Edit metadata on K3?

niceboy · 06-26-2011, 04:47 PM

Is there a software for editing metadata of books on K3? Other than opening books in Stanza or Calibre is there a simple software to fix Title and Author on books loaded on the K3? Thank you.

ApK · 06-27-2011, 10:11 AM

Simpler than Calibre? Not that I'm familiar with, but I never had reason to look beyond Calibre for editing metadata.
What is it you're looking for that the solutions you mention don't do for you?

dlcooper · 06-27-2011, 12:40 PM

I think he's looking for some way to change title and author for books already on the kindle, without using a pc.

jswinden · 06-27-2011, 02:20 PM

@niceboy or you talking about a program like Sigil? Sigil allows you to edit an ePub without having to recompile it or convert it in calibre. Unfortunately it doesn't work with mobi or prc books. I don't know of any programs like Sigil which do, but i haven't looked very hard.

I wish there was one as I really hate using calibre. Don't get me wrong, calibre does a good job, but it tends to muddle up the CSS stylesheet with calibre styles. It reminds me of using MS Word to convert a document to HTML. MS Word will produce a nice looking HTML doc, but it will be bloated with totally unnecessary styles. If you use calibre, you will also wind up with a lot of bloating and a CSS stylesheet you no longer recognize.

ApK · 06-27-2011, 02:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jswinden

@niceboy or you talking about a program like Sigil? Sigil allows you to edit an ePub without having to recompile it or convert it in calibre. Unfortunately it doesn't work with mobi or prc books. I don't know of any programs like Sigil which do, but i haven't looked very hard.

I wish there was one as I really hate using calibre. Don't get me wrong, calibre does a good job, but it tends to muddle up the CSS stylesheet with calibre styles. It reminds me of using MS Word to convert a document to HTML. MS Word will produce a nice looking HTML doc, but it will be bloated with totally unnecessary styles. If you use calibre, you will also wind up with a lot of bloating and a CSS stylesheet you no longer recognize.

I know you'd have to regenerate the file to change the embedded cover image, but I didn't think you have to regenerate to change the basic metadata fields in Calibre.

That is, I thought that if you just edited a title or Author and resent the file to the device, the new metadata would be reflected on the device. I'll need to go try it later.

ApK

Bikemike · 06-27-2011, 03:14 PM

The reason why I am searching such a possibility to change metadata on K3 too, is, i have a lot of books where author is signed like for example "Stephen King".
K3 shows by sorting after author only in right alphabetical order if signed "King, Stephen".
I can change it with calibre, but its a lot of work. Directly on K3 it was easier, i think.
Anyone an idea to make it fast and easy?
Mike

ApK · 06-27-2011, 03:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bikemike

I can change it with calibre, but its a lot of work. Directly on K3 it was easier, i think.
Anyone an idea to make it fast and easy?
Mike

It could never be done on the K3 directly (without hacks), so I'm not sure what you mean. Easy is subjective. It can be done in Calibre to all books you want at once with one or two clicks.

To some of the Linux guys around here, "easy" might mean a command line program that works over a USB networking hack, but that wouldn't be easy for me.

You could always request it be built in to the next firmware update.

ApK

niceboy · 06-29-2011, 03:02 PM

Thank you for your responses.

The reason I was hoping to edit books or just have a swap author/title script for books already on my Kindle is that due to finances I have no real PC I just share a primitive Windows OS webbook. Calibre runs terribly terribly slow and glitchy on this machine.

Also I would rather not have to make a new copy of the book with fixed metadata and re-collection it etc. Right now I open the book with Stanza desktop and re-save it with hopefully corrected metadata as Stanza is not fast but at least faster on my webbook then Calibre.

I started e-reading on an iPod Touch and I loved the Stanza reading app and its ability to edit and tag books on the handheld device but I switched to Kindle for the e-ink display, larger screen, and Read Aloud. It has been a year but I still miss the ease with which I could edit metadata and organize files with Stanza on the iPod... it has been hard giving up those features as well as the virtual page numbers implemented in Stanza. The change over was well worth it but I had hope someone had made a little gimmick for basic editing of books on the Kindle.

I was hoping there was a little python script or something like that I could use to fix basic metadata on books as they reside on the actual Kindle 3 device. A Kindle native app for fixing metadata would be best since then I could skip the whole webbook link-up.

I have bad metadata somehow from bulk transferring my old .epub .rtf and .txt files from the webbook harddrive using Calibre although it all looked good in Calibre before the transfer. Also many books I purchased from Slashwords (yes I really like the weird assortment of inexpensive books at Smashwords) list by a TEMP#### ID rather then proper title and I wish I could just edit the titles right on my K3. Same goes for text files I email myself.

I find that sometimes my K3 wants to search content rather than jump to author or title and many authors list by first name rather than last but I don't know why... this is because they are "First Last" rather than "Last, First" in the metadata?

I also find it takes K3 for ever to search given the amount of text I have on my machine... for instance fiction from websites such as New Horizons. I wish I could turn indexing and search content off on my K3 since all they do is lock while jumping to a letter in author or title works less then half the time I find. Today I was seriously thinking of making a collection for each letter of the alphabet to group my authors. Author and Title jump to letter just doesn't work consistently for me... I at least wish I could fix my metadata without going back to Calibre and loosing my existing collection assignments... collections just don't work as well as tags as used by Calibre and Stanza.

Jeff L · 07-03-2011, 05:34 PM

Try Mobi2Mobi.

https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kind...i_GUI_Vista/XP

There are limitations regarding character sets. Stay with keyboard characters and you should be fine.

06-26-2011, 04:47 PM	#1
niceboy Enthusiast Posts: 48 Karma: 14 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: Kindle	Edit metadata on K3? Is there a software for editing metadata of books on K3? Other than opening books in Stanza or Calibre is there a simple software to fix Title and Author on books loaded on the K3? Thank you.

06-27-2011, 03:14 PM	#6
Bikemike Connoisseur Posts: 67 Karma: 428 Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Germany Device: Kindle 3	The reason why I am searching such a possibility to change metadata on K3 too, is, i have a lot of books where author is signed like for example "Stephen King". K3 shows by sorting after author only in right alphabetical order if signed "King, Stephen". I can change it with calibre, but its a lot of work. Directly on K3 it was easier, i think. Anyone an idea to make it fast and easy? Mike Last edited by Bikemike; 06-27-2011 at 03:16 PM.

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06-27-2011, 10:11 AM	#2
ApK Award-Winning Participant Posts: 7,384 Karma: 68329346 Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: NJ, USA Device: Kindle	Simpler than Calibre? Not that I'm familiar with, but I never had reason to look beyond Calibre for editing metadata. What is it you're looking for that the solutions you mention don't do for you?

06-27-2011, 12:40 PM	#3
dlcooper Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Ontario, Canada Device: Kindle	I think he's looking for some way to change title and author for books already on the kindle, without using a pc.

06-27-2011, 02:20 PM	#4
jswinden Nameless Being	@niceboy or you talking about a program like Sigil? Sigil allows you to edit an ePub without having to recompile it or convert it in calibre. Unfortunately it doesn't work with mobi or prc books. I don't know of any programs like Sigil which do, but i haven't looked very hard. I wish there was one as I really hate using calibre. Don't get me wrong, calibre does a good job, but it tends to muddle up the CSS stylesheet with calibre styles. It reminds me of using MS Word to convert a document to HTML. MS Word will produce a nice looking HTML doc, but it will be bloated with totally unnecessary styles. If you use calibre, you will also wind up with a lot of bloating and a CSS stylesheet you no longer recognize.

06-29-2011, 03:02 PM	#8
niceboy Enthusiast Posts: 48 Karma: 14 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: Kindle	Thank you for your responses. The reason I was hoping to edit books or just have a swap author/title script for books already on my Kindle is that due to finances I have no real PC I just share a primitive Windows OS webbook. Calibre runs terribly terribly slow and glitchy on this machine. Also I would rather not have to make a new copy of the book with fixed metadata and re-collection it etc. Right now I open the book with Stanza desktop and re-save it with hopefully corrected metadata as Stanza is not fast but at least faster on my webbook then Calibre. I started e-reading on an iPod Touch and I loved the Stanza reading app and its ability to edit and tag books on the handheld device but I switched to Kindle for the e-ink display, larger screen, and Read Aloud. It has been a year but I still miss the ease with which I could edit metadata and organize files with Stanza on the iPod... it has been hard giving up those features as well as the virtual page numbers implemented in Stanza. The change over was well worth it but I had hope someone had made a little gimmick for basic editing of books on the Kindle. I was hoping there was a little python script or something like that I could use to fix basic metadata on books as they reside on the actual Kindle 3 device. A Kindle native app for fixing metadata would be best since then I could skip the whole webbook link-up. I have bad metadata somehow from bulk transferring my old .epub .rtf and .txt files from the webbook harddrive using Calibre although it all looked good in Calibre before the transfer. Also many books I purchased from Slashwords (yes I really like the weird assortment of inexpensive books at Smashwords) list by a TEMP#### ID rather then proper title and I wish I could just edit the titles right on my K3. Same goes for text files I email myself. I find that sometimes my K3 wants to search content rather than jump to author or title and many authors list by first name rather than last but I don't know why... this is because they are "First Last" rather than "Last, First" in the metadata? I also find it takes K3 for ever to search given the amount of text I have on my machine... for instance fiction from websites such as New Horizons. I wish I could turn indexing and search content off on my K3 since all they do is lock while jumping to a letter in author or title works less then half the time I find. Today I was seriously thinking of making a collection for each letter of the alphabet to group my authors. Author and Title jump to letter just doesn't work consistently for me... I at least wish I could fix my metadata without going back to Calibre and loosing my existing collection assignments... collections just don't work as well as tags as used by Calibre and Stanza.

07-03-2011, 05:34 PM	#9
Jeff L Zealot Posts: 117 Karma: 584308 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: San Francisco Device: Kindle	Try Mobi2Mobi. https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kind...i_GUI_Vista/XP There are limitations regarding character sets. Stay with keyboard characters and you should be fine.

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