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Old 07-22-2018, 10:38 PM   #1
kunkel321
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Automatically convert only epub when added?

Hi All, I have Calibre set up so that books from a particular folder are automatically added to my library. My preferred conversion output format is mobi. I see that it's possible to have books auto-converted when they get added, but really I'd like for only epub files to get converted to mobi format. Is this possible?

Alternately, if I could just have it convert all -- but SKIP pdf files -- that would be okay too.
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Old 07-22-2018, 11:38 PM   #2
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Why does it bother you if PDF files are converted? You can tell calibre to always sed PDF in preference to MOBI if both exist in the device configuration.
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Old 07-23-2018, 12:21 AM   #3
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Originally Posted by kovidgoyal View Post
Why does it bother you if PDF files are converted? You can tell calibre to always sed PDF in preference to MOBI if both exist in the device configuration.
Thanks for the reply Kovid! I find that PDF files don't convert well to MOBI format. The text flow gets all broken up. I do like using PDFs for manuals and whatnot. For fiction books though, I prefer MOBI. So sometimes PDF is preferred and other times MOBI is preferred. My Fire 10 doesn't handle EPUB well. Lots of the books I find on the web are EPUBs though. EPUBs are okay for reading on Windows, but I convert them to MOBI prior to sending them to CalibreCompanion.
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Old 07-23-2018, 12:33 AM   #4
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But if you prefer MOBI sometimes and PDF sometimes then you would not be able to use MOBI for those books that you prefered if there was an option to not convert PDF, since that would mean that the MOBI format would not exist.

IMO it's better to always convert and then pick the format you want to send to the device at the time you are doing the sending.
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Old 07-23-2018, 12:49 AM   #5
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For most purposes, when I obtain books, things like technical manuals are already formatted as PDFs, and those are okay -- I leave them as is, and use them as PDFs. Things like fiction, biographies, etc. are usually formatted as EPUBs when they are obtained. So it's only those EPUBs that are converted.

It occurs to me that I could still auto-convert everything, then manually go in and filter to show only books that match "PDF; MOBI" and then bulk delete all of the MOBI file types. That seems kludgy though.

Anyway, no problem. The feature-set that is already present, more than meets my needs.
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Old 07-23-2018, 02:25 PM   #6
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I also think this would be useful, if only to save the storage space for the unneeded conversions.

As a workaround, a saved search for formats:"=PDF" and formats:"=MOBI" will find the books that have both formats for cleanup.

(Another possible search would be formats:#>1, which will find all books with multiple formats, if you only ever want to keep one.
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Old 07-23-2018, 04:35 PM   #7
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Originally Posted by bkennelly View Post
...As a workaround, a saved search for formats:"=PDF" and formats:"=MOBI" will find the books that have both formats for cleanup....
I had thought about this workaround. It wouldn't be good for me though, because I actually do have a few titles that I've obtained as both an original PDF and an original MOBI (or EPUB). I've merged those, so I wouldn't want to delete the MOBIs. It's just MOBIs that I convert from PDFs that turn out messed up.

To tell the truth, I'd probably just use exclusively PDF, but the native Kindle reader on my Fire has a couple of nice features that I really like. It has a quick-lookup dictionary and also remembers the last-page-read location. To remember the location, I have to open the book from within the Kindle reader. Only MOBI books seem to work for this.
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Old 07-25-2018, 01:17 PM   #8
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Your case is similar to mine, except that I use mostly readers that support epub and PDF. Converting from PDF is unnecessary and not usually very successful.

I finally decided that I really didn't need auto-conversion, because Calibre can do it when I send the books to the device if I don't already have a format supported by the device, and I can read them on my computer in almost any format without conversion.

Another approach would be to use a tag or custom column to keep track of the books that you want to maintain in multiple formats, and use that to exclude those books from the search.
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Old 07-26-2018, 07:01 PM   #9
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I found another workaround (sort of). In Preferences > Adding Books > there is a tab for "Adding Actions" and another for "Automatic Adding." Each tab has a checkbox for "Automatically convert added books to output format." If you use only the one in the Automatic Adding tab, then you can add PDFs to the "Ignore books with the following extension" list.

Currently, I have a subfolder (called "Send to Calibre") in my Downloads folder of Win 10. When I get new books, I drop them all into the subfolder and the EPUBs get automagically moved to Calibre and converted to MOBI in one step. PDFs just stay in the subfolder and I add them manually later.

Still having an auto-convert filter would save a step. In case Kovid changes his mind about it... Here's a mockup of what the GUI might look like.

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