Here's how to edit metadata

Question

Here's how to edit metadata

First of all, I GOT THIS FROM ANOTHER SOURCE. I take no credit nor responsibility.

IT WORKS

Edit metadata with Calibre for Mac

Although edit metadata with iBooks is impossible, it doesn't mean this is the end of the story. With another software, Calibre for Mac, we can edit book's metadata then load the book into iBooks for Mac app.

First we import the book into Calibre and delete it from iBooks

Right click on the book title, choose "Edit metadata", then "Edit metadata individually".

In this window we can customize almost all the important metadata, iincluding adding a cover to the book

After you finish the editing, click "OK" to confirm.

But job is not finished yet, in fact the editing is only done in Calibre's library. To display the edited book in iBooks for Mac, we need add the editing into the book file.

No matter if we are adding cover or modifying other metadata like title, author & publisher, genre, etc. , converting the book to EPUB again is necessary, only in this way, we can completely edit the metadata inside the book, not only in Calibre library.

So the last step is to convert the book to EPUB, even this file is already an EPUB file.

Find the converted file in Calibre's library and drag it into iBooks for Mac, now we can see the book displayed in iBooks for Mac with all the gorgeous editing present.

Using the same method we can also add or modify other metadata like title, author & publisher, genre, etc. on Mac OS X Mavericks even the iBooks for Mac won't permit us to do so.

I have tried this and it works!!!

Message was edited by: stevekrischer

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Nov 10, 2013 3:52 AM

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Answer 1

G-Kap

Level 1

4 points

Dec 12, 2013 10:56 AM in response to stevekrischer

Thanks, good one.

Problem is most PDFs will look rather unreadable after conversion into EPUB. Especially if there are some photos or diagrams embedded in the text.

Otherwise good solution, will work for most books but not text books.😟

iBook - biggest flop in Apple recent history IMHO.

Please see here:

Re: Every Single Problem with iBooks for Mac

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Answer 2

Dec 10, 2013 4:13 PM in response to stevekrischer

Have you been able to get this to work for the "Category"? For me, nothing I try works. The title / author is changed as I'd like, but the Category always ends up blank in iBooks.

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Answer 3

bbrip

Level 1

10 points

Nov 10, 2013 3:58 AM in response to stevekrischer

Sounds very complicated. If you want it a bit simpler, there is a little programm called forScore which alows you to edit Metadata in PDF files and yhich I've been using for the purpose since quite a while. Its made for editing music scores (as the name suggests) but works as well for any other type of PDF.

bbrip

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Answer 4

Dec 15, 2013 9:01 AM in response to stevekrischer

Here is how to delete iBooks and get book management functionality back to iTunes (including ability to edit metadata):

1. Open Activity Monitor and kill the bookstoreagent service.

2. Delete the file for that service:/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CommerceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/boo kstoreagent

3. Use AppCleaner to remove iBooks app completely.

4. Restart iTunes and Books menu will appear again there.

5. Copy our ebook files from our backup back to internal storage. This is mainly for ebook files that we didn’t purchase from iBookstore. Don’t worry about books that we purchased from iBookstore, we can re-download them again.

6. Delete the ebook files from~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Booksso iTunes library will detect them as missing. Right click for each book, choose “Get Info” and it will ask the location of the file. Point the location to the ebook file that we have restored. Yes it’s probably a long and tiring process especially if we have plenty of books.

7. An alternative way of step 6 is to delete all the books from iTunes library and re-import them from the files. All the metadata we created before should remain unchanged.

8. Re-download books that we purchased from iBookstore. Or alternatively if we have those books in our iPhone or iPad, we can just sync them with iTunes and choose to transfer those books.

Reply

Answer 5

Dec 15, 2013 9:02 AM in response to G-Kap

Here is how to delete iBooks and get book management functionality back to iTunes (including the ability to edit metadata for your files):

1. Open Activity Monitor and kill the bookstoreagent service.

2. Delete the file for that service:/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CommerceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/boo kstoreagent

3. Use AppCleaner to remove iBooks app completely.

4. Restart iTunes and Books menu will appear again there.

5. Copy our ebook files from our backup back to internal storage. This is mainly for ebook files that we didn’t purchase from iBookstore. Don’t worry about books that we purchased from iBookstore, we can re-download them again.

6. Delete the ebook files from~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Booksso iTunes library will detect them as missing. Right click for each book, choose “Get Info” and it will ask the location of the file. Point the location to the ebook file that we have restored. Yes it’s probably a long and tiring process especially if we have plenty of books.

7. An alternative way of step 6 is to delete all the books from iTunes library and re-import them from the files. All the metadata we created before should remain unchanged.

8. Re-download books that we purchased from iBookstore. Or alternatively if we have those books in our iPhone or iPad, we can just sync them with iTunes and choose to transfer those books.

Reply