Help downloading metadata by ISBN

[pookiepoo]

Hi Everyone I have a huge problem

Ok so I have found calibre

all my ebook file names are their ISBN's when I click add metadata it doesn't search by the ISBN but by the title of the book which means that the search is unsucessful.

how exactly do i get it to search by the ISBN for the purposes of a bulk metadata update

my file convention is 9781*********.pdf no spaces or hyphens

I read something about a regex but dont get it at all

[desertgrandma]

Welcome to MobileRead, pookiepoo.

Hopefully help will arrive soon. My only suggestion is to enter the title and author manually.

[pilotbob]

Did you create an account at isbndb.com and enter your Access Key into calibre. I think the search on that site is done by ISBN.

BOb

[pookiepoo]

Thanks so much for your replies

I am indeed registered with ISBNDB and I have entered the number on the page when it searches for the info. Maybe I am doing something wrong?

When I search from the main screen I get this

"WARNING: Failed to download some metadata: Failed to download metadata for the following:

9781409947837: No matches found for this book"

but when I enter it into the ISBN text box after clicking edit metadata individually it recognises the format of the ISBN and finds it without any problems

[pilotbob]

Hmm... not sure then. Guess we will have to wait till Kovid or someone more knowledgeable finds this thread.

BOb

[pilotbob]

I am going to change the title of this thread to make it a bit less generic.

BOb

[kovidgoyal]

You need to adjust the file import regular expression to read the isbn from the file name. Go to Preferences->Add/Save

[pookiepoo]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I am going to change the title of this thread to make it a bit less generic.

BOb

Thanks

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

You need to adjust the file import regular expression to read the isbn from the file name. Go to Preferences->Add/Save

First of all thanks for making such an awesome product!

I have tried doing (copy and paste from other sites)this but to no avail; I am only a mere end user who neither has the expertise nor the time (university assignments) to learn this from scratch.

[pookiepoo]

So I have obtained this regular expression from http://www.regexlib.com/REDetails.aspx?regexp_id=463

^(97(8|9))?\d{9}(\d|X)$ when I place it in the add and save section it does nothing what is the matter ?

modified it to (?P<Title>.+)- (?P<ISBN>[^(97(8|9))?\d{9}(\d|X)$]) and still no luck

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

You need to adjust the file import regular expression to read the isbn from the file name. Go to Preferences->Add/Save

So, any hints for the OP what the reg expression would be if the file name is JUST the ISBN?

BOb

[kovidgoyal]

(?P<isbn>.+)

[pookiepoo]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

(?P<isbn>.+)

Alas this was one of the first things that I tried. When testing it only the title ever matches. When using it to add files and then add meta I get the same error as before

[kovidgoyal]

That will cause both title and isbn to be set to the filename (minus the extension). the metadata fetcher will then use the isbn in preference to the title.

[pl77]

Apologies for resurrecting this post, but I have the exact same problem. For simplicity's sake I've renamed all of my ebooks with only the ISBN as the filename, e.g. 1234567890.pdf.

The expression I've tried to use (amongst numerous permutations) is (?P<isbn>.+) which works with the test field but only populates the title field when the book is actually imported. Any reason why it's not populating the ISBN field?

[pl77]

Okay it's now fixed in 0.7.22. Thanks very much Kovid!