[patrisha w.]

I am a Mac user and thus use Stanza to get my free books into readable form. Several of them have been downloaded with names like 123321.ebook. I save them to a folder on my desktop and before I move them onto the documents folder of my Kindle, I have been using Stanza to change the name to Name of Book.ebook by using "save as." However, although they transfer successfully into the Kindle and are readable, there is no author name. How can I remedy this?

And, is there any other Mac program that is better than Stanza?
Any help from other Mac users would be appreciated.

 

[Mike D. aka jmiked]

There is currently no solution to the author name problem that is native to the Mac, with the exception of the mobi2mobi perl scripts. These require the Palm libraries to be installed on the Mac, and I've never figured out how to do this.

The solution I use is to install Windows using Parallels Desktop (or my XP machine).

Mike

 

[patrisha w.]

Thanks, Mike! Actually, I am quite glad to hear I am not the only one with this problem. I hate it when I think I can't work out something that everyone else knows how to do!

 

[Mike D. aka jmiked]

I have to admit that I’m more affected by incorrect author info that I should be. I insist that my books be able to be sorted by author name, as I have many hundreds of books on my Kindle. At the moment I have two books I bought from Amazon that can’t be sorted by author last name, and it drivers me crazy(er).

Mike

 

[pidgeon92]

Any help from other Mac users would be appreciated.

I'll have a look-see.... Can you send me a link to an e-book that doesn't have the author's name so I can test?

 

[patrisha w.]

I'll have a look-see.... Can you send me a link to an e-book that doesn't have the author's name so I can test?

http://www.webscription.net/c-1-free-library.aspx

Try downloading a book by Mercedes Lackey...

 

[pidgeon92]

I've downloaded one, and from what I can tell, it's not Stanza that is the problem, but the way Baen converted the books to Mobi, they did not put the author info in the right place in the code. I'll see if I can come up with a Mac solution, and will let you know.

 

[patrisha w.]

I've downloaded one, and from what I can tell, it's not Stanza that is the problem, but the way Baen converted the books to Mobi, they did not put the author info in the right place in the code. I'll see if I can come up with a Mac solution, and will let you know.

Thank you! Much appreciated!

 

[pidgeon92]

I'm still working on it.... There doesn't seem to be an easy way to access the metadata.... I will continue to research, but I don't think there is an easy solution right now.

 

[Mike D. aka jmiked]

I've downloaded one, and from what I can tell, it's not Stanza that is the problem, but the way Baen converted the books to Mobi, they did not put the author info in the right place in the code. I'll see if I can come up with a Mac solution, and will let you know.

I asked Baen about this some time ago, and here is their reply:

"The problem is that we've been making Mobi books for a long time and the
.prc files are version 3.x files. They use the Palm DOC signature which made
it look like DOC file even though it had HTML embedded. With version 4 and
the Kindle they changed the signature to MOBI/BOOK with a .mobi extension.
They added display of the Cover and other meta data with version 4, but they
did it in a non-standard manner adding special tags to the Open Ebook Book
OPF file. This screwed all version 3 books because even though they have a
cover, author and title tags as per standard OEB, mobi doesn't read them in
version 4.

So .prc files won't have the info and .mobi will. We're converting them as
we go but there are a lot of books to convert and it won't happen fast"

 

[pidgeon92]

It's nice that they are re-formatting them. Personally, the lack of author information doesn't bother me, but I can see why it would irritate others.

It disappoints me that there isn't an easy way to update this data, and there is no way I would bother going through all of the setup of the mobi perl stuff to do it. If publishers would just make their stuff compatible with the basic devices it wouldn't be an issue, but they all want to hold onto old business models and proprietary formats (to say nothing of DRM).

 

[patrisha w.]

Thank you all very much. I appreciate the time and effort you have spent trying to solve this problem.

Patricia

 

[Jeff]

... With version 4 and
the Kindle they changed the signature to MOBI/BOOK with a .mobi extension.
They added display of the Cover and other meta data with version 4, but they
did it in a non-standard manner adding special tags to the Open Ebook Book
OPF file... So .prc files won't have the info and .mobi will. We're converting them as
we go but there are a lot of books to convert and it won't happen fast”

The most recent version of the Mobipocket Creator Publisher's Edition (4.2, Build 41), produces PRC files with cover and meta data. I'm not sure about the Home Edition, but my guess is that it would be the same engine.

Jeff

 

[Mike D. aka jmiked]

The most recent version of the Mobipocket Creator Publisher's Edition (4.2, Build 41), produces PRC files with cover and meta data. I'm not sure about the Home Edition, but my guess is that it would be the same engine.

Jeff

I haven't had any problems with the current MobiCreator, either. I didn't quite understand Baen's explanation, heh.

 

[Mike D. aka jmiked]

The latest build of Stanza (Beta 15) has incorporated the ability to edit metadata, but in a very limited fashion. You can change the Title and Author metadata, but you can only save the info in ePub format. If you then export the book, it throws away the new info and you're back where you started.

But it's a beginning.

Mike

 

[Gone 9/21/18]

"I have to admit that I’m more affected by incorrect author info that I should be. I insist that my books be able to be sorted by author name, as I have many hundreds of books on my Kindle."

I also find not having the author name correct so irritating that in the beginning I was deleting any book with this problem as soon as read.  However, after discovering instructions on how to fix metadata on the Mobile Read forums, I did install Perl and mobi2mobi gui.  So now I fix books like this, and you can fix ones you get from Amazon.  Evidently the DRM doesn't affect the part of the book you need to get to to fix title or author.  I also get some mobi books from the Denver Public Library, and you have to run a script on them to get them on a Kindle, so having Perl is necessary for that anyway.  The library's books always come out with titles and authors either missing or scrambled, which is super-irritating, so I fix those too.  I've no idea what it would take to do this on a Mac.  There are probably instructions on Mobile Read, but needless to say I've always skipped the Mac discussions.  Doing these things the first time is a time-consuming PITA, but once you've figured it out, it's not a big deal.

 

[Mike D. aka jmiked]

After messing about with various solutions to the metadata problem for six months, I've ended up with MobiCreator as the only thing that is close to 100% reliable. Of course, you have to start with an html, doc, txt, or pdf file, since it won’t change metadata in an existing book.

Mobi2mobi won't work with all .prc or .mobi files, it just coughs and gives up on quite a few. As, of course, does the GUI version.

Mobi2mobi on the Mac works just like the Windows version (except you don't have to install Perl, Macs come with that already). You just have to install and link several Palm modules.

Mike

 

[Mike D. aka jmiked]

Hi I also have a MAC and use Stanza

Stanza is pretty nice.... it's not finished yet, but at least the author is working on it and making improvements. I've used Calibre, it doesn't seem to do what I need to do.

Mike

(I'd consider it a personal favor if nobody used MAC to refer to Mac computers. Not a big deal, but MAC is an acronym, not a name. I'm somewhat simple-minded and am easily confused)

 

[Glynnis]

I've been using Stanza for converting free e-books, but now have a question about using it to convert my own documents (Word) to put on my Kindle. Stanza converts the documents easily, but I have a problem getting a title/file name to show up. Everything shows up on my Kindle as "Unknown" by Unknown ... I've looked through the Stanza help and through this thread, but I'm still not sure what I'm doing wrong. I've tried putting the .azw in after the document title after selecting "Export Book as" for Kindle ... the actual file title is there, but for some reason it still shows up on Kindle as Unknown. Can anyone explain what I need to do to give my own documents a title that the Kindle will read? I'm not concerned about the author name, I'll be able to recognize my own works if I can just give them a title in my Kindle index.

Glynnis

 

[pidgeon92]

You enter this information under View -> Book Info. It should show up fine on the Kindle after that. If it doesn't do it again, sometimes it take more than one try. I wish they would work a little more on the desktop client, it's not nearly as finished as the iPhone client.