Add books _ duplicate options

[jeth32]

So far the only options I have found when adding books and duplicate title are found is to either add them anyway, or not.

Is there some option somewhere which would work like a Windows copy hat would let you replace an older copy with a new one so you don't end up with duplicates?

Thank you......

[JSWolf]

There's no reliable way to know if one copy is older than the other other than by the date/time and that isn't reliable enough in this case. However, what could be done is that when you get told the book you are adding might be a duplicate, to give you and option to delete the one that's already in the library in case you know it's older and you no longer want it.

[theducks]

a permitted 'Add' can OVERWRITE dups or make a separate entry

What it cant do is compare timestamps or content

[jeth32]

Thanks for responses, JSWolf and theducks,

The option to choose which one to keep is certainly a good option, and probably safer in the event that you were merging an older library with a new one.

"theducks"....I'm not sure what you meant by "add permitted" and "Overwrite". I don't recall seeing those terms, so I guess I'm going to have to spend some more time reading.

Thanks again......

[theducks]

Add permitted; Means Follow your settings
What do you Permit, What to do when there is a clash

[jeth32]

Thanks again, "the ducks",

To paraphrase Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady (and date myself ) "By Jove, I think he's got it!"

I worked my way down through Preferences/Adding Books/The Add Process....
to: Automerge/Overwrite existing formats

I'll see how that works the next time I have some to merge; in fact I think I'll try redoing a couple that I did today.....tomorrow, when I wake up.

[BetterRed]

@jeth32 - I prefer to add books to an "Intake" library and use the Find Duplicates (plugin)->Find library duplicates feature to look for duplicates in the "Target" library.

Books which are not duplicates (the vast majority) can be moved the book from the "Intake" to the "Target" Library with impunity. Books for which there are duplicates must be 'investigated'. My Add Books preferences are:



More importantly having an Intake library gives me a 'platform' where I can get the metadata correct up front. When I was adding books direct to the Target library, I was lax in doing that, so I had lots of anomalies like 'mispelt' author and publisher names. There are tools to help find such things and fix them, but I prefer prevention to remedy.

BR

[crane3]

Originally Posted by theducks

a permitted 'Add' can OVERWRITE dups or make a separate entry

What it cant do is compare timestamps or content

Have had the "overwrite" option & it doesn't work. Have 2 recent books that are dups & remember that there are others.

The books are from Amazon which updates to existing books which have also been converted to epub fromat. So it may be that the add & overwrite is only checking the new AZW3 versus the EPUB format?!.

Have decided to uncheck the automerge to prevent more dups in the library; only have around 620 books now so not a big deal so far.