Dealing with Kindle ebooks in calibre

[tamhas]

Originally Posted by texasnightowl

I'm not sure what mangled titles and unknown authors you are seeing? Or how you imported?

These are the titles and author in the Kindle as seen in the device tab of Calibre. The titles are readable, often have text besides the title, and often include the mobi-asin. Well more than half the authors are "Unknown", even though other books by that author are in Calibre. I need to import the book to Calibre, Edit Metadata, and then go back to the device tab to Match in order to get a reasonable title and author in the Device tab.

B&W covers are a pain.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by tamhas

These are the titles and author in the Kindle as seen in the device tab of Calibre. The titles are readable, often have text besides the title, and often include the mobi-asin. Well more than half the authors are "Unknown", even though other books by that author are in Calibre.

It is likely that the cached metadata on the device is messed up. That can happen if the device was connected to an older version of calibre or if the proper plugins were not installed the first time the device was connected.

You should try attaching the Kindle without calibre running, locate the “metadata.calibre” file in the root folder on the device, and delete it. The next time calibre starts it will re-read the book metadata.That should fix most or all of the books.

[cyraxote]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Calibre can import from a connected Kindle:
After jobs = 0, click on Device view (not Device column).
Find a book. right click and add to Library.
Now select Library!
The book is then apparently not on the Kindle. However check all the Calibre metadata and copy the Calibre Title.
Then in Device view select the book and paste or type the Library title into search. Then on Device menu, "Update Metadata".
Go back to library view and the added book now has a tick in Device Column.

I tried to do this, but got lost after "check all the Calibre metadata..." I think perhaps the instructions assume greater familiarity with Calibre than I have, or I'm being hopelessly literal about the instructions. (Also, my device menu has "Update cached metadata on device"; is that the same as "Update Metadata"?)

In any case, I sent a book to my Kindle from Amazon and copied it to my Calibre library by right-clicking and choosing "Add books to library." I then deleted the download from the Kindle and attempted to send it back to the device. I got a window (wasn't clear to me how to insert a screencap in the message here but it's attached) asking "Autoconvert the following books before uploading to the device? [Yes] [No] [Show details...]

If I click "No," no file is copied. If I click "Yes," the KFX file is converted to an AZW3 file and is sent to the Kindle. (They don't look exactly the same on the Kindle, but the differences are minor.)

So I guess my question is this: Is Calibre unable to send the KFX file back to the Kindle without converting it?

Thanks.

[cyraxote]

Also, I noted that the feature where I can see passages highlighted by other users works with the books downloaded directly from Amazon, but not with the converted book uploaded by Calibre. Is that related to the conversion, or ...? Are there other such features that don't work with this process?

Thanks again.

[tamhas]

Originally Posted by jhowell

You should try attaching the Kindle without calibre running, locate the “metadata.calibre” file in the root folder on the device, and delete it. The next time calibre starts it will re-read the book metadata.That should fix most or all of the books.

For the most recent years, I have done the match book to library thing so that the titles and authors now read reasonably. If I delete the metadata.calibre file and it doesn't fix, may I not lose all that work?

Should I perhaps rename the file instead of deleting so that I can put it back if it doesn't fix?

[tamhas]

As for the missing collection name in Digital Content, turns out that I named the new collection "Short Stories" on the Kindle and apparently the website doesn't like embedded blanks, so renaming it "ShortStories" on the Collections page has made everything nice.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by tamhas

For the most recent years, I have done the match book to library thing so that the titles and authors now read reasonably. If I delete the metadata.calibre file and it doesn't fix, may I not lose all that work?

Yes, but you will hopefully be better off overall.

Originally Posted by tamhas

Should I perhaps rename the file instead of deleting so that I can put it back if it doesn't fix?

Yes, good idea.

[PaulBenn]

Thanks to all your help, I have got Calibre working with KFX files!

I updated KFX and DeDRM plugins to their latest version but still got an error. In looking at instructions again I realised I hadn't done what I was supposed to do when running in debug mode i.e. I hadn't deleted the offending book and re-imported it. When I did this correctly, I saw in the debug log that there was an error was with the KFX import. In looking at the log and the error messages, I realised I should have imported the book directly from my Kindle. What I had done was to locate the relevant KFX file, copy it to my laptop and then import that. Once I imported the file directly from my Kindle this last problem was solved.

(Hangs head in shame for not reading instructions properly and books the course 101 Reading Instruction!)

Thanks again, everyone, for their help