Word and chapter count

Show a story's length without crowding the cover

AO3 supplies the word and chapter counts. FanFicFare reads them and writes them into the #words and #chapters columns you created in Add AO3 metadata.

Shorten the word count

A calculated column can turn 34,291 into 34k, leaving more room on the cover.

1. Open Preferences → Add your own columns and create Short wordcount, with lookup name short_words.
2. Choose Column built from other columns as the column type.
3. Open the short-word template and copy everything from program: to the end into the column’s Template box.
4. Save the column and restart Calibre if asked.
5. Add {#short_words} to Generate Cover’s Contents → Custom text field.

A 750-word fic becomes 750w, 6,500 words becomes 6.5k, and 34,000 words becomes 34k.

Show chapters

1. In Preferences → Add your own columns, create Short chapter count, with lookup name short_chapters.
2. Choose Column built from other columns as the column type.
3. Open the short-chapters template and copy everything from program: to the end into its Template box.
4. Save the column and restart Calibre if asked.
5. Add {#short_chapters} to Generate Cover’s Contents → Custom text field.

The template checks the number before adding the label, so it produces 1 chapter or 12 chapters.

Limitations

This basic display shows the current number of downloaded chapters only. It does not show the author’s planned total. Continue to Chapter-aware and dormant status if you also want the completion state and last update date to affect the result.