The Calibre desktop app allows you to create custom columns in order to save information that standard metadata fields don't cover.

Here are the topics we'll cover in this help article:

Syncing Titles to Bookshelves

Syncing Additional Series Info

Syncing Titles to Bookshelves

Step One

If you'd like to specify which of your bookshelves on BookFusion you'd like a book to show up in, you can accomplish this by setting up a custom text column and then populating it. Open the Calibre preferences window and select the "Add your own columns" section.

Step Two

To create a new column you'll choose either the "+" button along the right side or the "add custom column" button at the bottom of the window.

Step Three

You can configure the column a number of ways, but the below settings are the recommended values. Choose the "Short text" option to have a template shown and then update the column type dropdown to "comma separated text, like tags". You can name the column whatever you'd like, but keep the "lookup name" field with no spaces as seen here.

Once you're finished here just click "OK" and then "Apply" on the main preferences screen and it'll prompt you to restart Calibre for the new column to take effect.

Step Four

You'll find the new field available on the "Custom metadata" tab when editing a book's information, and you can add as many shelf names here as you like. If you already have shelves created on BookFusion just match the name exactly and it'll sync there, but if you want to create a new shelf you can do that by typing in a new name instead.

Step Five

Now that you have created your custom column, ensure that the plugin is configured to use that custom column. You can do that by clicking "Configure" after clicking on the icon of the plugin or customizing the plugin. See our help article on how to install and configure the BookFusion plugin.

You will then select the column you created or already have at Bookshelves Column as seen in the screenshot below

Step Six

You can run the sync for your whole library, or just select the books you want updated and right click to access the BookFusion menu and sync the selected titles only.

Syncing Additional Series Info

Occasionally there will be some series that connect with other series to create a larger world of related books. If you have some books like this you can setup a second series field as a custom column, so open the preferences and start a new column as seen in steps one and two above, then continue from here.

Step One

When designing the new custom column, click the "series" option at the top to pre-populate the template as needed. Leave the column type as "text column for keeping series-like information" and then set the name fields as desired (remembering to keep the lookup name with no spaces).

Step Two

Add the additional series information on the "custom metadata" tab when editing any of your books. For example, you might setup the additional series field to connect the various books by author Leigh Bardugo which are commonly referred to as the Grishaverse.

Step Three

Once you've added this information to any books you feel would benefit from it, simply complete a BookFusion plugin sync and the books in your BookFusion library will now show up as having both series.

Important Note: If you are syncing multiple series fields, be sure that they do not have the exact same name. Even if the numbering is different, you cannot have two series with the exact same name or we'll have no way to differentiate them and you won't see the information displayed correctly.