Search And Replace using Series value?

[Robmonster]

Hi there,

I would like to retitle some items in my library so that the name is suffixed with the contents of the Series field.

Is this possible to do? It looks like it should be a simple job, presumably I need some tag or other to put into the Replace field that substitutes the series data..?

Rob

[chaley]

The first question is why? What are you trying to do? There might be a better way to accomplish whatever that is. For example, if you want to do this because it will be better on your device, metadata plugboards could be a better answer.

Assuming you really want to do this, then there are two ways, both using bulk metadata search replace. Both use regular expression mode. First, back up your library in case something goes wrong. Next, select the books to change, then:

Method 1:
Source field: series
Destination field: title
Search for: (.*)
Replace with: whatever you want to add after the title, with \1 standing in for the series name
Mode: append to field.
Split result: unchecked

Method 2:
Source field: {template}
Template: {title} - {series} (or whatever you want the result to look like)
Destination field: title
Search for: empty
Replace with: empty
Mode: Replace field

In both cases, check the test results to be sure that you are getting the result you wish.

[Robmonster]

Thanks for the reply.

Here is what I am trying to do, perhaps you can suggest a better way of going about it.

I have downloaded an archive of archives from a chess website called Novice Nook. They zip up PDF's of their monthly column. When I drag the PDF's into Calibre they all come in titled 'Novice Nook'. ( I have to tell calibre to allow duplicates or else I just get one book added to the library)

Ultimately I want them all the be named in a way that shows which year and month the article is from. I thought I would use the series feature since that easily gives each one a unique number assuming I create a series for each year. I had then hoped to use the Search And Replace feature on the title field to change the titled from 'Novice Nook' to 'Novice Nook 2010 1' or something similar.

The Series feature worked quite happily, automatically numbering the articles so my series field now reads 2010 1, 2010 2 and so on. I couldn’t find any way of automatically renaming them though, so I've been manually re3naming each in turn which is time consuming.

My initial plan was to quickly get the series data entered ad then Search And Replace the Title fields all in one go.

I've only just started using Calibre so there is probably a much better way to do this that I do not yet know about.

Rob

[theducks]

@robomonster
Have you looked at the "Manage Series" Plugin?

Have you thought about Title - Author naming (Duplicate name Issue)?
I ended up including mm yyyy in the title for my Analog collection to avoid that problem. (Series index is used to sort within a year)

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by Robmonster

My initial plan was to quickly get the series data entered ad then Search And Replace the Title fields all in one go.

Magazines and similar items issued monthly are a good candidate for what you want to do. I do something similar for some magazines I collect, and the recipe system also inserts the date into the title of most newspapers and magazines.

I'd suggest chaley's second option and set the template as:

Template: {title} - {series} {series_index}

You can then save this 'search and replace' for reuse at some later time. You might also find that a recipe could be written to do this automatically (fetch the books on a scheduled basis).

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by theducks

I ended up including mm yyyy in the title for my Analog collection to avoid that problem. (Series index is used to sort within a year)

This is how I do it. The series is the year, the index is the month. I've got a search and replace that replaces month numbers with month names and adds the series(year) and month(number converted to name) to the title.

I need to look at the "Manage Series" plugin.

[Robmonster]

Originally Posted by theducks

@robomonster
Have you looked at the "Manage Series" Plugin?

Have you thought about Title - Author naming (Duplicate name Issue)?
I ended up including mm yyyy in the title for my Analog collection to avoid that problem. (Series index is used to sort within a year)

Than you, I'll have a look at that plugin when I get home,

The author of this column is always the same person, so I do not think that would get around the duplicate problem, unless I have misunderstood what you mean.

Rob

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Robmonster

Than you, I'll have a look at that plugin when I get home,

The author of this column is always the same person, so I do not think that would get around the duplicate problem, unless I have misunderstood what you mean.

Rob

Duplicate detection issue is when Both match.

Analog - Various << has issues
Analog 06 2000 - Various << has none