How does Calibre determine when a library book is on a device?

SampleAndy · 02-20-2013, 08:02 PM

and how does it determine whether a device book is in a library?

I have a book I was trying to do some cleanup on to get rid of random line/paragraph breaks. I converted the book from MOBI (that showed as KF8 in the viewer) to EPUB with no problem. I edited the EPUB and reimported it into Calibre. I then converted it to MOBI (that showed as MOBI in the viewer), but the formatting was off; it looked like it was just one long page. Instead of trying to identify the problem, I just converted it to AZW3 (which showed as KF8 in the viewer), and it looked a lot better. There are still some odd differences between the original and my "finished" product.

The thing is, I wanted to copy both documents to my Kindle for comparison, but instead, whichever one I copy last replaces the one which is already on the Kindle. The "On Device" checkbox toggles back and forth from one to the other every time I try to copy the book. Calibre recognizes that there are two different versions of the book, but somehow, the Kindle doesn't. I'm pretty sure I've run into similar problems with books that I downloaded from Amazon and from feedbooks.

(sigh)
The Pickwick Papers are recognized as distinct (because one is AZW and one is MOBI?)
Oliver Twist, Great Expectations and David Copperfield are confused (because they are both MOBI?)

Thanks for reading...

kovidgoyal · 02-20-2013, 10:44 PM

Change the title slightly of one of them, then you will be able to send both.

SampleAndy · 02-24-2013, 09:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SampleAndy

... Calibre recognizes that there are two different versions of the book, but somehow, the Kindle doesn't...

Thanks for your quick response, Kovid. That took care of the immediate problem (getting both copies on the Kindle) but didn't really answer the question. Would I be correct in thinking that internally, Calibre uses an ID number (the one that shows up in the file listings?) but since that information isn't stored anywhere on the Kindle, the best Calibre can do is match by Author and Title? That would also explain how you can have two (or more) unique books with the same Author and Title in a Calibre library.

kovidgoyal · 02-24-2013, 11:20 PM

THe problem is that if the title and author are identical then the filename on the device is identical, so you can have only one such file on the device. You can fix that by changing the send to device filenaming template and adding {id} to it somewhere.

02-20-2013, 08:02 PM	#1
SampleAndy Addict Posts: 271 Karma: 644344 Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA Device: KPW, KFire HD, KFire, KTD 3g, KT, K4B, K4S, K3g, K3g SO, K2, K1	How does Calibre determine when a library book is on a device? and how does it determine whether a device book is in a library? I have a book I was trying to do some cleanup on to get rid of random line/paragraph breaks. I converted the book from MOBI (that showed as KF8 in the viewer) to EPUB with no problem. I edited the EPUB and reimported it into Calibre. I then converted it to MOBI (that showed as MOBI in the viewer), but the formatting was off; it looked like it was just one long page. Instead of trying to identify the problem, I just converted it to AZW3 (which showed as KF8 in the viewer), and it looked a lot better. There are still some odd differences between the original and my "finished" product. The thing is, I wanted to copy both documents to my Kindle for comparison, but instead, whichever one I copy last replaces the one which is already on the Kindle. The "On Device" checkbox toggles back and forth from one to the other every time I try to copy the book. Calibre recognizes that there are two different versions of the book, but somehow, the Kindle doesn't. I'm pretty sure I've run into similar problems with books that I downloaded from Amazon and from feedbooks. (sigh) The Pickwick Papers are recognized as distinct (because one is AZW and one is MOBI?) Oliver Twist, Great Expectations and David Copperfield are confused (because they are both MOBI?) Thanks for reading...

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02-20-2013, 10:44 PM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,860 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Change the title slightly of one of them, then you will be able to send both.

02-24-2013, 11:20 PM	#4
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,860 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	THe problem is that if the title and author are identical then the filename on the device is identical, so you can have only one such file on the device. You can fix that by changing the send to device filenaming template and adding {id} to it somewhere.

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