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Need advice - Calibre for converting and managing fanfiction
I need some advice on how to use Calibre to convert and manage my vast fanfiction library. I have tried using this program in the past, installing and uninstalling several times. I cannot stand the fact that it creates a copy of every file I add to it. I understand the reasons for it now though I didn't in the past, but just knowing that it leaves a mess of folders and subfolders and files on my computer drives me batty. It says it is "designed around the concept of the logical book, i.e., a single entry in your library that may correspond to actual e-book files in several formats", but I only keep multiple formats for fanfic, so that seems reduntant to me. I have tried to find answers on the Calibre forum over at MobileRead, but most of the conversations are too technical for me. I hope some of you can at least give me some starting points.
So, I've been saving fanfiction for years, in various fandoms, because when I first started reading it, I didn't have internet at home, and net cafes charged ridiculous amounts for sitting there reading. I would bring a bunch of floppies and save favorites as txt files because they would take up the least amount of space and I could cram a lot of them on a single floppy. Those fics are still on my computer, in folders according to fandom and author. I don't bother with genres, because of the popularity of AUs in my main fandom. An author may write stories set in an Old West setting, WWII, present time, SF AU etc.; they all get saved in that author's folder. I number the series, and leave stand-alones with just the titles. I also don't bother with pairings because I'm mostly a gen reader.
I now save most of my favorites as htmls or download as epubs from AO3 to "My Fandoms > Fandom > Author" folders on my computer, and copy to my e-reader. I've been thinking about converting the old fics to htmls too, but it would be a time consuming process to do it one by one (I'm talking thousands of files, which often wrap after 65 characters). I know Calibre can do a batch convert of files from one format to another, but like I said I have issues with the way it behaves. I am wondering if I can set it up so that I convert the files I need, add tags and covers, move them to the location of my choice and then have Calibre delete the files and folders in its library created in the process.
Or if this is not possible with Calibre, could you recommend an alternative program that could do a batch convert from txt to clean, bare bones html/epub, and allow me to add tags to the resulting files? I'd really appreciate any help you can give me.
So, I've been saving fanfiction for years, in various fandoms, because when I first started reading it, I didn't have internet at home, and net cafes charged ridiculous amounts for sitting there reading. I would bring a bunch of floppies and save favorites as txt files because they would take up the least amount of space and I could cram a lot of them on a single floppy. Those fics are still on my computer, in folders according to fandom and author. I don't bother with genres, because of the popularity of AUs in my main fandom. An author may write stories set in an Old West setting, WWII, present time, SF AU etc.; they all get saved in that author's folder. I number the series, and leave stand-alones with just the titles. I also don't bother with pairings because I'm mostly a gen reader.
I now save most of my favorites as htmls or download as epubs from AO3 to "My Fandoms > Fandom > Author" folders on my computer, and copy to my e-reader. I've been thinking about converting the old fics to htmls too, but it would be a time consuming process to do it one by one (I'm talking thousands of files, which often wrap after 65 characters). I know Calibre can do a batch convert of files from one format to another, but like I said I have issues with the way it behaves. I am wondering if I can set it up so that I convert the files I need, add tags and covers, move them to the location of my choice and then have Calibre delete the files and folders in its library created in the process.
Or if this is not possible with Calibre, could you recommend an alternative program that could do a batch convert from txt to clean, bare bones html/epub, and allow me to add tags to the resulting files? I'd really appreciate any help you can give me.
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Yeah that's odd...not seeing your work flow it's hard to say what could have gotten mixed up. I don't use Sigil so I can't say how it works in terms of working files. But generally speaking you should only have the epub where you save your story to. Did you do any tests with saving the converted story somewhere else in a new clean empty folder to see what would happen?
I don't know if I will eventually start using it for management as well. I'm taking it slow this time; first time I imported my entire library and ended up with a mess on my hands.
Same here! :)
I remember reading somewhere in one of the threads that too many subfolders can impair Windows performance so that's also an issue. The developer was surprised by that.
I thought you had to go down about twenty levels before anything would happen. I do know that some programs can't handle more than 40 characters in a file name. But I've never run into any troubles in the three years I've been using calibre. And since Calibre is the only program accessing any of those folders it's all good. :)
Read/unread I could apply to new fics, since the ones already saved have all been read many times before. In the end, I guess it's a question of stepping over that mental hurdle of dealing with folders to dealing with metadata. My level of discomfort tells me I'm not ready yet.
I think for myself I just love that the program does have custom columns. It took me a while to get used to the program too. Hopefully, they'll either come out with a good alternative or the folder structure will stop bugging you.