Sorting on a Kindle

[heeby]

I know this has been addressed before with some people swearing to have solutions but none of them have worked for me so I want to try again.

I have a Kindle 4NT. Regardless of how I set the Author Field I cannot get the books listed By last name first. I have tried manually setting the sort field in Calibre, I have tried setting the output options when converting to MOBI. No matter what I do the Kindle always sorts by first name.

Has anyone found a way that works?

[NiLuJe]

@heeby: The Kindle doesn't care about the author_sort field.

That's why books purchased from Amazon (should) show up with authors formatted like 'LN, FN' (which you'd usually see in the author_sort field).

The very effective solution Calibre came up with to still keep pretty 'FN LN' formatting in the author field, and thus in Calibre's UI, is the 'Use author sort for author' setting in the MOBI output settings: you get to keep sane metadata on Calibre's side, and the Kindle gets a file with metadata it likes, and gets sorted properly on the device.

TL;DR:

author: FN LN
author_sort: LN, FN
MOBI output settings: Use author sort for author

[heeby]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@heeby: The Kindle doesn't care about the author_sort field.

That's why books purchased from Amazon (should) show up with authors formatted like 'LN, FN' (which you'd usually see in the author_sort field).

The very effective solution Calibre came up with to still keep pretty 'FN LN' formatting in the author field, and thus in Calibre's UI, is the 'Use author sort for author' setting in the MOBI output settings: you get to keep sane metadata on Calibre's side, and the Kindle gets a file with metadata it likes, and gets sorted properly on the device.

TL;DR:

author: FN LN
author_sort: LN, FN
MOBI output settings: Use author sort for author

The thing is it hasn't worked for me. I have it FN LN in Calibre....and use the "Use author sort for author" setting in the Mobi output and it STILL sorts FN LN on the Kindle. I remember when that was added and I gave up as it never worked for me. I posted in the Calibre forum asking but never got any reply.

[NiLuJe]

@heeby: They're *shown* as FN LN on the Kindle, but they're sorted by LN (when sorting by Authors, that is).

[heeby]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@heeby: They're *shown* as FN LN on the Kindle, but they're sorted by LN (when sorting by Authors, that is).

I am either retarded or something is buggy because I swear it sorts by first name on the kindle no matter how I set it.

[NiLuJe]

@heeby: There's a quick way to check, but I have no idea how that works on the K4, since it lacks a keyboard:

Home screen, sorted by Authors, Go To > G [or just type G on older devices], that should jump to the page with authors whose last names begin with a G.

And as a picture's worth a thousand words, an example (showing that it even works with multiple authors):

(That's a screenshot of an individual book convert setting page, but you probably want to set it globally, in the Preferences).

Just to clarify, NiLuJe is talking about a setting that you use when converting a book to mobi (including if you convert a book from mobi to mobi). If you want to change the metadata (author, title, cover, etc.) on a book you got from amazon, you have to connect your kindle to the computer, in Calibre copy to book to the library, then DELETE THE BOOK FROM YOUR KINDLE. You can then change meta data (you don't need to convert, or re-make a mobi file) and send it to your kindle. You MUST remove it from your kindle after bringing it into Calibre, or else the meta data doesn't seem to get put on to the kindle when you send it to your kindle.

[NiLuJe]

@EltaninPub: Well, depending on your save template, it might very well be, since it probably won't end up with the exact same path/filename, but you'll probably end up with two copies of the same book: one being the original from Amazon, and another one, sent by Calibre.

(And even with the same filename, in-place metadata editing of a book already cataloged by the Kindle should work fine).

But, that's nitpicking . I completely agree that you should delete the 'original' book after importing it into Calibre, if for no other reason than uncluttering the documents folder .

[BeeTee-Ess]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@heeby: There's a quick way to check, but I have no idea how that works on the K4, since it lacks a keyboard:

Home screen, sorted by Authors, Go To > G [or just type G on older devices], that should jump to the page with authors whose last names begin with a G...

The K4 handles it by requiring you to select the 'return' symbol (the bent arrow) on the software keyboard after selecting the letter you want to jump to.

And yes, both my K3 and my K4s have my authors sorted by LN FN, although they are displayed FN LN.