iPad and Calibre?

[SM-Samantha]

Hi,

I'm completely new at using an ipad and e-books. I already had some e-books on my ipad/itunes. I did all the configuration on calibre, but I don't know how to get my books into my library. They show up under the device, but now how do I get them into my actual library?

[Snauzoo]

There are two ways to do this -you can add them to iTunes the same way as music files, and then edit the iTunes metadata, or you can connect your iPad to your computer, do not run iTunes, and use Calibre. You will see on the right-click for each title the option to send to device. Personally, I like to use iTunes method, since there are a lot of other things in the info page for each book that I like to add. I have a bunch of other tricks I have gathered here but basically, if the book does not look good in the calibre reader, it will look bad on the iPad. I generally dump my books into automatically add to iTunes folder, and then fire up iTunes. It is smart enough to realize they are books, not music. iTunes does not extract publish date from the metadata, so you need to add that if you want to, manually, same as you would do with music files.

[SM-Samantha]

Thanks for your answer. I think I might need additional help. Here's what I'm trying to do. I have a bunch of Sheet Music PDF's on my iPad in Calibre. Right now they are grouped by author and level. I also wanted to be able to tag them by genre and I'm not quite sure how to do that.

Any suggestions?

[Halo]

Originally Posted by SM-Samantha

I'm completely new at using an ipad and e-books. I already had some e-books on my ipad/itunes. I did all the configuration on calibre, but I don't know how to get my books into my library. They show up under the device, but now how do I get them into my actual library?

Try this. Open calibre and connect your iPad to your computer. You will see the iPad device icon appear in the calibre toolbar. Click on it and you should see your books listed. Select a book and right-click on it. In the pop-up menu select Add Books to Library. This will copy the selected book from the device to your library. You can select multiple books and then use this method to copy them all at once.

Once they are in calibre, you can use the edit metadata button to bring up the metadata window and add tags to the books. I have a Sony Reader that supports collections. When I copy books to my device the tags are used to create collection names and place the books in them. I suspect that the iPad ereader software will do the same.

Let us know how it goes!

[Stampercam]

Have you looked at this thread - https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=118559 ? There is detailed instructions on using calibre with an ipad. It's how I use my ipad and calibre together, although I've added quite a few of the other plugins as well. during the first post you'll find spoilers, read the one on metadata mapping and plugboard transformations, I think it will help with what you want to do.

[SM-Samantha]

@Halo thanks for your help. I had another question. I'm using a MAC and don't have a right-click option. What else can i use? Also, do I need to be connected to itunes to add the books? It doesn't look like calibre is recognizing my ipad unless I have itunes on as well.

[JMikeD]

Originally Posted by SM-Samantha

I'm using a MAC and don't have a right-click option. What else can i use?

Control-click has always been the way to do a right click on a Mac.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by SM-Samantha

@Halo thanks for your help. I had another question. I'm using a MAC and don't have a right-click option. What else can i use? Also, do I need to be connected to itunes to add the books? It doesn't look like calibre is recognizing my ipad unless I have itunes on as well.

In the recommended method of using iTunes as an intermediary, then it is not a requirement to have calibre recognize the iPad.

The basic process is:

• Add the books you want to Calibre
• Start iTunes and (if this is the first time) check it is set as specified in the sticky at the top of this forum area
• Use the Connect to itunes option in Calibre. On completion calibre will inidcate at the bottom of the screen it is connected to iTunes and an onDevice column will appear to show which books in your Calibre library are in iTunes.
• Use Send to Device to transfer the books to iTunes.
• When the jobs icon at the bottom right of Calibre goes back to 0 (indicating the books are all transfered to iTunes, you can use the "Eject" option in Calibre to cut the connection to iTunes.
• Now the next time that you connect your iPad to iTunes and run a sync the books will be transferred to the iPad and become visible in iBooks.

The process in reality is easier than the above list makes it sound.

[Lisa3]

Is there any way to export/save a batch of files without the jpg or opf file? One by one is way too slow. Also, can I do something in the metadata to make the files export/save with the author's last name followed by the first?

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by Lisa3

Is there any way to export/save a batch of files without the jpg or opf file?

Yes. For Save to Disk, the options are in preferences | export/import | saving.

Also, can I do something in the metadata to make the files export/save with the author's last name followed by the first?

Yes. Use the template feature found in the same place to control the file name. If you need to control metadata, use the plugboard.

[SM-Samantha]

I think that my problem is that I have the books on my ipad and in my itunes and I'm trying to get them into the calibre library. that's what I'm have difficulty with now.

[GRiker]

Drag the books from iTunes|LIBRARY|Books to your desktop, then from there, add them to calibre.

G