replace calibre metadata with epub or mobi metadata

[gteague]

long ago when first using calibre i thought it would be more efficient if i put the series # into the title, e.g., 'reacher 01: killing floor'. this sorta worked ok and seemed to be less work than unscrambling what series a book was. considering that my kindle wouldn't pick up the series #, it was for sure the easiest way to order book series for the kindle.

but with the arrival of a new oasis capable of actually holding my calibre library i've embarked upon a massive clean up and somewhere along the way all of my previous calibre metadata got lost--likely many years ago after a system corruption or crash. so i'm going book-by-book downloading a new copy of metadata. i'd like to bulk download about 100 books at a time, but my oh-so-clever titles keep the engine from finding a title match--i've outsmarted myself.

what i'd like to do is go back to ground zero and copy the original epub or mobi metadata to overwrite any existing calibre meatadata, then i could go back to downloading new metadata in bulk once i have the correct titles.

i've searched, but i can't find an easy way to form search terms for this and have come up dry. is this possible? if so, can someone post a link to what i need to do?

thanks, /guy

[theducks]

Calibre Bulk mode (more than 1 book selected) Edit
Tick the box "Set Metadata from files": OK

Note this may no longer work IF you have embedded the metadata using one of the tools availabe

[gteague]

at first glance, it doesn't look like it's working for me. i selected 10 files and applied the 'set metadata from files' but when i pulled up the md editor and refreshed it using the epub format, it was different and when i refreshed using mobi it was different from the bulk operation and the epub.

perhaps this means it takes the info from a special file in the book folder? ?opf? and if i ever had any of those, they are long gone. bottom line is that this was well worth trying, but it didn't restore the original titles.

thanks! /guy

[theducks]

Originally Posted by gteague

at first glance, it doesn't look like it's working for me. i selected 10 files and applied the 'set metadata from files' but when i pulled up the md editor and refreshed it using the epub format, it was different and when i refreshed using mobi it was different from the bulk operation and the epub.

perhaps this means it takes the info from a special file in the book folder? ?opf? and if i ever had any of those, they are long gone. bottom line is that this was well worth trying, but it didn't restore the original titles.

thanks! /guy

The OPF is what you see NOW. It is the backup for the DB entry.
Yes, there is a flaw in my thinking if multiple formats are available. I don't know which prevails in bulk mode

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by gteague

perhaps this means it takes the info from a special file in the book folder? ?opf? and if i ever had any of those, they are long gone.

How come they are 'long gone'?

BR

[gteague]

operator error is always the most likely cause of such things. when i first got calibre years ago i set it up to process ebooks for my kindle. i would add small batches of books and always tediously enter metadata which is when i glommed onto the title modifications which are now causing me headaches. and back then i didn't even connect the kindle as i had another brain fart scheme to add each book from caliber via the 'send to kindle' function which would keep a copy in the amazon cloud for me and those copies would always be available to the kindle from anywhere i was. this all worked well for many years, but i sure didn't use caliber for much.

i think the problem crept in when i started experimenting with moving the calibre library around to various devices and cloud storage so i could access my books from devices other than the kindle. anyway, that's the only way i can explain it unless i had a hare-brained clean-up scheme and somehow managed to blitz all the metadata entries from within calibre itself and didn't notice.

i plead very guilty to not ever understanding how metadata worked. up until a few days ago i thought my calibre metadata entries were going back into the actual epub and mobi files although, considering the kindle didn't always show what i'd entered into calibre, i should have figured things out quicker. but, with most of us, our goal is to read, not to tweak. and i'm paying the price now--i've restored the metadata on 500 of my books and have about 2200 to go.

btw, i was very disappointed in that /polish/ function i discovered along the way. it only applies to epub, not mobi which is the format which would go onto my kindle. it also promises to put a metadata page into the epub file, but doing a /view/ from calibre doesn't show one on any of the books i tested. but since it doesn't operate on mobi files, it's not that useful for my current situation. i get the idea it's more for epub authors and i suspect i'll come back to it if i have occasion to upload something else to kdp.

/guy

[BetterRed]

@gteague - the Embed metadata tool can 'inject' metadata into formats other than EPUB and AZW3. You'll probably need to add it to a toolbar or menu, or give it a keyboard shortcut. I know it works on PDF and DOCX, but I don't know about MOBI.

To get a better idea of how calibre 'works' have a look at the Video Tutorials. Ordinarily, I don't like video tutorials (loathe them in fact), however the videos that Kovid has made for calibre are a rare exception.

Originally Posted by gteague

. . . disappointed in that /polish/ function [ . . .] it also promises to put a metadata page into the epub file, but doing a /view/ from calibre doesn't show one on any of the books i tested. but since it doesn't operate on mobi files, it's not that useful for my current situation.

I assume you're talking about embedding so-called 'book jackets'. They work for me on EPUBs (Polish and Modify) and AZW3 (Polish), they're placed immediately after the cover. I don't how to shoehorn them into a MOBI.

BR

[gteague]

ok, @betterred, you've led me to the answer. i just tried out the /embed metadata/ toolbar function. i used the calibre viewer to show a book with ebub and mobi formats (it used the mobi format) and noted the embedded metadata was different than my calibre metadata. i then hit the tool and re-checked and the embedded metadata now matched my calibre metadata.

i tried a couple more test such as adding a tag, hitting the tool, then checking to see if it transferred my new tag and it did.

so i'm convinced this is nearly exactly what i was asking for--a way to make my books internal metadata match the calibre metadata. this should allow me to clean up any books that my kindle isn't displaying and sorting correctly due to the embedded metadata. and i needed to be able to do this to the mobi format since that's the one that gets passed to the kindle and it appears it does that by default.

i didn't check the epub versions--if the tool does both versions that's great, but the fact that it fixes the mobi format was all i needed.

i still have those videos in my wip folder, btw, haven't watched them yet but i will.

thanks again to all. /guy

[gteague]

btw, the covers seemed to be the same on the ones i tested although i don't much care about that. when you get so many loose ebooks from various sources it's very time-consuming to hunt down the exact cover that matches your version and if i can get a cover with the right title, that's good enough for me in nearly all cases.

btw, found this link along the way where the calibre author tells what the embed function does:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=241809

/guy