfortunately you can't drop 'strange files' onto the book details panel - it only accepts 'known' ebook file types.

BR

[JSWolf]

Here's a good solution...

Create a custom column for the name of the device. Then you can add duplicates and when you have a given device plugged in, you can do a search on the device name and see just the books formatted for that device.