Duplicate Multiple Books?

[MarjaE]

I often want to duplicate book records, and just type up the differences, instead of creating new book records and typing everything all over again.

* Files may represent different versions of the same book

* Separate chapters

* Different editions

* Different translations

I can't see any way to set up a keyboard shortcut to duplicate each book. I have to go through a dialogue to duplicate each book, again and again and again. I can't select multiple books, and go through the dialogue once to create 1 duplicate of 2 or 10 or more selected books.

Is there some trick I've missed this time?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by MarjaE

I often want to duplicate book records, and just type up the differences, instead of creating new book records and typing everything all over again.

* Files may represent different versions of the same book

* Separate chapters

* Different editions

* Different translations

I can't see any way to set up a keyboard shortcut to duplicate each book. I have to go through a dialogue to duplicate each book, again and again and again. I can't select multiple books, and go through the dialogue once to create 1 duplicate of 2 or 10 or more selected books.

Is there some trick I've missed this time?

Yep! (It was added fairly recently)
On the Edit Metadata Icon (pad and pencil):right click: copy metadata
now add an empty book (right click add books)
open that, now use the edit metadata icon again: Paste Metadata
BTW you will need to turn off Auto Merge formats on the Adding Books

[MarjaE]

Thank you! That works.

[BetterRed]

@MarjaE - Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V work too

And there's this Tweak: Exclude fields when copy/pasting metadata

BR

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@MarjaE - Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V work too

And there's this Tweak: Exclude fields when copy/pasting metadata

BR

The default shortcut is none.
But, isn't your method for a single field value (I do this a lot), rather than a full 'record'?

[BetterRed]

I must have given it Ctrl+C/V the moment I got it

Not sure what you mean about single values.

I mainly use it on my media library where I have many custom columns. I use the tweak to exclude Author and Title columns (because they come from the file name), and columns that vary from clip to clip such as Pubdate, Duration, Talent etc.

I can then copy columns that are the same from clip to clip like Broadcaster, Presenter, Producer, etc as a group - i.e. Ctrl+C, Ctrl+Home, Ctrl+V - job done.

Saves me heaps of time, and it's far less error prone. Because I do all metadata editing in the Book List this feature is a 'natural' for me - it's like copying a row in a spreadsheet.

BR

[theducks]

Single (cell) Values = Column value eg {publisher}
which is what a standard Copy and Paste works with.

[BetterRed]

The Ctrl+C/V in cell edit are distinct from the Ctrl+C/V in the book list. So assigning them to metadata edit copy cells and paste cells does no harm.

Doing cell by cell copy and paste would require 12 steps for each cell.

1. go to the copy from book
2. go to the cell (Tab, Tab, Tab...)
3. open the cell (F2),
4. select the value (Ctrl/A)
5. copy the cell (Ctrl+C)
6. close the cell (Enter)
7. go to the copy to book (Ctrl+Home - assuming it's at top of list)
8. go to the cell (Tab, Tab, Tab...)
9. open the cell (F2},
10. if cell is not empty - clear the cell (Ctrl+A, Del)
11. paste the copied value (Ctrl+V)
12. close the cell (Enter)

I copy 11 columns in one fell swoop with 4 steps

1. go to the copy from book
2. copy the non-excluded cells (Ctrl+C)
3. go to the copy to book (Ctrl+Home - assuming it's at top of list)
4. paste the copied cells (Ctrl+V)

Unlike some I'm not inclined to count key-presses or clicks, but 4 fairly safe key-presses versus ~200 error prone key-presses, is a saving worth having - IMO.

- there's probably a use case for a single cell copy and paste feature.

BR