Adding metadata to EPUBs Kobo devices will recognize

[ceridwen]

I'd like to automate adding metadata to EPUBs I'm generating myself so that the Kobo will display that metadata. The most important feature I want is some sort of tagging, so for instance I could search my Kobo for something like "portal fantasy". Does the Kobo software handle any kinds of metadata beyond title, publisher, author, and date?

If not, I'm assuming the correct solution is probably to use Calibre, the Kobo plugin, and Kobo shelves. Is it possible to get Calibre to populate a column (custom or otherwise) from metadata in an epub, or am I going to have to look at writing a plugin?

[davidfor]

The Kobo devices can display the following metadata:

• Title, Authors, Comments/Synopsis, Series name and number, Publisher and Published Date, ISBN, Language and Subtitle.

It does not extract the subtitle, series info or the published date from sideloaded epubs. The ISBN can be extracted incorrectly as it takes the first dc:identifier from the OPF. Calibre can update these fields directly through the drivers when the device is connected

The library lists will display:

• Title, Authors, Series name and number and subtitle. Plus reading status, file size and book type.

The other metadata is displayed in the details view of each book.

The search will search:

• Title, Authors, Series name and Subtitle.

You can change the values of some of these fields with data in calibre using metadata plugboards. These can set the data based on other columns in the calibre library. For example, someone here puts the tags in subtitle field.

Kobo devices also support collections which can be changed from calibre during the connection

[Terisa de morgan]

Just a question. Is it possible to modify the file size? Or does modifying it affect the device behavior? Because, as it orders the library by size, I would like to include the number of pages there if there is no problem....

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

Just a question. Is it possible to modify the file size? Or does modifying it affect the device behavior? Because, as it orders the library by size, I would like to include the number of pages there if there is no problem....

The file size is used to work out if the book has changed. If the on-disk size and the database size don't agree, the book gets removed from the database and treated as a new book.

But, it would be nice to display a page or word count instead instead of the filesize.

[ceridwen]

davidfor, you've confirmed more or less what I was afraid of: Kobos don't extract useful metadata from epubs As far as I know, it's not possible on a Kobo to search the comments/synopsis field for text, comments/synopsis is also not visible except from details so it's not very useful for browsing. Meanwhile, the series info and subtitle, which are visible in the browsing mode and are searchable, aren't extracted automatically.

That means I'm looking at some method using Calibre. Where does Calibre populate the Tags column from when reading an epub? Using a plugboard to add tags to the subtitle field is probably adequate for now until I can figure out something better.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by ceridwen

That means I'm looking at some method using Calibre. Where does Calibre populate the Tags column from when reading an epub?

The tags come from the "dc:subject" tags in the OPF of the book. Or, you maintain in the calibre interface.

Using a plugboard to add tags to the subtitle field is probably adequate for now until I can figure out something better.

The subtitle isn't a standard column that can be updated using plugboards. The driver has fields to do this, but it uses a template just like the plugboards.