diff --git a/src/calibre/debug.py b/src/calibre/debug.py
index 78fc1f2a30..893dab07b6 100644
--- a/src/calibre/debug.py
+++ b/src/calibre/debug.py
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ from calibre import prints
 
 def option_parser():
     parser = OptionParser(usage=_('''\
-%prog [options]
+{0}
 
 Various command line interfaces useful for debugging calibre. With no options,
 this command starts an embedded python interpreter. You can also run the main
@@ -25,10 +25,10 @@ on.
 
 You can also use %prog to run standalone scripts. To do that use it like this:
 
-    %prog myscript.py -- --option1 --option2 file1 file2 ...
+    {1}
 
 Everything after the -- is passed to the script.
-'''))
+''').format('%prog [options]', '%prog myscript.py -- --option1 --option2 file1 file2 ...'))
     parser.add_option('-c', '--command', help=_('Run python code.'))
     parser.add_option('-e', '--exec-file', help=_('Run the python code in file.'))
     parser.add_option('-f', '--subset-font', action='store_true', default=False,
diff --git a/src/calibre/library/cli.py b/src/calibre/library/cli.py
index 689a16dcbe..5003113504 100644
--- a/src/calibre/library/cli.py
+++ b/src/calibre/library/cli.py
@@ -1539,7 +1539,7 @@ list of book ids matching the search expression. The output format is useful
 to feed into other commands that accept a list of ids as input.
 
 The search expression can be anything from calibre's powerful search query
-language, for example: {}
+language, for example: {0}
 ''').format('author:asimov title:robot'))
     parser.add_option('-l', '--limit', default=sys.maxsize, type=int,
         help=_('The maximum number of results to return. Default is all results.'))