Change titles on iBooks?

You can't yet.

Apple listens if enough people complain. If you hate the current implementation of iBooks, send Apple feedback here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ibooks.html

There is a way, but it is not particularly user friendly and you have to be comfortable rolling up your sleeves and reaching into the guts of an epub file.

1. Start with a .epub file that is not in the iBooks library.
2. Unzip it. (I use "ePub Zip/Unzip 2.1.1")
3. Open the iTunesMetadata.plist file (located in the top folder) with a text editor. If there is no such file, create it. (the file won't be there if the epub has never been added to any iTunes or iBook library).
4. Add or edit keys and their corresponding data nodes. For example, to change the author, edit the "string" under the "artistName" key.
   <key>artistName</key><string>First LastName</string>
5. Save the file.
6. Rezip the epub.
7. Import it into iBooks.
8. iBooks will read the data from the plist file and use it. This then transfers to your ios device when you sync.

Here's a mapping of plist keys to iBooks/iTunes metadata

itemName > Name

sort-name > Sort Name

artistName > Author

sort-artist > Sort Artist

playlistName > Album

sort-album > Sort Album

genre > Category

year > Year

trackNumber > Track #

trackCount > Track # of

Here is the content of a .plist file I use as a template:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>itemName</key>

<string>Book Title</string>

<key>sort-name</key>

<string>Book Sort Title</string>

<key>artistName</key>

<string>First Last</string>

<key>sort-artist</key>

<string>Last, First</string>

<key>genre</key>

<string>Category</string>

<key>playlistName</key>

<string>Series Name</string>

<key>sort-album</key>

<string>Series Sort Name</string>

<key>year</key>

<integer>2013</integer>

<key>trackCount</key>

<integer>2</integer>

<key>trackNumber</key>

<integer>2</integer>

</dict>

</plist>

Try Sigil (https://code.google.com/p/sigil/), and edit the metadata. This solves the whole problem...

First, you'll have to find your e-book .epub file, that's usually on:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books

But which .epub file?

Open your ebook on iBooks (preferably on your device), if the book's title is something like C58B353EF88D09C27F350CC29B631B19 then this is the file name (otherwise I don't know how to help you in this step).

Copy the correspondent .epub file to your desktop and change it's name (to mybook.epub or something like this)

Open your desktop's .epub file using a file compressor app like Entropy (or any other)

Extract content.opf file from the .epub into your desktop (drag and drop)

Edit the extracted content.opf file using Text Editor. You will know which fields to change

- there is, for instance, a field called <dc:title></dc:title>, change it to <dc:title>Title of Your Book</dc:title>

- do the same to <dc:creator>Author</dc:creator> and so on

Save the content.opf file

Drag and drop content.opf file back to Entropy (or any other file compressor tool you're using). Make sure you're dropping to the same folder inside the .epub file, and replace it. Don't forget to save (on Entropy) to apply changes on .epub file

On your Mac, delete the old book from your iBooks Library

- open iBooks, right click on the book, choose delete

Open iTunes and sync it with your device (the book will be deleted from your device)

Add the eBook back to your iBooks Library (just drop the changed file onto it)

Sync iTunes again

Your book will show up again in your device's iBooks Library

You can delete all these files from your desktop, because the changed .epub file was copied to ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books

under some kind of weird file name.

In iBooks 1.1 on Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite:

1. Change to List view
2. Click once on the entry that you want to edit, and wait a few seconds
3. Click once on the author, title, or whatever you wish to edit to make that part editable
4. Type your changes
5. Click off that line

This might work in Mavericks as well? Let me know!

ermanno247,,

Thanks, but it does not work in Mavericks.

Can Sigil be used to edit metadata for books in iBooks? If so, how?

That does indeed work but.... I can only edit the metadata one file at a time. Is there a way to do a batch edit within iBooks, as there was in iTunes?

You are right, this does not make much sense in what limits information we can edit in our devices. I don't think this is an engineer decision, most likely a business one or program one to save development time or to really make us get only books from the store, not sure, but it does not matter, editing metadata is something customers miss from Mavericks. I would advise people requesting this feature back at > https://www.apple.com/feedback/ibooks.html

Just praise you like iBooks app and need metadata editing feature back. The more people requesting it, more likely management will considering adding it back.

That's great, ermanno. Many thanks. Just like music and podcast files in iTunes. Why on earth don't Apple make that clear?

Warwick

Julian, you can cut and paste text from and into the cells in list view. There is also a prompting fact working, e.g. modify one author to Jane Austen, then start typing Jan... in another and you are prompted to accept Jane Austen.

Warwick

For iBooks on your iPad or iPhone:

- Change the view to 'List', on the top left corner

- Press 'Select', on the top right corner.

- Long press on the title that you want to change. The loop will pop up then you can edit the title.

- When finished, press 'Done' that will appear on the top right corner

Is there a way to edit the metadata of several books at the same time?

Helped me too. Thank you.

I can't make that work on my iPad. What do you mean by a 'loop'? All I get is the opportunity to 'Move' or 'Delete'.