Flag book to NOT send to device

[maddz]

I did search, but couldn't find anything...

I have a number of books which are very large graphic intensive PDF files which I read using my Google Nexus 7 (and live in Google Drive). My other books are (primarily) epubs which I read on my Kobo Touch (and live in Dropbox). As I want to manage all my books via Calibre, I'd like a way of flagging specific titles to not upload to the device (i.e. the Kobo) if they are inadvertently selected.

Is there a way of doing this? If I upload too many pdfs to the Kobo, I run out of memory...

[theducks]

Make a Virtual Library for each device ( use a custom tag column so it won't appear in the jacket metadata)

[davidfor]

If you never want to send PDF the Kobo, you can remove PDF from the list of formats for the device. This is done in the drivers configuration. Right click on the device button when it is connected and select the configure option. Then find PDF in the list at the top and uncheck it. After you save the change, you will need to restart calibre.

With this in place, if you do try to send a PDF to the Kobo, you will be prompted to convert it first. Answering no at that point will stop the send.

[maddz]

Problem is, some of my ebooks are pdf format and those I do want on the device (these date back to when Tor did the occasional freebie). I suppose I could try and convert them although I know the results leave a great deal to be desired. It's the graphics-intensive 10Mb+ pdfs I want not to send - things like the Girl Genius pdfs or RPG rule books; those very soon fill up the memory.

Re the virtual library, the Nexus is never connected to Calibre - I use Google Drive and I just do a direct download when I want to access something (otherwise it goes pear-shaped when I loose the wifi connection). Hence why I asked about a way of tagging books not to be uploaded.

The virtual library is an interesting point though; is there a way to flag Google Drive and Dropbox as virtual devices?

[BetterRed]

@maddz - If you had a Reading List or a Virtual Library for Nexus Only, and a NexusOnly folder somewhere, then you could use the Connect and Send to folder facility, it would give you a 'virtual device' that you would replicate to Google Drive.

Why mention a Reading List, because you can add books to a RL arbitrarily, whereas a VL has to have a rule in the form of a search. Which would suit best, depends on volumes, volatility and your way of working. The Reading List PI (← click) is device aware.

If you use the Connect and Send To a Google Drive replicated folder approach then it will result in having two copies of the big PDF's on your computer, one in the calibre library folder, and another in the NexusOnly folder... think of it as an extra backup

BR

[maddz]

I may need talking through this (I've installed the Reading List plug-in and activated the device specific columns). What I have in Calibre are the following:

1, ebooks in ebook format (basically epubs because that's what the Kobo wants)
2, ebooks in pdf format
3, graphic intensive pdfs (graphic novels and RPG rulebooks)

The devices I have are these:

1, Kobo Touch for ebooks
2, Dropbox for ebooks for the Nexus 7
3, Google Drive for everything
4, My hard drive where the Calibre folder is (using Mac OS)

Basically, what I want to be able to to is send everything to Google and only the ebooks (epub and pdf) to the Kobo and Dropbox because of the space limitations in both.

[chaley]

You could put a size qualifier on the virtual library. The size column gives you the size of the largest format. You can get the size of any specific format using the template language.

For example, the search
size:<1000000
will give you all books with the largest format smaller than a megabyte.

[PeterT]

So maybe a VL like

(formats:"=PDF" and size:<1000000) or  not formats:"=PDF"

to select all books that are not PDFs OR are PDFs less than 1,000,000

[maddz]

OK, well I'll have to load up all the RPG PDFs and see about size setting... Fingers crossed, that will work; otherwise I'll have to try and manage things manually... (All this was a reason for enquiring whether there was a flag I could set on individual books to not send them to the device.)

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by maddz

OK, well I'll have to load up all the RPG PDFs and see about size setting... Fingers crossed, that will work; otherwise I'll have to try and manage things manually... (All this was a reason for enquiring whether there was a flag I could set on individual books to not send them to the device.)

If that is the way you want to do it, then simple add a tag. The tags can be anything you want. So, something like "ForKobo" and "ForASUS". You can then use a search, virtual library or reading list.

I think I would go the reading list. For the Kobo:

- Create a reading list that is "Auto populated from search". The search would be 'tag:="ForKobo"'.
- In the "Sync Options", select the Kobo device. For the "When syncing" option, I'm not sure if you want "Add new list items" or "Replace device with list, add new items only". I would also select the "Sync to device as soon as it is connected".

With that, you add the "ForKobo" tag to a book, the book is added to the reading list and when you connect the Kobo, the book is automatically sent to the device.

I think that will achieve what you want.

[maddz]

Size setting unfortunately won't work; some of the pdfs are smaller than the epubs as they're character sheets not rules, so I'll have to use davidfor's tag suggestion.

How can I manage two virtual devices - Googledrive and Dropbox? I only seemed to be able to set up one but not the other. (It's going to take me a while to go through stuff - I've more than doubled the number of books and now that I've recovered from the tonsillitis I have to spend time at the office...)