Books Meta Data editing

Question

Books Meta Data editing

Apple has been conspicuously unhelpful when it comes to editing books metadata. I obtain some books from Audible that sorts FirstName, LastName. Other from third-party sources I edit to sort LastName, FirstName. For continuing book series I prefix the title with the protagonist initials and BookNumber. Sorting the library by author or title creates a meaningless jumble. To maintain sanity I use the TAP Forms database where I maintain a file of my books in author last name sequence and modified title (e.g. "R24 Blue Moon" is my shorthand for sorting Child, Lee Jack Reacher series identifying the 24th book in the Reacher series). Apple claims to be user friendly but inability to modify metadata in is unhelpful it could be caused User Hostile. The Books feedback page is unattended and reflects the highest version as 1.5 when it is now V 2.4. I have had a Mac going back to the original 128mb and historically Apple has been helpful but on this, there are other issues, they seem to be overwhelmed and unresponsive

iMac 27″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Nov 10, 2020 7:13 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Christopher Ivins

Level 1

24 points

Nov 12, 2020 11:56 PM in response to Catalina-Books-Music

IMO Books is the worst app on the Mac, and that includes Maps(!)

Books has lost all of the audiobooks I have purchased from the iTunes Store over the last ten years. I posted about it here a week ago and so far no-one has replied, so I wouldn't hold your breath. I've had positive experiences with support communities on other issues, but no-one helps when it comes to Books.

I hope you have better luck than I did.

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Answer 2

Nov 13, 2020 7:24 AM in response to Christopher Ivins

Thank you. This is an exact reflection of my first year experience. I even sent Tim Cook an email on the various issues surrounding books and not surprisingly received no reply from his office nor from the "Books" development team (assuming there is one). Over the past year I have made at least three attempts to get a resolution but there is total silence from Apple. Apple is now a $ trillion business and this kind of issue is an annoyance that they can and do ignore. What else are they ignoring? I have Big Sur awaiting installation but after the Catalina experience I have lost trust in Apple's secretive ways an failure to remedy its errors or omissions.

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Answer 3

Nov 20, 2020 3:48 AM in response to Catalina-Books-Music

I raised this sometime ago on the Apple Communities forum after the separation of iTunes into individual apps. Without doubt the Books App is the worst of the Apps. I am a qualified librarian and find the ability to edit metadata (the cataloguing) critical in Apps such as the Music App, where basic errors have been made. I cannot do this on the Books App and I fail to understand why. I had hoped Big Sur would resolve this, particularly since the web is full of negative comments on that app and its lack of metadata editing. But no change from Catalina. Users have suggested using Audacity or even importing audiobooks into the Music App then re-importing into the Books App, but I have not been able to get either option to work. I have also tried a few metadata editing apps, but again without luck. Quite frankly the App is a mess e.g even if you click on Title to get some sort of A-Z sequence it fails. I have an instance of a title beginning with E filing after S and titles with A/An and The file under A and T!!

I have no idea how we move forward on this. As a great fan of Apple I am so disappointed at the lack of response to the obvious faults of this app. If we as a community cannot suggest non-Apple resolutions how do we take our case to the higher echelons of Apple itself?

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Answer 4

Dec 8, 2020 9:18 AM in response to Catalina-Books-Music

See my post:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252146537

for a step by step solution to work-around the new Books limitations.

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Books Meta Data editing

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