# Question about Calibre



## back2nature (Jun 15, 2009)

I downloaded Calibre to help organize the author's name.  I had a few Gutenberg Press books, that the author's name is blank on the Kindle list. Added them to Calibre, fixed them, and resent to the K2. Worked great, now they show up. So I have a few current books I bought from Amazon that display the authors name as Last, First. When sorted by author, they are in the right place, but display different from the others.

I fixed it in Calibre, but when I resent them to the K2, they didn't change. Is it Amazon's files, that they won't let us change anything on the K2, even the way the name is displayed? There's another book that displays the author in ALL CAPS. Don't like that either. I know, I'm anal.

Laurie


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## VictoriaP (Mar 1, 2009)

Amazon's files are DRM'd with a proprietary format. Calibre cannot make any changes to them appear on the Kindle at this point.

I know how you feel; the "sort by author" feature is pretty


Spoiler



damn


useless when the publishers can't agree on how to list an author's name!


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## back2nature (Jun 15, 2009)

Well, that sucks!


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## legalbs2 (May 27, 2009)

VictoriaP said:


> Amazon's files are DRM'd with a proprietary format. Calibre cannot make any changes to them appear on the Kindle at this point.
> 
> I know how you feel; the "sort by author" feature is pretty
> 
> ...


Is that why the covers that I have in Calibre do not transfer over to Kindle DX?


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

legalbs2 said:


> Is that why the covers that I have in Calibre do not transfer over to Kindle DX?


I don't think it's related, could you give more details?

Mike


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## suicidepact (May 17, 2009)

Yes legalbs, is you've had calibre acquire the covers via the ISBN, and the file is an Amazon file (which is locked with DRM) the cover you've downloaded won't show, just as changing any other metadata won't change anything once synced to the Kindle. The reason is that these files are in a sense locked and can't be manipulated without breaking the digital rights management (DRM). The reason Calibre shows the modifications is because the program (Calibre) stores that information (all metadata) locally on the hard drive and displays the new cover you've downloaded when you view the file from within the program. This is all done without modifying the Amazon digital file (.azw,.tpz, etc.) 
Because Amazon locks these files, Calibre can't change the cover, so your Kindle won't display the new cover.

On another note, you should be able to modify covers on non-DRM files by importing the file, getting the cover you want, and then converting it to a different Kindle friendly format (MOBI).


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## legalbs2 (May 27, 2009)

Yes, non-DRM files do transfer with any cover I can find.  But since I primarily buy my books from Amazon, then I guess I go without covers.  

Thanks.


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## mumsicalwhimsy (Dec 4, 2008)

Not certain if I am having a senior moment or an actual problem.....
Downloaded some books from Amazon onto the Kindle... they are not showing up in the Calibre library.... is this automatic when I connect?  Or, am I missing a step.
Many thanks.


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## pidgeon92 (Oct 27, 2008)

mumsicalwhimsy said:


> Not certain if I am having a senior moment or an actual problem.....
> Downloaded some books from Amazon onto the Kindle... they are not showing up in the Calibre library.... is this automatic when I connect? Or, am I missing a step.
> Many thanks.


No.... You have to add the books to Calibre manually.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

I might also mention that mobi2mobi _will_ change the author names on Amazon DRM books. But it's not user-friendly for computer non-geeks. It's a perl script. If you run Windows, you can get a compiled version of the program which also has a graphical front end that's a bit easier to use (but still not all that user-friendly). If you run a Mac, you have to do it the hard way. But it can be done.

Mike


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## HappyGuy (Nov 3, 2008)

back2nature said:


> When sorted by author, they are in the right place, but display different from the others.


Note that there are TWO fields in Calibre's meta data information. Author(s) and Author Sort. the Author(s) field is exactly that, the name(s) of the author(s), usually first name, last name. This field is what shows up when you sort by author. The Author Sort field determines how  (in what order)the book will be sorted if you sort by author and SHOULD be entered last name, first name (note that this field, even though it is used for the sort, doesn't show up - whatever is in the Author(s) field is displayed. I've gotten into the habit of making sure both fields are last name, first name so that all of the books are sorted by last name, first name AND that the display is also last name, first name. I tried it with the author's first name, last name displaying, but it looked wierd to me.

So, as I said, if you make sure both fields are last name, first name they'll sort that way in Calibre and will also upload and sort that way on the Kindle - at least they have for me (.azw book included).


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## srmalloy (Mar 3, 2009)

FearNot said:


> Note that there are TWO fields in Calibre's meta data information. Author(s) and Author Sort. the Author(s) field is exactly that, the name(s) of the author(s), usually first name, last name. This field is what shows up when you sort by author. The Author Sort field determines how  (in what order)the book will be sorted if you sort by author and SHOULD be entered last name, first name (note that this field, even though it is used for the sort, doesn't show up - whatever is in the Author(s) field is displayed. I've gotten into the habit of making sure both fields are last name, first name so that all of the books are sorted by last name, first name AND that the display is also last name, first name. I tried it with the author's first name, last name displaying, but it looked wierd to me.
> 
> So, as I said, if you make sure both fields are last name, first name they'll sort that way in Calibre and will also upload and sort that way on the Kindle - at least they have for me (.azw book included).


I took an HTML file that I've been collecting the chapters of _Ceres_ that L. Neil Smith has been posting, one chapter a week, and converted it to MobiPocket and downloaded it to my Kindle 2. With the *Author* field set to "L. Neil Smith" and the *Author Sort* field set to "Smith, L. Neil", the document appeared in the 'L's, with the author name "L. Neil Smith"; with both the fields set to "Smith, L. Neil", the document appeared under the 'S's, with the author name "Smith, L. Neil". So it appears that the Kindle 2 doesn't look at the Author Sort field. At least, not for all file types.


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## HappyGuy (Nov 3, 2008)

I found the same thing - sometimes it seems to sort on the author name field and sometimes on the author sort field (I have a K1). I think the issue may really be with the way Calibre functions. One thing I have found is that if I make both fields last name, first name they show up that way on my Kindle.


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