Sort Order for E-books Using Calibre with iOS Reader

[American_Desi]

Hi everyone,

This is my first posting here so apologies if this has been covered elsewhere. I have searched using Google for a similar topic and most of the answers were similar to but not exactly the same as what I am needing.

After finally giving up on the pathetic iBooks reader offered by Apple, I am now using Calibre to organize my very large E-book library consisting of epub, cbr, cbz, and pdf files.

What I am trying to do now is to (a) organize my books into different series like Dragonlance, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, etc and (b) organize the books in each series in the chronologic order that the stories take place within their respective fictional universes.

Now, I did discover an option to create a custom column in Calibre, allowing me to number the books. However, when I sync these to a reader on my iPad (in this case, Marvin 3), I don't see the customized numbered order or an option to order them by that custom order column.

What I am wanting to know is, what is the best solution for me to (a) organize books within calibre according to the order I want to read them and (b) have them on my iPad with ability to sync books over the internet?

The best solution would be an e-book reader for iOS that reads all of the formats I mentioned above, or at least one that reads epub, cbr, cbz formats. Also, I need a good over-the-internet sync solution. Dropbox only gives me 2GB and my e-book library is already getting close to 10Gb in size.

Thanks in advance for any solutions. Specifics will be much appreciated.

[cedhax]

Originally Posted by American_Desi

...
What I am trying to do now is to (a) organize my books into different series like Dragonlance, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, etc and (b) organize the books in each series in the chronologic order that the stories take place within their respective fictional universes.

Now, I did discover an option to create a custom column in Calibre, allowing me to number the books. ...

Why did you have to use a custom column to number the books? For each book, you can enter its Series and Number in the Edit metadata dialog in calibre. Have you tried that?

[American_Desi]

Originally Posted by cedhax

Why did you have to use a custom column to number the books? For each book, you can enter its Series and Number in the Edit metadata dialog in calibre. Have you tried that?

Yes, but entering the Number in the "Edit metadata" dialog still leaves me with no way to sort it in Calibre by that number, what to speak of the iOS E-book reader that syncs with it.

At least, not from what I can see so far... am I missing something?

[American_Desi]

Originally Posted by American_Desi

Yes, but entering the Number in the "Edit metadata" dialog still leaves me with no way to sort it in Calibre by that number, what to speak of the iOS E-book reader that syncs with it.

At least, not from what I can see so far... am I missing something?

OK, silly me, I do see the way to sort it in Calibre - it's the number that appears after the series name in brackets (solved that mystery, whew!) and simply sorting by series automatically sorts the books in that series. Great!

Now how do I get the order to appear in series order when I sync the books to Marvin 3 or some other e-book reader?

[American_Desi]

Ugh, ok sorry to answer my own question. Looks like putting in the number metadata does in fact let it sort in proper order when syncing to Marvin. So, half of problem solved!

Now for the other half. What is the best way to sync over the internet? As mentioned before, Dropbox is problematic due to its limited space. My e-book library is already approaching 10GB in size and probably will be larger by the time I'm done with it.

I do have an NAS hard drive that I'm backing up my books directory to - it's a Western Digital My Cloud Ex4. Is there a way to make Marvin look for my e-books there?