Too many Kindle cloud ebooks for Calibre?

[Andyjenk]

I have thousands of Kindle ebooks in Archive (cloud). Do I need to download them all just to create catalogs of them using Calibre or can Calibre get Author and Title from the Archive?

[BetterRed]

If you can produce a CSV file (or similar) for the Archive in the Cloud then you could import it into calibre via the Import List plug-in.

BR

[theducks]

You can also create empty books using the Add from ISBN feature if the ISBN list is availabe

[Andyjenk]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

If you can produce a CSV file (or similar) for the Archive in the Cloud then you could import it into calibre via the Import List plug-in.

BR

Thank You. I must be missing something basic. I've downloaded Calibre, selected Preferences then Plugins, clicked on Catalog Generator plug-ins and there is Catalog CSV XML which seems to be what I want. If I click on 'show only installed plug-ins' it is not listed. If I double click it it says it does not need customisation and is still not shown as installed. If I click on Load plug-in from a file I get one of my folders opening which does not contain Calibre Plugins.
If it isn't installed, how come I can disable it? If it is installed, why doesn't it appear in the list and where is it? If I select get new plug-ins I don't see it there.
This is the first time I've tried to use Calibre.
Sorry if I'm being thick but how do I get it and where can I expect to access it when I've got it?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Andyjenk

Thank You. I must be missing something basic. I've downloaded Calibre, selected Preferences then Plugins, clicked on Catalog Generator plug-ins and there is Catalog CSV XML which seems to be what I want. If I click on 'show only installed plug-ins' it is not listed. If I double click it it says it does not need customisation and is still not shown as installed. If I click on Load plug-in from a file I get one of my folders opening which does not contain Calibre Plugins.
If it isn't installed, how come I can disable it? If it is installed, why doesn't it appear in the list and where is it? If I select get new plug-ins I don't see it there.
This is the first time I've tried to use Calibre.
Sorry if I'm being thick but how do I get it and where can I expect to access it when I've got it?

That is a bundled plugin, used to create the catalogs. That gets used when you use Convert books ==> create a catalog of the books in your calibre library. When you click show only user-installed plugins, it is not listed, nor are all the other plugins there, since they were installed by calibre NOT the user.

What you want is the Import List plugin, which can be gotten by downloading the zip from that thread and adding it via the Load plugin from file (you will need to navigate to the right download folder).

However, a much simpler way is to click the other button, "Get new plugins". This will open up a list of optional plugins, derived from the index here on mobileread, and the Import List plugin will be listed there. Highlight it and click the Install button in the corner.

As with most plugins, (the exception being metadata download and device interface plugins) this plugin will offer to put an icon on the toolbar by which it will be used.

[Andyjenk]

Thank you. That makes sense now.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Andyjenk

Thank you. That makes sense now.

@Andyjenk

I made the assumption you were familiar with Calibre and its workings

Tip : if you see something in a Mobileread post that's underlined it usually indicates its a link - as in Happy New Year

BR

[Andyjenk]

Thank you, I am totally new to Calibre! And a Happy New Year to All.

I'm wondering if Calibre may be too powerful for what I want. Importing the CSV I get no matches in my library - TRUE! If I leave my books in the cloud and don't want to de-DRM them I'm not sure if it will work.

My situation is as follows - I have 25,000+ ebooks in the cloud. I have created a CSV file containing Title, Author, Purchase date, Sort-Title, Sort-Author and Sort-Purchase Date. I was planning on importing them to import them into a spreadsheet, add 'read' and 'genre' columns, add indicators in the 'genre' columns such as a1, a2, a3... to indicate book sequences. I can then sort on any combination, select off those with an indicator in the genre column, save and create Mobi 'Index' files to use to store on my Kindle (Kindles and Kindle Apps refuse to list more than 15,000 cloud books).
I can also add my tree books as and when.
I'm beginning to think I've done the hard work in writing the program to create the CSV file and that Calibre may be too complicated unless I store the ebooks on my own storage.
It would have been nice to have the cover images but I can live without them.
Have I got the wrong idea about Calibre? My life is not long enough to download all 25,000+ books!
Sorry about my ignorance but I can't face reading the Calibre Manual if Calibre won't be of much help.

[BetterRed]

@Andyjenk - Many people only use calibre as a catalog - i.e. they don't keep their ebook 'format' files (.mobi, .pdf, .epub etc) in it's folders. If they do add them then its only as means of adding the book to the catalogue to extract any embedded metadata - they then remove the ebook format file, whilst leaving behind the 'catalogue entry'.

You will still get the author and book folders, but they'll only contain a cover.jpg and a metadata.opf. The first is so calibre can display them, the second is a backup of the metadata information that's used if the library database needs rebuilding. I've been using calibre for almost 3 years, I've never had to rebuild a database.

The Sort-xxxx columns are part of the Calibre furniture, it creates them automatically (there are set & forget preferences to control how), it can do hierarchical genres, and handles series quite neatly etc.

I can't think of anything that I could do in Excel or similar that I can't do in Calibre and more often than not its much easier in Calibre, and very rarely harder. But there are things I can do in Calibre that I wouldn't attempt to do in Excel - eg download metadata from sites like Goodreads, and covers from Google images.

By not adding the ebook files you will not have access to, or need, functions that operate on the ebook files - e.g. Conversion, Send to Device, Save to Disk, View and Edit.

As well as the GUI calibre also ships a rich set of command line utilities, you may want to consider using them rather than, or in addition to, the GUI.

I suggest you use a subset of your library to create the 'catalogue' and start to explore calibres features. It can be a daunting program at first, but one of characteristics I like about Calibre is its consistency. After a while things I found that 'things' are almost invariably where I'd expect them to be, not parked in some obscure backwater like some programs. Another nice thing about Calibre is that if you don't use feature X there are usually no side effects - i.e. you don't lose access to something that has nothing to do with feature X.

BR

[LadyKate]

Originally Posted by Andyjenk

Thank you, I am totally new to Calibre! And a Happy New Year to All.

I'm wondering if Calibre may be too powerful for what I want. Importing the CSV I get no matches in my library - TRUE! If I leave my books in the cloud and don't want to de-DRM them I'm not sure if it will work.

My situation is as follows - I have 25,000+ ebooks in the cloud. I have created a CSV file containing Title, Author, Purchase date, Sort-Title, Sort-Author and Sort-Purchase Date. I was planning on importing them to import them into a spreadsheet, add 'read' and 'genre' columns, add indicators in the 'genre' columns such as a1, a2, a3... to indicate book sequences. I can then sort on any combination, select off those with an indicator in the genre column, save and create Mobi 'Index' files to use to store on my Kindle (Kindles and Kindle Apps refuse to list more than 15,000 cloud books).
I can also add my tree books as and when.
I'm beginning to think I've done the hard work in writing the program to create the CSV file and that Calibre may be too complicated unless I store the ebooks on my own storage.
It would have been nice to have the cover images but I can live without them.
Have I got the wrong idea about Calibre? My life is not long enough to download all 25,000+ books!
Sorry about my ignorance but I can't face reading the Calibre Manual if Calibre won't be of much help.

I would be very uncomfortable not having a copy of my purchased books on a local drive (or three). If something happens to the cloud version or the company you will have lost all those books.

I always setup a pc version of the program when I purchase books and have them delivered to my pc. While they still exist in the "cloud" universe, I feel secure having them locally available. Guess I'm not trusting that the company will always exist lol.