# Problems sorting Calibre-edited books in paperwhite?



## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

So I got the paperwhite Kindle today and overall I'm liking it.  Trying to load all of my books from Calibre into the Kindle.  But the books are not sorting properly.  I have it set to sort alphabetically by author - but it also then sorts then alphabetically by title within the author.  Previously it used to sort by publication date, which made it easy to sort books within a series.  Now... I don't see what the solution is!  Is anyone else dealing with this issue?  It can't just be me!


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Hi, DYB, 

I'm going to move this to our Tips, Tricks and Troubleshooting forum.  Thanks for understanding!

Betsy


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Is this really only happening to me??  

None of the changes in metadata are carrying from Calibre into the PW.  It's as if I downloaded the books from Amazon directly, with all the formatting errors that that entails.  So weird...and unfortunate.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

The covers on most of my books aren't coming over from Calibre either. Some are being put in "documents" and others in "books" as well. The mobileread forums say they're looking at it and probably needs some adjustment on the drivers.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

I was googling and saw that discussion.  Hopefully somebody catches on to this glitch as well!  It's a real bummer!


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I'm guessing it's a Calibre issue and not an Amazon issue.  I don't use Calibre and haven't seen a problem on my KP; I seem to recall similar complaints by Calibre users, however, with previous kindle releases.  They got 'em fixed pretty quickly, though.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

It's really the first time I've had an issue with Calibre; all the previous Kindles seemed to work ok, at least they did for me.  Right now the new Kindle literally does not recognize any of the changes in metadata done in Calibre.  It imports the books as if I downloaded them from the cloud.  So, for example, my Song of Fire and Ice series comes in with some books having the Book #X in the titles and some not having that, and Martin's middle initials coming in as R.R. on some and R. R. on others.  Plus some are sorted under M and others under R.  Complete mess across the board!  Ugh!

And yes, I also had the covers not importing issue, but that didn't bother me as much as the actual organization/sorting of books!  Hopefully this is fixed soon so I can start using the new Kindle!  Right now there's absolutely no point importing any books.


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## DD (Nov 9, 2008)

DYB said:


> So I got the paperwhite Kindle today and overall I'm liking it. Trying to load all of my books from Calibre into the Kindle. But the books are not sorting properly. I have it set to sort alphabetically by author - but it also then sorts then alphabetically by title within the author. Previously it used to sort by publication date, which made it easy to sort books within a series. Now... I don't see what the solution is! Is anyone else dealing with this issue? It can't just be me!


They changed how the homepage sorts on the KPW. It no longer recognizes special characters for sorting. I mention this in my post in the 'first impressions' thread:

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,128453.msg1902442.html#msg1902442

Here is a picture of how I have to sort my collections on the KPW:


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

DD said:


> They changed how the homepage sorts on the KPW. It no longer recognizes special characters for sorting. I mention this in my post in the 'first impressions' thread:
> 
> http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,128453.msg1902442.html#msg1902442
> 
> Here is a picture of how I have to sort my collections on the KPW:


I've never used Collections before; is that now the only way to sort things in the "custom" order? (BTW, the latest update on Calibre from this morning didn't fix any of these issues. KPW still does not recognize any changes in metadata.)


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## Wisteria Clematis (Oct 29, 2008)

DYB said:


> So I got the paperwhite Kindle today and overall I'm liking it. Trying to load all of my books from Calibre into the Kindle. But the books are not sorting properly. I have it set to sort alphabetically by author - but it also then sorts then alphabetically by title within the author. Previously it used to sort by publication date, which made it easy to sort books within a series. Now... I don't see what the solution is! Is anyone else dealing with this issue? It can't just be me!


Yes, I'm dealing with that too. Publication dates no longer seem to be relevant for sorting. I went into Calibre and edited the titles in each series so that the title starts with a number (01, 02, etc.) and that is enabling the PW to show them in the correct order most of the time. I'm still having a problem with some books however.....there are a few (one example is the Mary Baogh 'slightly' series) where the PW just will not recognize the edits I made to the title. I wonder if the publisher did some kind of coding thing in order to make it impossible for anyone to alter the title? The other difficulty I'm having is with authors who have more than one series. All the like numbers wind up together, and I haven't figured out yet how to keep each series separate.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

DYB--

would you consider adding "Calibre" to your subject (or I can do it for you) as it only applies to people using Calibre to change the metadata?  People using Amazon metadata (which I think most of our members do) don't have any problems sorting....

Just a thought.

Betsy


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## Wisteria Clematis (Oct 29, 2008)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> DYB--
> 
> would you consider adding "Calibre" to your subject (or I can do it for you) as it only applies to people using Calibre to change the metadata? People using Amazon metadata (which I think most of our members do) don't have any problems sorting....


Betsey,

When I try just importing the titles directly from amazon, books in a series only sort alphabetically by title---not by the order in which they were published. Do you know of any way just using amazon's metadata that series can be shown in the correct order? I would love it if that were possible.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Wisteria Clematis said:


> Betsey,
> 
> When I try just importing the titles directly from amazon, books in a series only sort alphabetically by title---not by the order in which they were published. Do you know of any way just using amazon's metadata that series can be shown in the correct order? I would love it if that were possible.


Publication date is not one of the sort order options Amazon gives you--however you can sort by "Author," "Title" or "Recent" (recently opened) as well as "Collections" from the home screen, or by "Author," Title" or "Recent" in a collection. And I'm not aware of any problems for people doing those sorts....

Betsy


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

It really sounds like Calibre has been essentially rendered useless with the new Kindles.  The problem with using Amazon's original metadata is that they frequently sort authors incorrectly (as I mentioned above, some George R. R. Martin books sort under M, others under G, one under R), so sorting by author is useless.  And then the way publishers enter book titles is inconsistent as well, so that sorting is out of whack.  The ability to edit that metadata is why Calibre has been an essential tool for me.  I guess we'll see if the guy who created the software figures out how to fix it.  But like I said, this morning's update didn't fix any of these problems.    And the only discussion I've seen online between him and some users has been about cover images.


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## Eltanin Publishing (Mar 24, 2011)

If I (meaning, if I worked for amazon and was writing the software), had to choose what to sort by, after author (when author is all the same), I'd pick title. It seems logical to me. I'm surprised it sorted by publication date before. It is frustrating when things change.

Give Calibre a week or so and I bet you'll see an update with some improvements, such as covers working. For my non-DRMed books, I change the cover if need-be and re-make the mobi, then email it to my kindle through Amazon. I was pleased to see that the covers show up fine this way on my home screen, though they do have a banner across the bottom of the cover that says "Personal" (because it's a personal document), and that banner sometimes covers part of the cover. It only just now occurred to me that if I side-load them from Calibre, that banner won't be there... though you're having trouble with the covers when side-loading... Have you tried clicking on a book in Calibre, opening the book's location, and dragging the book to your kindle, rather than sending the book the the kindle from within Calibre?


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

DYB said:


> It really sounds like Calibre has been essentially rendered useless with the new Kindles. The problem with using Amazon's original metadata is that they frequently sort authors incorrectly (as I mentioned above, some George R. R. Martin books sort under M, others under G, one under R), so sorting by author is useless. And then the way publishers enter book titles is inconsistent as well, so that sorting is out of whack. The ability to edit that metadata is why Calibre has been an essential tool for me. I guess we'll see if the guy who created the software figures out how to fix it. But like I said, this morning's update didn't fix any of these problems.  And the only discussion I've seen online between him and some users has been about cover images.


I agree that the metadata from Amazon is inconsistent and sometimes creates problems. It seems like less of a problem with newer books to me than with older ones. I keep so few books on my Kindles these days, it's not much of a problem for me and the sorts combined with the search function work pretty well for me. But I can see it's a problem if you have a lot of books. I've used Calibre (too much of a geek not to) but it's not been enough of a problem for me to keep messing with the books.

Thanks, though, for changing the subject!

Betsy


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Eltanin Publishing said:


> If I (meaning, if I worked for amazon and was writing the software), had to choose what to sort by, after author (when author is all the same), I'd pick title. It seems logical to me. I'm surprised it sorted by publication date before. It is frustrating when things change.
> 
> Give Calibre a week or so and I bet you'll see an update with some improvements, such as covers working. For my non-DRMed books, I change the cover if need-be and re-make the mobi, then email it to my kindle through Amazon. I was pleased to see that the covers show up fine this way on my home screen, though they do have a banner across the bottom of the cover that says "Personal" (because it's a personal document), and that banner sometimes covers part of the cover. It only just now occurred to me that if I side-load them from Calibre, that banner won't be there... though you're having trouble with the covers when side-loading... Have you tried clicking on a book in Calibre, opening the book's location, and dragging the book to your kindle, rather than sending the book the the kindle from within Calibre?


The Kindles used to sort books within the author sort by date of publication, not alphabetically. So you could arrange books in a series to appear in order by adjusting publication dates. Now the alphabetical sort by title takes precedence. Which isn't helpful since the only series I can think of that has books continue alphabetically is that thriller series "A is for..." blah blah blah.

I hope they figure out a way to fix all this!

I have not tried dragging the book manually into the Kindle. I'll give it a try later tonight though.


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## Eltanin Publishing (Mar 24, 2011)

DYB said:


> The Kindles used to sort books within the author sort by date of publication, not alphabetically. So you could arrange books in a series to appear in order by adjusting publication dates. Now the alphabetical sort by title takes precedence. Which isn't helpful since the only series I can think of that has books continue alphabetically is that thriller series "A is for..." blah blah blah.


Well, I'd argue that sorting by title after author is very helpful for people who have pages of books by one author and they are looking for a certain book.

I've experimented with various ways of sideloading books, and yeah, I can't get covers to show on the home page (even though if I press and hold on a book to get options, it shows the cover there). If any one CAN sideload non-Amazon books and get the covers working, let us know. The good news is that the covers show when I email the same book files to my kindle via Amazon. Downside is that they get the "Personal" label/banner over part of the cover. Amazon is obviously flagging them somehow, but I don't see how. Looking at the file Amazon sent to my kindle in Calibre, I can't see any flag or tag, but maybe I'm not looking in the right place. It would be awesome to be able to get rid of that banner.


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## Eltanin Publishing (Mar 24, 2011)

I posted this issue (regarding covers of side-loaded books) on a different discussion forum, and Kovid Goyal, the creator of Calibre chimed in. He said that there is no known way of removing the "Personal" banner on the covers, but regarding the covers not showing up, he pointed me to this page: http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq.html#the-covers-for-my-mobi-files-have-stopped-showing-up-in-kindle-for-pc-kindle-for-android-etc

Here's what it says:
*The covers for my MOBI files have stopped showing up in Kindle for PC/Kindle for Android/etc.*
This is caused by a bug in the Amazon software. You can work around it by going to Preferences->Output Options->MOBI output and setting the "Enable sharing of book content" option. If you are reconverting a previously converted book, you will also have to enable the option in the conversion dialog for that individual book (as per book conversion settings are saved and take precedence).

Note that doing this will mean that the generated MOBI will show up under personal documents instead of Books on the Kindle Fire and Amazon whispersync will not work, but the covers will. It's your choice which functionality is more important to you. I encourage you to contact Amazon and ask them to fix this bug.

I tried this (reconverting a book) and it works, though you must use "Send to device" in Calibre, rather than simply dragging the mobi file. Since this gives me the same result as emailing them to my kindle via Amazon (covers work, but there's the "Personal" banner), I'll stick with that, but I figured this info might be useful to some people.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Can you ask him about all metadata changes apparently not being recognized in the new Kindles??


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## Eltanin Publishing (Mar 24, 2011)

DYB said:


> Can you ask him about all metadata changes apparently not being recognized in the new Kindles??


What about the metadata isn't working? I just changed the author of a book in my Calibre library to me (yay! I'm an author now!) and transferred it to my PW, and it worked fine.

There's the issue with covers, as discussed, but otherwise, metadata seems fine. Just because the kindle chooses not to sort by publication date doesn't mean that the publication data metadata isn't being saved properly by Calibre.


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## Wisteria Clematis (Oct 29, 2008)

Eltanin Publishing said:


> What about the metadata isn't working? I just changed the author of a book in my Calibre library to me (yay! I'm an author now!) and transferred it to my PW, and it worked fine.
> 
> There's the issue with covers, as discussed, but otherwise, metadata seems fine. Just because the kindle chooses not to sort by publication date doesn't mean that the publication data metadata isn't being saved properly by Calibre.


It works fine for some books, but for others the changes you make simply don't appear when the book is transferred to the PW. The original title and author appear instead, even though in the calibre library it looks as if the data has been changed. Again....this happens with some titles but not all.


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## Eltanin Publishing (Mar 24, 2011)

Were you sure to delete the book of your kindle (if it was there) before sending it to the kindle from Calibre? I only ask because I made that mistake when I first learned about using Calibre to change metadata - I'd tell Calibre to copy the book from my kindle to the Calibre library, make changes, send to kindle, and there were no changes. I had to copy it to the Calibre library _then delete the book from the kindle_ before sending the corrected version back, or else the changes wouldn't take.

I posted my question in the moblereads forum -> Software -> Calibre. But I later saw that people were also discussing the cover issue in the moblereads kindle forum.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

I mean that the changes I make to the title in Calibre are not reflected in the Kindle.  For example: I always remove things like "A Novel" or "Book 1 of..." or "A Hercule Poirot mystery" out of titles and only leave the actual title of the novel.  But some of the books continue to have: "A Feast For Crows: Book 4 of A Song of Ice and Fire" when moved into the Kindle.  And George R. R. Martin's name appears as "George R.R. Martin" (note the spacing difference in R.R.) in some of the titles, which alters where the name appears alphabetically within author sorting.  Does that make sense?  I can't say if this happen to all the books (I have about 600!) or just some, but it's definitely affecting the 5 Martin books I've tried to import.  (I'm reading one of them now which is why it's what I concentrated on most.)

I've definitely deleted the books off the Kindle and then imported new versions.


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## Wisteria Clematis (Oct 29, 2008)

Me too. Well, actually the problem titles were never on my PW. I downloaded them from amazon to my computer, edited the titles in calibre and then moved the edited version to my PW. I'm having the same problem that DYB described---the changes just don't appear once the book is in the PW. It is odd because some of the edited titles DO 'take', only certain titles are reverting back to the pre-edited form but it is happening with some of my most frequently read authors so it is annoying.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

I posted about my problems on Calibre's facebook page - and he deleted the comment.  There are many other people posting questions and concerns on there, so it's not like comments aren't allowed...


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Ugh, still no fix for this!  I haven't used the PW at all because of it!


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I understand the Calibre developer -- and a lot of other Calibre power users -- hang out at MobileRead.  Have you asked the question there?


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