Calibre changes the file names for Hebrew books

[nemiya]

Every time I add an ebook with a Hebrew filename to my calibre library, the filename (on the file explorer) changes to some mix of English letters. (Even when I don't edit the metadata or anything) It only happens with Hebrew books. English books work well

I tried changing the settings of adding books and saving books to disk but the problem still persists

I thought it might be a problem with my computer/settings/plugins, so I installed calibre on another laptop and tried adding Hebrew books but it's still showing the same

Any tips?

[PeterT]

See https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=119175

Try to think of the calibre library as a black box; ignore what is under the covers. Don't browse it expecting to see what items the way you want to.

[jhowell]

In case it was not clear the save to disk function is used to make a copy of a book file outside of your calibre library. It has nothing to do with the file names used within a library.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by PeterT

See https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=119175

Try to think of the calibre library as a black box; ignore what is under the covers. Don't browse it expecting to see what items the way you want to.

Calibre will also change the filename of English filenames.

Originally Posted by jhowell

In case it was not clear the save to disk function is used to make a copy of a book file outside of your calibre library. It has nothing to do with the file names used within a library.

Even then for any decent ereader the filenames are not important. The Title, Author (and on Kobo: collection, series and subtitle) will be as desired.

Don't look inside the box at all, the Calibre Library storage.

[nemiya]

Thank you all for the replies. The problem also happens when I save it to disk and most importantly - when I send files to my kindle via email. Is there any way to make the title in Hebrew when sending via email? Thank you

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by nemiya

Thank you all for the replies. The problem also happens when I save it to disk and most importantly - when I send files to my kindle via email. Is there any way to make the title in Hebrew when sending via email? Thank you

Does the title show in Hebrew in the GUI? If the title in the metadata of the OPF (in the ePub and not the calibre library directory) and not the show in Hebrew?

[theducks]

Kindles use (Book) Internal Metadata.
If you need to insert additional info (like Series_index), Use the (In Preferences) plugboard

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by nemiya

Thank you all for the replies. The problem also happens when I save it to disk and most importantly - when I send files to my kindle via email. Is there any way to make the title in Hebrew when sending via email? Thank you

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=349290

[dandman]

i love it that you all know how to explain the "Black-box" reason, but the truth is that this is a bugging situation for someone that meticulously ordered and renamed his/hers library,

the way to do things and to gain both sides is to separate data and presentation / transport layers, so the files can be saved wherever and in whatever name, and when indexing / sending - set the proper headers to set a different filename to the kindle or index table,

that said - i have gave in to the way Calibre organize the books, since it is such a good and invested program that it's advantages overcome these small disadvantage,

b.t.w. did i saw someone writing that there is a fork or a plugin that can keep the book names as is ?

[DNSB]

You can order and rename your library however you want. I used to do that before I started using calibre when I realized that I was spending more time curating my library and worrying about the directory structure than I was spending actually reading books.

However, the calibre library is not yours and there are pretty good reasons for most of the decisions involved in it's design/structure. As you have been told before, treat it as a black box and worry about the output files.

As for calibre forks? Last time I looked there were over 2000 of them. Most of the ones I've looked at were too many commits behind for them to be useful.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by dandman

the way to do things and to gain both sides is to separate data and presentation / transport layers, so the files can be saved wherever and in whatever name, and when indexing / sending - set the proper headers to set a different filename to the kindle or index table,

It does. The books in the library are not what the user sees or uses. That's why there is "Send to Device", "treat a directory(folder) as a device" and "Save to disk"
You can sort/organise and name the spreadsheet view of the library however you like.

Filenames when it comes to books or documents just need to be unique. They only need to be human readible when exported for something like KOReader that's like 1970s "management" as it doesn't use metadata browsing but OS filenames. Any decent Library view rather than simply a file viewer uses metadata in a database, not filenames.

[dandman]

"Save to disk" is an export and will create duplicate library (twice the size),
a persistence and presentation separation means the app catalog the data, index it, but do not touch it (like plex, jellyfin, Media center, or any other digital media library),

you are trying to justify an approach that messes the user's data while you don't have to, there are other ways to bypass the problems caused by file names, but again - it is a small flaw that i can live with

[DNSB]

Save to disk is indeed an export. You can muck with the file names using various templates, embed metadata, create a directory structure, etc. However it is not meant to create a duplicate of the entire library so save that complaint for another day. Much like Save to device, it is intended to export part of a library for use elsewhere (for me, I use it to save files that I am going to copy to Dropbox).

Would I prefer that calibre use UTF filenames? Yes. Do I understand that in the time calibre has been around, there have been quite a few operating systems that calibre ran on and that did not support UTF filenames? Yes.