ebook-convert metadata

[littlenellie]

When I convert a *.docx to an epub via the Calibre library software it picks up the files metadata - which is great, exactly what I want.

However, when I do the same conversion via the command line using 'ebook-convert' I can only get meta to appear if I've manually input it as part of the syntax.

Should ebook-convert pick up file metadata? I've tried every which way to get this to work without success.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by littlenellie

When I convert a *.docx to an epub via the Calibre library software it picks up the files metadata - which is great, exactly what I want.

However, when I do the same conversion via the command line using 'ebook-convert' I can only get meta to appear if I've manually input it as part of the syntax.

Should ebook-convert pick up file metadata? I've tried every which way to get this to work without success.

Works for me with with a docx created in current version of Word, see attachment

The command used was: ebook-convert blah.docx blah.epub

BR

[littlenellie]

What meta do you see on the front cover of your epub? I'm only seeing the title and the author (although I can see that you have other metadata in the *.docx properties).

This is what I'm seeing with my *.docx too.

In Calibre I have set up a cover that has the title at the top, tags and comments in the subtitle and then author at the bottom. But nothing from the subtitle is showing up at all when I generate from the CLI, only when I do it from the Calibre library. I don't understand why the command line conversion isn't picking up the same default cover as the library.

Any ideas?

[BetterRed]

What is in the cover sub-title template, mine has this:

{series:'test($, strcat("<i>", $, "</i> - ", raw_field("formatted_series_index")), "")'}

But because the DOCX specs doesn't have Series as a metadata element, that's never going have anything in a CLI DOCX->EPUB conversion

BR

[littlenellie]

I've tried all sorts in the sub-title template (including your example), but I've gone back to basics and just have {authors} to see whether it would pick up a value that I know it's reading in (see screenshot attached).

Author still appears at the bottom of the cover but it doesn't appear in the middle sub-title section. I'm really puzzled!

Is there some other setting in Calibre that might affect the output from the command line? What could cause the CLI output to be different to the cover generated from the library? (I'm on the latest version of Calibre, btw, and have no additional plugins installed).

Any ideas gratefully received

[kovidgoyal]

When you convert in the GUI the generated cover is used directly. When you convert from the CLI there is no pre-genrated cover so a new one based on metadata is generated.

[littlenellie]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

When you convert in the GUI the generated cover is used directly. When you convert from the CLI there is no pre-genrated cover so a new one based on metadata is generated.

Ah, I see.

After testing various different things from the CLI, I found that the only metadata that shows up in the sub-title is if I pass in both 'series' and 'series-index'.

Is there any way to pass in anything else? Or hide the 'series-index'? Or to format the 'series' text, so that I can pass in other values concatenated together? e.g. if I passed in the equivalent of this pseudocode:

--series "concatenated(rating, <br>, tags, <br>, comments)"

thanks!

[kovidgoyal]

There isnt. If you want to generate covers on the command line, generate them before hand and pass them to the conversion using --cover

A bit of googling should find the calibre-debug command you can use for generating covers, something like

calibre-debug -c "from calibre.ebooks.covers import *; d = create_cover('my title', 'my authors', 'my series', 'my series index'); open('/tmp/cover.jpg', 'wb').write(d)"

[littlenellie]

Great! I will definitely investigate that.

Many thanks to both of you for your help with this