GUIDE

Cataloging

Bibliotaph fills in each book's details by itself, so you don't have to type them. You only step in when something's wrong, and your corrections always win: reading a book again, or a new AI suggestion, never undoes them.

Where suggestions come from

Folder and file names: a folder called "Adventures" or "D&D 5e" suggests the type or system of the books in it.
The file itself: the title, author and other details a PDF or e-book carries (an e-book's description and cover too), and party sizes and levels in the file name.
Book catalogues: Bibliotaph sends the ISBNs a book prints, and nothing else, to Open Library and suggests the title, authors, publisher and year its record gives. On bibliotaph.online, and in the Windows app while it's connected to bibliotaph.online, RPGGeek and Google Books are asked too, and each field comes from the first of RPGGeek, Open Library and Google Books that gives it, so RPGGeek, which knows RPGs and their designers best, wins wherever it has a value. RPGGeek also gives the book's artists and its mechanics (such as "Dice (d20)"), in its own words, which plain search finds. It says what it files the book under, too, and that fills in the game system and edition, type, themes, setting and series, in your lists' own terms: its "Scenario / Adventure / Module" is your Adventure, its "Dungeons & Dragons (3.5 Edition)" your D&D 3.5. A system, theme or setting your lists don't have is treated as a new name from the AI (see Vocabulary); a category none of the types stands for, and genres nearly every book has, such as Fantasy, are left out. RPGGeek can only be searched by name, so it gets the title Open Library or Google Books gives, or else the book's title in your library, and its record is used only when one of its versions lists an ISBN the book prints, or a product code it prints (such as PZO1110), so a book with a code but no ISBN is found there too. AdventureLookup, a catalogue of published adventures, is asked about every book as well, by its title, even one another catalogue already found. It knows no ISBNs, so its record is used only when the book prints that title on its first pages and also one of its authors or its publisher, or has about as many pages (within two); a book printing the title but nothing else that agrees gets a Same book? card, and one that doesn't print it is left alone. It fills in the levels an adventure is for, which no other catalogue has, its monsters (bosses first) and magic items, which plain search finds, what it includes (pre-generated characters, handouts, battle maps, or that it plays solo), and its edition, setting, environments and series, in your lists' terms: its "Dungeon" and "Cave" are your Underground, its "Town/Village" your Urban. Because of it, books that print no ISBN or product code are looked up too, by title; an image, which prints no title, isn't. Looking up online in Settings > Processing counts them all, not only the books that print an ISBN. The app asks through bibliotaph.online, and Settings > Processing names where it asks. A book is asked again once there's somewhere more to ask, such as when the app connects. A book none of them knows says Unable to find in any online listing beside Looking it up online under Processing in its details. A record is used only when its title is printed in the book, so a misprinted ISBN can't rename it; when it isn't, Needs review asks you Same book? about it (see below). These beat the AI's suggestions: the AI's guesses for those fields aren't shown, and come back only if you reject the looked-up value. Settings > Processing says where the ISBNs go. RPGGeek's data comes from BoardGameGeek, whose "Powered by BGG" logo shows under a book's details when some of them came from RPGGeek, in About on Windows, and on the website's licences page.
AI, if you turn it on: a model on your PC reads a few pages and suggests the rest. Every AI suggestion must quote the page it came from, or it's thrown away. See AI.
You: anything you type, accept or reject.

The details panel

Click a cover in the Library to open its details on the right. Click anywhere outside them, even on another card, or press Esc, to close them. Drag their left edge to make them wider; they stay that wide.

Under the cover is a row of buttons for what you can do with the book:

Open, and the button beside it to open it in a new window.
Open on D&D Beyond (named after its service), for a book you also own online. See Online libraries.
Ask this book, with AI set up. See Reading.
Open in another app, for a protected book Bibliotaph can't read.
Remove from library, for a book you own elsewhere. It's on the book's right-click menu in the Library too.
On the right, icon buttons to pin the book, add it to a binder, and correct it (Cataloged wrong…).

The Details tab starts with what the book holds and ends with its file. Click a section's heading to fold it away, or to open it again; every book's details keep the sections as you left them on this PC. The last four start folded.

Adventures in this file, for a compilation, or In a file, for an adventure inside one. See Adventures inside a file.
A pack's files.
Found inside the book, once the AI has scanned the whole book: each chapter with its pages and the settings, environments, themes and creatures found in it. These describe parts of the book, not the whole book, so they never change its details. Scan again has the AI read it again.
Collections, as chips you can remove, with Add to collection.
Details: title, game system, edition, type, levels, players, includes, duration, style, setting, themes, environments, monsters, items, publisher, authors, artists, series, year, mechanics, your tags, where else you own it (Also own, with the book's page online if you like) and where to get it (Get it from, a store with an optional link). Empty fields are hidden until you click More fields, except the main ones, and Players on an adventure, so you can say who it's for straight away. Suggested marks values nobody has confirmed yet. Open one to see where it came from, with the page and quote.
About the file: its format, when it was added, its folders and what the file says of itself. It includes the ISBN and Product code the book prints, as it prints them. Bibliotaph finds these on the first pages and the back cover, from the text it already has, and from an e-book's own information.
Where it is: the file's folder, with Show in File Explorer and Reprocess.
Copies, when the book is in more than one file.
Indexing: how far reading the book has got, step by step.

The Notes tab has a note for the whole book, saved as you type, and the notes on its pages.

Fixing a value

Keep this confirms a suggestion, so it's never replaced.
Use this picks one of the Other suggestions instead.
Not right rejects a suggestion. It won't be suggested again, by anything.
The pencil beside a field (Edit) lets you type your own value; Save keeps it.
Reset to suggestion forgets what you set and goes back to what the sources suggest.

Cataloged wrong

When a book is plainly wrong, right-click it (in the Library or on Home) and choose Cataloged wrong…, or click the pencil button under the cover in its details. Every field shows, and each guess carries a Guessed mark with its evidence open, so you can see what to fix. If you leave without changing anything, Needs review keeps a "You said this book was cataloged wrong" card with Fix it, and It's fine now if you change your mind.

After you fix a field, Bibliotaph offers to fix the same guess on other books in that folder, for example "Change 1 other book from “Horror” too?", with Undo afterwards. And when you set the same value on three books in one folder, Needs review offers a folder rule, so every file in that folder, new ones included, gets the value as a suggestion. Folder rules can be switched off in Settings > Library.

Edit many books at once

In the Library, click Select, tick the books (Shift+click ticks a run of them, Ctrl+A ticks every book shown), and click Edit metadata. Change any field but the title. A field the books disagree on says so instead of looking blank, and fields you don't touch stay as they are. Review changes shows what will change before it's saved, and Undo puts it back afterwards.

Needs review

Needs review in the sidebar holds what Bibliotaph would like you to look at. It's never in the way: every book is usable while its card waits. It has two lists:

Metadata suggestions, such as:

A field where the sources disagree, or a book with no useful title. Each button sits under the value it keeps: Keep current under what the book has, Accept under the suggestion, or Edit to type your own value.
A new term the AI used that your vocabulary doesn't know. Add it, file it under an existing term, or reject it. A list you'd rather let the AI grow by itself, such as campaign settings, can take its new names at once instead: see Vocabulary.
Same setting? Two or more terms in a list that may be the same thing under different names, "Greyhawk" and "Grayhawk" say, found by comparing the names or by the AI: see Find overlaps. Pick the one to keep and Combine, or Keep apart.
New version? A file that looks like another version of a book you have: most of its pages are the book's, it prints the book's ISBN as its own, or it has the book's title and publisher (from a lookup too, once one names it). Two files are never joined by an ISBN alone, since publishers keep one ISBN across corrected printings. The card says which it is and names both files with their pages, and you choose which one the book opens: each button names its file, such as Handbook_v2.pdf is current, either way one card for both files. Separate book keeps them apart. Nothing is picked until you click one. You can change it later with Make current under the book's copies in its details.
Image pack? "Make these 12 images one card?": Make a pack or Keep separate.
"You own The Sunken Abbey elsewhere. Is this its file?": Same book or Separate book.
Same book? "RPGGeek's record for its ISBN is of The Sunken Abbey, which isn't printed in it. Is it this book?" (or "for its product code"), for a record from RPGGeek, Open Library or Google Books whose title the book doesn't print, with what the record says: its title, authors, publisher, year and what RPGGeek files it under. For AdventureLookup, which is searched by title: "AdventureLookup has a record of The Sunken Abbey, the title it prints, but not its authors, publisher or page count. Is it this book?", with the record's page count too. Same book fills them in at once, as that catalogue's suggestions rather than your own values, so they beat the AI's guesses and anything you set yourself stays; the book uses that record from then on. Not this book means the record is never used for it. A book with two files is asked once. Books looked up before this card existed are looked up once more to ask.
Copies of a book that say different things, and pages that moved in a new version, with Use this page.
A compilation that seems to hold several adventures (see below).
Collection? "Make a collection “Ashen Vale” from these 12 books?" for a folder with three or more books in it (see Collections from folders): Accept, Not now or Never.
Add to collection? "Add these 4 books to “Ashen Vale”?" for books that share what most of a collection's books share (see Books for your collections).

The cards that offer to make something (a collection, books for a collection, an image pack, a folder rule, or cards for a file's adventures) have a × in their top right corner. It closes the card with its "don't ask again" answer, the same as Never, Keep separate, No thanks or Not split, so that suggestion doesn't come back, though a new one can (a book that fits the collection later, say). Undo on the closed card brings it back.

To check a book before you answer, click the window button beside its title (or middle-click the title, or press Shift+Enter on it). The book opens in a window of its own, at the page the suggestion's evidence is on, and Needs review stays where it was, so you can read and decide side by side, on a second monitor too. The window is shared: opening the next card's book shows it in the same window rather than another. Clicking a title still opens the book in the main window.

When there's more than one kind, Show narrows the list to one: New terms, Terms that may be the same, New versions, Image packs, Owned elsewhere, Same book?, Adventures, Collections from folders, Books for collections and so on, or the suggestions for one field such as Setting or Type. Each entry says how many are waiting, and Everything shows the whole list again.

Files needing attention: files that couldn't be read, with the reason, including books the AI couldn't read. Files with the same problem share a card, and Show the 12 files lists them. Locked PDFs have Open to unlock, protected ones Open in another app, and Try again and Try all again give the others another go. When Bibliotaph hit a bug, Copy details copies the version and the error, without file names, to paste into a bug report.

Every decision has Undo. What waits for review in Settings > Preferences chooses what waits for a look: When unsure (only what sources disagree about, and missing titles) or All suggestions.

Copies and versions

When two files have the same text on every page, such as the same book downloaded twice or copies stamped with different buyers' names, Bibliotaph gives them one card, so everything you do with the book is in one place. Its details list them under Copies, where Make current chooses which one opens and Not the same book gives a file its own card again.

A file that shares most of its pages with a book you have, or its title and publisher, is asked about as a new version instead. Nothing is ever joined without asking unless the text is identical.

To join cards yourself, tick them in Select mode and click Same book. You choose which file opens.

Packs

A folder (or ZIP) of 20 or more images and no PDFs, such as a map pack or a set of handouts, becomes one card: an image pack, named after the folder. A smaller set is offered in Needs review instead. Split into separate images gives each image its own card again, and Bibliotaph remembers that. To make a pack by hand, tick images or packs in Select mode and click Pack together.

Packs can hold PDFs too, such as a party's character sheets or a set of pregenerated characters with their portraits. Bibliotaph never puts a PDF in a pack by itself: tick the PDFs (and any images or packs to go with them) in Select mode and click Pack together. The card then says "Pack · 6 files" instead of "Image pack · 6 images", and its cover is still a mosaic of the first four. Opening the pack steps through its files with the arrows at the top (Previous file and Next file): PDFs open as PDFs and images as images. Its details list every file, PDFs shown by their first page, and Split into separate files gives each one its own card back, with everything you had set on it. A PDF with adventures marked in it can't go in a pack, since their cards name it.

A pack's cover is a mosaic of its first four files until you pick one to stand for it, such as the overview of a map pack. Right-click a file in the pack's details and choose Use as the pack's cover, or, while stepping through the pack in the reader, click the picture button at the top. The file you chose is marked Cover in the details, and Use the mosaic there goes back. Your choice is kept when the library is read again; if that file is deleted or leaves the pack, the card shows the mosaic again.

A search for a file's name finds its pack, and a search inside documents finds the pages of the PDFs in a pack under the pack's card. To see the files in packs on cards of their own, click Each file in the Library's toolbar (see Searching); the packs stay packs.

Adventures inside a file

An anthology or a magazine can hold several adventures. Each can be marked as an adventure of its own, with its own details, cover and page range, while the file stays one file. Mark one with Mark as adventure in the reader, Index as its own adventure… on a bookmark in the reader's Contents, or Adventures in this file in the details. If the adventure's first page or the one after has a blurb such as "for four to six characters of 3rd level", Bibliotaph suggests its levels and players from it, quoting the blurb. Type over them in its details, as with any field; values you set are never replaced.

When a file says, in its own words, that it holds several separate adventures ("a collection of four adventures", "each can be run on its own", "six one-shots"), Needs review says "This file looks like it holds 4 adventures." with those words and their page, a list you can tick showing each adventure's pages, levels and players as its blurb gives them, and Edit, Accept and Not split. Its bookmarks and the blurbs on their first pages show where each adventure starts. A campaign whose chapters each say which level they're for isn't proposed, since it doesn't call itself a collection. With AI turned on, the AI helps find them too, quoting where the book says so, and reads each adventure on its own pages to fill in its details.

While you browse, adventures stay inside their book: the file's card says how many it holds ("3 adventures"), and its details list them under Adventures in this file, where clicking one shows its own details. A search finds them on their own: an adventure that matches shows as a card with its book's cover, an Adventure ribbon and the adventure's title. Click it for its details, or Open it to go straight to its first page. If both the book and one of its adventures match, only the adventure shows, since that's what you were looking for. Page hits are grouped under the adventure they fall in.

To see every adventure as a card of its own, even while browsing, set Adventures inside files in the Library's More filters to Show as cards. Hide leaves them out altogether, searches included, so only their files show. A search you saved with adventures hidden keeps them hidden.

Remove adventure in an adventure's details takes its card away; its pages are only the file's again, and the file itself is never changed. To remove several at once, tick their cards in Select mode and click Remove adventures. Either way, Undo brings them back.

Books you own elsewhere

Own a book in print or on a virtual tabletop? In the Library, click Add and choose Add a book I own elsewhere…. It gets a card with no file, so it shows up in searches alongside the rest, with a badge on its cover saying where it is. Also own records where (print, a VTT, or your own words) on any card, and can take the book's page online, such as "D&D Beyond https://…";, which Open then opens. If a file with that title turns up later, Needs review asks whether it's that book's file.

With no file there's no page to make a cover from. Choose a cover image…, in the Add dialog or the book's details, uses a JPG, PNG or WebP picture of your own: Bibliotaph keeps a cover-sized copy, so the picture itself can move or go. Remove the cover goes back to the online library's cover, or none. Both kinds of cover are kept with your own data and reach your other PCs and the web library with the rest of your library.

Books you own on D&D Beyond or Demiplane, or bought from Humble Bundle or DriveThruRPG, can be imported all at once with Import from an online library… on the same Add menu. See Online libraries.

Check a download

Before copying a new bundle into your library, Check a download… under the Library's Add button tells you which files you already have: Check a folder… or Check a ZIP…. Each file is marked as already owned, another copy, maybe a new version, or owned elsewhere. Nothing is copied, moved or added. Copy list copies the results to paste somewhere else.

Vocabulary

Settings > Vocabulary lists the game systems, types, themes and other terms your books are filed under, with the other names each goes by ("5e" for "D&D 5e", say). Add terms, rename them, and add or remove other names. Folder names, searches and what you type all go through these names.

New names from the AI, at the top of each list the AI can add to (everything but editions), chooses what happens when the AI, or RPGGeek, uses a name the list doesn't have. Ask first, the default, puts a card in Needs review, one per name, and the books that use it wait for your answer. Add them puts the name straight into the list, and those books get it as an ordinary suggestion; choosing it also adds that list's names already waiting in Needs review, so a long list of campaign settings clears in one click. A name you rejected before stays rejected either way, and a name the AI added can be renamed, given other names or filed under another term here like any other. Adding names doesn't re-read the books the AI has already read; the button at the end of Cataloguing with AI in Settings > Processing reads every book again (see AI).

Find overlaps

A list grows two names for one thing over time: "Forgotten Realms" and "The Forgotten Realms", "Greyhawk" and "Grayhawk", "Wizards of the Coast" and "WotC", "Dark Sun" and "Athas". Bibliotaph looks for those in two ways, and each group it finds is a card in Needs review, Same setting? say, listing the terms with how many books use each and why they were paired. Nothing changes until you answer a card.

By their names, on every list: the same name but for small words, brackets or a plural; spelt almost the same; one name is the other's initials; one name is the other with a word added. This needs no AI, so the web can tidy a list too.
By the AI, on the lists the AI can add to (every list but editions), whenever it is on: the model is shown the list's names, with each term's other names, and asked which refer to one and the same thing, an abbreviation and what it stands for, another spelling, a translation, an older name of the same line. It runs in the background once a list changes or the AI has gone quiet after cataloguing, gives way to anything you ask the AI, and is asked only about names it hasn't seen, so an unchanged list costs nothing. Two terms that came with Bibliotaph are never paired.

The terms came from wherever they came from: the AI, a lookup in Open Library, Google Books or RPGGeek, a folder name, or your own typing. On the card, the term to keep is picked already, the one most books use, and Combine folds the others into it: their names become its other names, every book filed under them moves to it, and anything you rejected or any folder rule for them follows. Undo puts everything back, and the card comes back with it. Keep apart says they are not the same thing, and that pair is left alone from then on, whichever way it is found; a group combined one at a time, or kept apart, is gone from the list, and the AI isn't asked about it again.

Find overlaps, under New names from the AI on each list in Settings > Vocabulary, compares the list's names now, has the AI compare them again if it is on, and says how many groups wait, with Open Needs review beside it. The pairs kept apart are listed under it, each with × to have it offered again.

Your tags

Your tags are your own labels, and Your tags in Settings > Vocabulary can find them for you. Give a tag a name and the words that signal it, separated by commas, and click Add tag: Undead with "undead, zombie, lich", say. Bibliotaph looks for the words in the pages it has already read, so nothing is read again, and a book whose pages use them often enough gets the tag, marked Suggested like any other guess. Open the mark to see the words and the pages they're on.

Often enough means the words are on at least 3 of the book's pages, and on at least one page in 20. A passing mention, or a few pages in a thick rulebook, doesn't count.
A word also finds words that start with it, as in search: "zombie" finds "zombies". Several words together, such as "old mill", are found only together. To see what a word would find first, search for it on the Inside documents tab.
Keep this makes the tag yours on that book. Not right takes it off, and it never comes back to that book, even if you change the tag's words or make the tag again.
Changing a tag's name or words looks through your books again. Delete tag takes its suggestions away; books where you kept it keep it.
New books are checked once their text has been read, scanned pages included.

Reading a book again

Reprocess in the details reads the file again (pages, text, cover and hints from names), keeping everything you added. Its menu has Reprocess with OCR on every page… for a scan whose text came out badly.

Forget its text, on a book's right-click menu, removes its pages, search text, cover and AI results from Bibliotaph and stops reading it. The file isn't touched. Read it again brings it back.

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