Clara HD Authors, collections

Miss3181 · 08-08-2019, 02:11 PM

Hello,
I have been using a Kobo Aura for years and managed to configure it as I wanted:
Series and volume number in the series
The name of the author

Collections by series title and by author (surname-first name)

But I just bought a kobo Clara and I can not configure everything exactly the same.
I managed to deliver the series and volume number in the series, the name-first name of the author,

On the other hand, in the Authors tab, I end up with a folder for the name of the author, a folder for the first name of the author and when I want to sort by either author's name or by first name from the author, I have exactly the same list

And for the collections, it's the big emptiness

I'm looking for a way to redo the settings to put everything to my taste.

here is the setting I used

{author}/{serie}/{authors} - {series_index:0>2s| | - }{title}

Thank you for your help

DNSB · 08-08-2019, 04:21 PM

If nothing else, AFAIR, Kobo's firmware treats a comma as a separator for multiple authors. "Jack Green" is a single first name last name author while "Green, Jack" is two authors who have a single name.

Also, keep in mind that Kobo's firmware will sort by the author last name when you display the author list.

As for the collections, the calibre template you are showing has little to do with how collections are configured on your Kobo. See the Kobo Shelves and Collections wiki entry for some help configuring collections so calibre will manage them on your Kobo.

davidfor · 08-08-2019, 07:58 PM

@Miss3181: It should just work. Calibre does not treat any of the touch-screen Kobo device differently in any way. The only thing I can think of is that you need to update calibre. The Aura is running a fairly old firmware version. The Clara HD will be running the latest version. You have a recent enough version of calibre that supports the Clara HD, but, maybe it doesn't support the firmware version. Though that should mean you don't have the series info unless you used my Kobo Touch Utilities plugin to set them. Was there an error when you connected the device?

Otherwise, as DNSB suggested, you need to check the KoboTouch driver configuration. The template you list is the save template for the files on the device. These have nothing to do with the data displayed. The driver can build the collections based on the metadata in the calibre library and the books on the device.

Or have you installed the auto-shelf hack on the Aura? Sorry, I can't think of it's name, but it can build the collections from the file structure. If so, you need to install it on the Clara HD.

Miss3181 · 08-09-2019, 07:53 AM

@davidfor
I have version 3.46 of Calibre
I actually had an error message the first time I connected the Kobo Clara but I did a firmware update through the KoboTouchExtended and everything went back to normal.
I do not remember having installed a hack of automatic shelves but it was 5 years ago.
I modified the backup model and now I have the collections that fill up. Great.
Thank you for your help.

Butterfly1234 · 11-24-2019, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNSB

If nothing else, AFAIR, Kobo's firmware treats a comma as a separator for multiple authors. "Jack Green" is a single first name last name author while "Green, Jack" is two authors who have a single name.

Also, keep in mind that Kobo's firmware will sort by the author last name when you display the author list.

As for the collections, the calibre template you are showing has little to do with how collections are configured on your Kobo. See the Kobo Shelves and Collections wiki entry for some help configuring collections so calibre will manage them on your Kobo.

Hello!

I have more or less the same problem.
On my PC, all my books (hopefully no mistakes anywhere) are sorted like this: Fitzek Sebastian - The bone collector.epub.
I have put a whole series of Fitzek books on my Clara. Alas, on my Clara I have now more than one Fitzek. In my pc there are no comma's between last and first name, in the Clara there are.

I tried to resolve this through Calibre to make them all the same, but I failed miserably.

In Clara, even when putting the authors by family name, you always get the first name first. Very annoying!!

davidfor · 11-24-2019, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Butterfly1234

Hello!

I have more or less the same problem.
On my PC, all my books (hopefully no mistakes anywhere) are sorted like this: Fitzek Sebastian - The bone collector.epub.
I have put a whole series of Fitzek books on my Clara. Alas, on my Clara I have now more than one Fitzek. In my pc there are no comma's between last and first name, in the Clara there are.

I tried to resolve this through Calibre to make them all the same, but I failed miserably.

In Clara, even when putting the authors by family name, you always get the first name first. Very annoying!!

Firstly, the file name doesn't matter. For an epub, the firmware reads the title, author and other details from the metadata inside the book. The file name is only used for file types that contain no internal metadata. And then the name is used for the book title, and the author set to "Unknown".

All the display and sorting on the device is based on this metadata. The file names are not considered once the book has been imported.

How are you putting the books on the device? You mention using calibre to "resolve" the authors, but, I suspect you are not actually using calibre to send the books to the device, or updating the files with the updated metadata. When you add a book to calibre, it gets the metadata from the book (either the internal or the file name depending on format and some options). After that, the changes you make to the metadata happen in the calibre database. The actual files are not updated. They are updated when certain actions are taken. To update the books in the library, you need to either use the Embed metadata tool, do a conversion or use the editor. Calibre will update the books when you export them from the library using either the "Save to disk" or "Send to device". The latter is the best way to get the books onto a supported device such as any of the Kobo devices.

If you are adding the books to calibre, fixing the metadata and then copying the books from the calibre library directories to the device, then you are not updating the books with the metadata needed. If you are doing something else, it probably means you are missing a step in the process and the book isn't being updated.

Lastly, if you are entering the author as "LN, FN" rather than "FN LN", don't. Calibre has methods to handle sorting the author properly. Kobo devices do as well. But, they expect to see the author as "FN LN" or "FN1 LN1, FN2 LN2".

Butterfly1234 · 11-26-2019, 05:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidfor

Firstly, the file name doesn't matter. For an epub, the firmware reads the title, author and other details from the metadata inside the book. The file name is only used for file types that contain no internal metadata. And then the name is used for the book title, and the author set to "Unknown".

All the display and sorting on the device is based on this metadata. The file names are not considered once the book has been imported.

How are you putting the books on the device? You mention using calibre to "resolve" the authors, but, I suspect you are not actually using calibre to send the books to the device, or updating the files with the updated metadata. When you add a book to calibre, it gets the metadata from the book (either the internal or the file name depending on format and some options). After that, the changes you make to the metadata happen in the calibre database. The actual files are not updated. They are updated when certain actions are taken. To update the books in the library, you need to either use the Embed metadata tool, do a conversion or use the editor. Calibre will update the books when you export them from the library using either the "Save to disk" or "Send to device". The latter is the best way to get the books onto a supported device such as any of the Kobo devices.

If you are adding the books to calibre, fixing the metadata and then copying the books from the calibre library directories to the device, then you are not updating the books with the metadata needed. If you are doing something else, it probably means you are missing a step in the process and the book isn't being updated.

Lastly, if you are entering the author as "LN, FN" rather than "FN LN", don't. Calibre has methods to handle sorting the author properly. Kobo devices do as well. But, they expect to see the author as "FN LN" or "FN1 LN1, FN2 LN2".

Hello Davidfor,
Thanks for your swift reply.
Honestly, as I'm quite new to Calibre, a lot of what you are saying might be written in Chinese or Russian.

I have an SSD-stick where all my e-books are stored as a back-up. They are Dutch and English, a lot from different persons or shops.
When I put for example 14 books by Sebastian Fitzek on my Kobo Clara, they should be stored under Sebastian Fitzek, according to my logic. Alas, my Clara has put them under Fitzek, under Sebastian and under Sebastian Fitzek & Michael Tsokos (as one book was co-written.)
They are all saved in the same way: Fitzek Sebastian - De ogenverzamelaar.epub.

I told this on Facebook and someone said: "You can remedy this on Calibre".
I tried to make the name the same everywhere, but I must have done something wrong, because it doesn't help.

(Some of my e-books series by one author are stored on Clare correctly though, strangely.)

I'd like to follow your instructions, but I don't know what you mean by "Embed metadata tool, do a conversion or use the editor. Calibre will update the books when you export them from the library using either the "Save to disk" or "Send to device". The latter is the best way to get the books onto a supported device such as any of the Kobo devices."

Yesterday I simply accepted that some books will be stored correctly and other series of books by one author will be split into 3 or more of the same author, but with so-called different names.
Very sad, but I'm not expert enough and I've been three days on it. I'd need private tutoring. haha

milady133 · 11-26-2019, 01:37 PM

It takes sometime to set it up correctly, but once you have Calibre set up, it's more automatic.
So let's start step by step:
About the author showing up differently, the problem probably is that in those books internally the author is kept in different formats, books internally keep that kind of information (title, authors, series, publisher, etc) in what is called metadata.
Because everyone has an opinion on how that metadata should be organized, and even the same publisher changes how it stores that information, when you add a book to Calibre, Calibre reads that information and exposes the internal metadata of the ebook so you can set it up the way you like it, and if you use Calibre to send the book to your kobo, Calibre will change that metadata on the book you send to the device (but not in the ebook you keep on Calibre, unless you edit the ebook, you'll probably don't need that) to match your personal preferences.
So before sending an ebook to the Clara you need to get sure the metadata is as you like it, this video shows you how to change the metadata in Calibre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-32vXQdLYU
Note that you have two boxes for the author (the same for the title) the idea is to use the one on the left to entry the data as First Name Last Name, and the one on the right is to check how you normally would order the data, normally as Last Name, First Name, but that part affects only Calibre, by default Kobo doesn't have access to that, you can change that behaviour in Calibre, but normally when you send books to Kobo, the author will be taken from that left box.
If a book has two or more authors, in Calibre you use the & symbol to separate each author, and when Calibre sends that book to Kobo, it transforms that to the system use by Kobo to separate authors, which unfortunately is the "," symbol, that is one of the reasons why it isn't such a good idea to store authors in the left box as LN, FN in Calibre, if you like it that way, you have to change the default configuration in Calibre so the information in your Clara isn't messed up.

Delete the books in your Clara, and once you have made sure that the metadata in Calibre is correct, send them again, the author problem should be solved now, except perhaps in the book with more than one author, but this answer is too long as is, so we better tackle that problem in another answer.
Regards

Polarpenguin · 11-28-2019, 05:02 PM

Hi
Hopefully some one can help. Am having the same issue.
Started after connecting my Libra the 1st time.
The attempt to support newer firmware pop up didn't appear initially & when I went into Configure the Kobotouch extended plugin to find the option I must have messed something else up.
Am now confusing myself about what options should be ticked. I don't recall making any changes to the defaults other than adding the collection columns (which are displaying correctly) during the original set up.

Using Send to Disc to transfer books over. Never download books direct from Kobo. Books sent as Kpub converted from epubs

Calibre set up
Author Sort = Aaronovitch, Ben
Author = Ben Aaronovitch

Libra
Appears in my books as

Rivers of London
Aaronovitch, Ben

Under Authors both Ben & Aaronvitch are listed separately.

Thanks in advance for all your help.

davidfor · 11-28-2019, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Polarpenguin

Hi
Hopefully some one can help. Am having the same issue.
Started after connecting my Libra the 1st time.
The attempt to support newer firmware pop up didn't appear initially & when I went into Configure the Kobotouch extended plugin to find the option I must have messed something else up.
Am now confusing myself about what options should be ticked. I don't recall making any changes to the defaults other than adding the collection columns (which are displaying correctly) during the original set up.

Using Send to Disc to transfer books over. Never download books direct from Kobo. Books sent as Kpub converted from epubs

Calibre set up
Author Sort = Aaronovitch, Ben
Author = Ben Aaronovitch

Libra
Appears in my books as

Rivers of London
Aaronovitch, Ben

Under Authors both Ben & Aaronvitch are listed separately.

There is nothing in the driver that directly affects the metadata like that. The metadata options are for whether to update the metadata on the device when it is connected. When that is done, and when the books is first sent, the metadata plugboards are used to tweak the metadata. From what you are seeing, I think you have a metadata plugboard that set the author to the author_sort. You can find these in the calibre Preferences on the "Metadata plugboards" page. Remove or change the plugboard for either the device of format. Or, use the following for setting the author:

Code:

program: raw_list('authors', ', ')

That will setup multiple authors so that the device will recognise them properly.

Polarpenguin · 11-28-2019, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidfor

There is nothing in the driver that directly affects the metadata like that. The metadata options are for whether to update the metadata on the device when it is connected. When that is done, and when the books is first sent, the metadata plugboards are used to tweak the metadata. From what you are seeing, I think you have a metadata plugboard that set the author to the author_sort. You can find these in the calibre Preferences on the "Metadata plugboards" page. Remove or change the plugboard for either the device of format. Or, use the following for setting the author:

Code:

program: raw_list('authors', ', ')

That will setup multiple authors so that the device will recognise them properly.

David

Thank you.
Removing the metadata plugboard has done the trick & sorted the author problem.
Not sure what happened as the last time I went into that section of calibre was when I changed the metadata plugboard to work with a Kobo instead of my Sony. Will set up a new one at the weekend when I have more time.

Thanks again for the help tis much appreciated.

Butterfly1234 · 12-01-2019, 04:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidfor

Firstly, the file name doesn't matter. For an epub, the firmware reads the title, author and other details from the metadata inside the book. The file name is only used for file types that contain no internal metadata. And then the name is used for the book title, and the author set to "Unknown".

All the display and sorting on the device is based on this metadata. The file names are not considered once the book has been imported.

How are you putting the books on the device? You mention using calibre to "resolve" the authors, but, I suspect you are not actually using calibre to send the books to the device, or updating the files with the updated metadata. When you add a book to calibre, it gets the metadata from the book (either the internal or the file name depending on format and some options). After that, the changes you make to the metadata happen in the calibre database. The actual files are not updated. They are updated when certain actions are taken. To update the books in the library, you need to either use the Embed metadata tool, do a conversion or use the editor. Calibre will update the books when you export them from the library using either the "Save to disk" or "Send to device". The latter is the best way to get the books onto a supported device such as any of the Kobo devices.

If you are adding the books to calibre, fixing the metadata and then copying the books from the calibre library directories to the device, then you are not updating the books with the metadata needed. If you are doing something else, it probably means you are missing a step in the process and the book isn't being updated.

Lastly, if you are entering the author as "LN, FN" rather than "FN LN", don't. Calibre has methods to handle sorting the author properly. Kobo devices do as well. But, they expect to see the author as "FN LN" or "FN1 LN1, FN2 LN2".

Hello Davidfor,
I am very happy to let you know that my problem is solved.
I was so stupid!
I asked my husband for help and now I know what I was doing wrong.
It is quite simple. I have to upload the books that I want in Calibre. For example all the books by Sharon Bolton.
Then I have to check by "change metadata" to make sure her name is the same for every book.
Then I just have to click on "Send to device" and Bob's your uncle.
Me happy!

DNSB · 12-02-2019, 12:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Butterfly1234

It is quite simple. I have to upload the books that I want in Calibre. For example all the books by Sharon Bolton.
Then I have to check by "change metadata" to make sure her name is the same for every book.
Then I just have to click on "Send to device" and Bob's your uncle.
Me happy!

That's one of the area where I find calibre extremely useful. I used to clean up metadata by hand and just so much easier using calibre.

Butterfly1234 · 12-03-2019, 03:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNSB

That's one of the area where I find calibre extremely useful. I used to clean up metadata by hand and just so much easier using calibre.

For me it's a bit double.
I always had the habit of saving my books on my pc in the same format: Slaughter Karin - The good daughter.epub.

With my Tolino, it was simple: I just had to connect the Tolino to the pc and copy the books I wanted to read unto it. If I added 10 Slaughter books, they automatically landed in the "folder" Karin Slaughter.

To make sure they land in one folder on my Clara, I have to use Calibre.
Honestly, it's quite time consuming.
BUT
1) Calibre lets you download the synopsis of the book
2) the Clara is technically way more performing than the Tolino and
3) my Kobo books are automatically downloaded after synchronising.

08-08-2019, 02:11 PM	#1
Miss3181 Member Posts: 13 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2019 Device: KOBO CLARA HD	Authors, collections Hello, I have been using a Kobo Aura for years and managed to configure it as I wanted: Series and volume number in the series The name of the author Collections by series title and by author (surname-first name) But I just bought a kobo Clara and I can not configure everything exactly the same. I managed to deliver the series and volume number in the series, the name-first name of the author, On the other hand, in the Authors tab, I end up with a folder for the name of the author, a folder for the first name of the author and when I want to sort by either author's name or by first name from the author, I have exactly the same list And for the collections, it's the big emptiness I'm looking for a way to redo the settings to put everything to my taste. here is the setting I used {author}/{serie}/{authors} - {series_index:0>2s\| \| - }{title} Thank you for your help

11-26-2019, 01:37 PM	#8
milady133 Groupie Posts: 181 Karma: 616200 Join Date: May 2014 Location: Spain Device: Kobo Forma, Hisense A5	It takes sometime to set it up correctly, but once you have Calibre set up, it's more automatic. So let's start step by step: About the author showing up differently, the problem probably is that in those books internally the author is kept in different formats, books internally keep that kind of information (title, authors, series, publisher, etc) in what is called metadata. Because everyone has an opinion on how that metadata should be organized, and even the same publisher changes how it stores that information, when you add a book to Calibre, Calibre reads that information and exposes the internal metadata of the ebook so you can set it up the way you like it, and if you use Calibre to send the book to your kobo, Calibre will change that metadata on the book you send to the device (but not in the ebook you keep on Calibre, unless you edit the ebook, you'll probably don't need that) to match your personal preferences. So before sending an ebook to the Clara you need to get sure the metadata is as you like it, this video shows you how to change the metadata in Calibre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-32vXQdLYU Note that you have two boxes for the author (the same for the title) the idea is to use the one on the left to entry the data as First Name Last Name, and the one on the right is to check how you normally would order the data, normally as Last Name, First Name, but that part affects only Calibre, by default Kobo doesn't have access to that, you can change that behaviour in Calibre, but normally when you send books to Kobo, the author will be taken from that left box. If a book has two or more authors, in Calibre you use the & symbol to separate each author, and when Calibre sends that book to Kobo, it transforms that to the system use by Kobo to separate authors, which unfortunately is the "," symbol, that is one of the reasons why it isn't such a good idea to store authors in the left box as LN, FN in Calibre, if you like it that way, you have to change the default configuration in Calibre so the information in your Clara isn't messed up. Delete the books in your Clara, and once you have made sure that the metadata in Calibre is correct, send them again, the author problem should be solved now, except perhaps in the book with more than one author, but this answer is too long as is, so we better tackle that problem in another answer. Regards Last edited by milady133; 11-26-2019 at 01:41 PM.

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08-08-2019, 04:21 PM	#2
DNSB Bibliophagist Posts: 36,622 Karma: 146499190 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Vancouver Device: Kobo Sage, Libra Colour, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos	If nothing else, AFAIR, Kobo's firmware treats a comma as a separator for multiple authors. "Jack Green" is a single first name last name author while "Green, Jack" is two authors who have a single name. Also, keep in mind that Kobo's firmware will sort by the author last name when you display the author list. As for the collections, the calibre template you are showing has little to do with how collections are configured on your Kobo. See the Kobo Shelves and Collections wiki entry for some help configuring collections so calibre will manage them on your Kobo.

08-08-2019, 07:58 PM	#3
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,906 Karma: 47303748 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	@Miss3181: It should just work. Calibre does not treat any of the touch-screen Kobo device differently in any way. The only thing I can think of is that you need to update calibre. The Aura is running a fairly old firmware version. The Clara HD will be running the latest version. You have a recent enough version of calibre that supports the Clara HD, but, maybe it doesn't support the firmware version. Though that should mean you don't have the series info unless you used my Kobo Touch Utilities plugin to set them. Was there an error when you connected the device? Otherwise, as DNSB suggested, you need to check the KoboTouch driver configuration. The template you list is the save template for the files on the device. These have nothing to do with the data displayed. The driver can build the collections based on the metadata in the calibre library and the books on the device. Or have you installed the auto-shelf hack on the Aura? Sorry, I can't think of it's name, but it can build the collections from the file structure. If so, you need to install it on the Clara HD.

08-09-2019, 07:53 AM	#4
Miss3181 Member Posts: 13 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2019 Device: KOBO CLARA HD	@davidfor I have version 3.46 of Calibre I actually had an error message the first time I connected the Kobo Clara but I did a firmware update through the KoboTouchExtended and everything went back to normal. I do not remember having installed a hack of automatic shelves but it was 5 years ago. I modified the backup model and now I have the collections that fill up. Great. Thank you for your help.

11-28-2019, 05:02 PM	#9
Polarpenguin Groupie Posts: 176 Karma: 1834850 Join Date: May 2011 Location: UK Device: Sony PRS-300, Sony PRS- T3S, Kobo aura H2O Kobo aura One Kobo libra	Hi Hopefully some one can help. Am having the same issue. Started after connecting my Libra the 1st time. The attempt to support newer firmware pop up didn't appear initially & when I went into Configure the Kobotouch extended plugin to find the option I must have messed something else up. Am now confusing myself about what options should be ticked. I don't recall making any changes to the defaults other than adding the collection columns (which are displaying correctly) during the original set up. Using Send to Disc to transfer books over. Never download books direct from Kobo. Books sent as Kpub converted from epubs Calibre set up Author Sort = Aaronovitch, Ben Author = Ben Aaronovitch Libra Appears in my books as Rivers of London Aaronovitch, Ben Under Authors both Ben & Aaronvitch are listed separately. Thanks in advance for all your help.

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