Aura Keeping annotations when moving .epubs location

[MicheleBS]

In my Kobo Aura One, I noticed that if I move an .epub across folders, changing its location, Annotations are cancelled.

Is there a way to keep it chained to the file, so that I can find them attacched to the ebook also when in the new location?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MicheleBS

In my Kobo Aura One, I noticed that if I move an .epub across folders, changing its location, Annotations are cancelled.

Is there a way to keep it chained to the file, so that I can find them attacched to the ebook also when in the new location?

Why would you be moving your ePub to a directory? You do know that Kobo doesn't support directories and when you eventually delete everything from a directory, you'll be left with empty directories. I just put everything in the root directory and it work perfectly well.

But if you do fee you need directories, leave the eBooks with annotations where they are and more the rest.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MicheleBS

In my Kobo Aura One, I noticed that if I move an .epub across folders, changing its location, Annotations are cancelled.

Is there a way to keep it chained to the file, so that I can find them attacched to the ebook also when in the new location?

Yes, but it's something I don't like doing.

The full path of the book is used as the key in the internal database. Details of the books are stored in the database. This include the reading status and the bookmarks. When a book is renamed, the device sees a missing book and removes nearly all details of the book from the database. Then it imports the book as a new book.

You can intercept this by updating the appropriate database records when you move the books. It isn't to hard, but not something I've bothered doing.

But, as you are talking about epubs, there is an alternative. For epubs in the main memory, as well as the database, the annotations are written to a file. This is done by the Adobe RMSDK that is used by epubs. This is simple as you need to rename the annotations file. But, the file is only read when you open the epub. Until you do this, it will look like the books do not have any annotations.

For this, the annotations file is in the directory "Digitial Editions/Annotations". That contains files with the extension "ANNOT". The name and path to them is the same as where the epub is relative to the root directory of the driver when it is mounted on a PC. You can rename or move the files with no problems.

[MicheleBS]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why would you be moving your ePub to a directory? You do know that Kobo doesn't support directories and when you eventually delete everything from a directory, you'll be left with empty directories. I just put everything in the root directory and it work perfectly well.

But if you do fee you need directories, leave the eBooks with annotations where they are and more the rest.

Yes; all reasonable.
But you didn't answer my question.

[MicheleBS]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Spoiler:

Yes, but it's something I don't like doing.

The full path of the book is used as the key in the internal database. Details of the books are stored in the database. This include the reading status and the bookmarks. When a book is renamed, the device sees a missing book and removes nearly all details of the book from the database. Then it imports the book as a new book.

You can intercept this by updating the appropriate database records when you move the books. It isn't to hard, but not something I've bothered doing.

But, as you are talking about epubs, there is an alternative. For epubs in the main memory, as well as the database, the annotations are written to a file. This is done by the Adobe RMSDK that is used by epubs. This is simple as you need to rename the annotations file. But, the file is only read when you open the epub. Until you do this, it will look like the books do not have any annotations.

For this, the annotations file is in the directory "Digitial Editions/Annotations". That contains files with the extension "ANNOT". The name and path to them is the same as where the epub is relative to the root directory of the driver when it is mounted on a PC. You can rename or move the files with no problems.

Wonderful. Thank you DavidFor, I will try that last way.

Even though, I know, Kobo is not so 'relaxed' with folders (you're right, JSWolf) and it shows the ebooks the same way despite of their real location, I find it useful to manage them, when considered as files, into somewhat a hierarchy of folders and sub-folders.

And this is in addition to working with "Collections", of course (Collections still represent an invaluable tool to classify our epubs and to keep them sorted within the Library).

The fact is that I use my Kobo to grab and read articles from online newspapers, mainly, and after reading I usually move the more interesting ones to a separate folder, called "Archive", to better keep them safe, while I delete the others some days after the reading, or just immediately after.

I make use of Annotations, too, and it's useful not to lose them when I move the files.

[JSWolf]

Has the bug with the annotations file been fixed? This is the bug that doesn't show the correct location in the book for the annotations read from the file.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Has the bug with the annotations file been fixed? This is the bug that doesn't show the correct location in the book for the annotations read from the file.

No, that bug has not been fixed.

@MicheleBS: I probably should have mentioned this bug. When you create a highlight, the position in the book is stored and displayed. For an epub, this is the chapter name where the annotation is, and the percentage into the book (though it has "in chapter" afterwards).

There is a very long-standing bug that means the position is messed up when the book is reopened and the annotations file is read. The information in the file and the database are merged. Unfortunately, it messes up the location info. The annotation will display in the correct place in the book, but the annotations list will show the chapter the book opened to as the location and zero for the percent. That makes it look like all the annotations are in the same chapter.

This is a very annoying bug that has been around for a very long time and Kobo has shown no interest in fixing (thought I haven't hassled them for a while). A workaround is to replace the "Annotations" directory with a file of the same name. That way the annotations files are not created and when the books are reopened, the locations info isn't wiped.

How important this is to you depends on how you use annotations. I mainly use them to mark something to fix or look up when I'm at my computer. And I usually delete them after this. For your use, the positions might be more useful.

And just in case you don't know, if a book has annotations, when you long press on the book in the library list or the home screen, the menu will have "Annotations" at the bottom. That opens the annotations list without opening the book. You can also use the search to search all annotations.

[MicheleBS]

Originally Posted by davidfor

No, that bug has not been fixed.

@MicheleBS: I probably should have mentioned this bug. When you create a highlight, the position in the book is stored and displayed. For an epub, this is the chapter name where the annotation is, and the percentage into the book (though it has "in chapter" afterwards).

Spoiler:

There is a very long-standing bug that means the position is messed up when the book is reopened and the annotations file is read. The information in the file and the database are merged. Unfortunately, it messes up the location info. The annotation will display in the correct place in the book, but the annotations list will show the chapter the book opened to as the location and zero for the percent. That makes it look like all the annotations are in the same chapter.

This is a very annoying bug that has been around for a very long time and Kobo has shown no interest in fixing (thought I haven't hassled them for a while). A workaround is to replace the "Annotations" directory with a file of the same name. That way the annotations files are not created and when the books are reopened, the locations info isn't wiped.

How important this is to you depends on how you use annotations. I mainly use them to mark something to fix or look up when I'm at my computer. And I usually delete them after this. For your use, the positions might be more useful.

And just in case you don't know, if a book has annotations, when you long press on the book in the library list or the home screen, the menu will have "Annotations" at the bottom. That opens the annotations list without opening the book. You can also use the search to search all annotations.

Thank you davidfor for such a detailed explanation; very useful.

Luckily, I don't pay much attention to the details of the Annotations (chapter and percentage), also because the articles I create and save to my Aura in form of .epubs are usually quite brief, and consist to only a unique chapter.

•

Anyway, this morning I tried to move an .annot file to the correct location within the Annotations folder, to match the location of the epubs, but still I couldn't see the Annotations opening the article.

Maybe this is because, as you wrote, the article has to be re-opened at least one time, after moving the .annot

I will try again, in the next hours. Hopefully, I will understand such a (Ko)behaviour better.