Calibre uses Chinese paths (Do not translate my folders, Calibre).

Calibre, as the most popular open-source local e-book management program, surprisingly does not support UTF-8 file paths. Maybe that's just how open-source software is.

I previously saw an article on a niche software website: Please Calibre, Do Not Translate My File Paths, which used the Cirn09/calibre-do-not-translate-my-path project to use Chinese paths. However, this article by Qing Xiaowa is not perfect, and even after just a few days, it can be said to be misleading (because the project has been updated, but the article hasn't been updated). So I plan to write my own tutorial.

In fact, the README.md of this project has also been updated, you can just read that; but I have recorded some problems I encountered, which may be helpful.

Even with this plugin, the file paths imported to the device will still be in ASCII, considering that some older e-book readers may not handle paths with UTF-8 characters correctly.

It's best to back up your library before starting the operation, just in case.

Installation#

Choose the appropriate version#

First, find the latest version number on the Releases page. This version number should match the version number of Calibre. If Calibre's version number is newer than the plugin's version number, you can wait a few days for the author to update it, or downgrade Calibre yourself.

Note: The author has specifically packaged the plugin for versions 5.14.0 and 6.11.0. If you have to use these versions of Calibre because you are using an older version of macOS, you can use them.

In short, "the version number of Calibre should match the version number of the plugin." If the version numbers don't match, it may have no effect or even prevent Calibre from starting.

Replace the file#

Download -> Unzip -> Replace the original Calibre file

In fact, it replaces a python-lib.bypy.frozen file.

Note that if you drag and drop directly in macOS Finder, it will overwrite all other files. Please only drag and drop this one file. Excerpt from README.md:

Unzip the downloaded package and click through the layers to enter the bottom-level path to find the python-lib.bypy.frozen file.

Open Finder, go to "Applications" (/Applications), right-click on "Calibre - Show Package Contents", go to Contents/Frameworks/plugins (the corresponding full path is /Applications/calibre.app/Contents/Frameworks/plugins). Copy the python-lib.bypy.frozen file from the downloaded package in step 1, overwrite it, close the Finder window, and open Calibre normally.

If you are a new user, you can start using it now!

Converting an Existing Library#

In short, you need to change the name of each book once and then change it back, giving it a refreshing feeling 😜

Excerpt from README.md:

Open the library and press Ctrl+A to select all books.
Right-click - Edit Metadata - Bulk Edit Metadata - "Search and Replace" page.
Search mode: Regular expression, Field to search: title, Search: $, Replace with: __DELME__.
Click "Apply" and wait for Calibre to finish (before clicking, pay attention to the replacement preview below, the new book title should be the original title + __DELME__).
Search mode: Plain text, Field to search: title, Search: __DELME__, leave "Replace with" empty.
Click "OK" and wait for Calibre to finish (before clicking, pay attention to the replacement preview below, the new book title should be the original title).

Congratulations!

demo