How to correct EPUB title and author metadata

By EPUBTurn · Updated 6 October 2026

Make your EPUB easy to recognise in a library. Correct the title and author, save the changes into the exported book, and distinguish metadata from cover text.

On this page

Correct the book title and author
Update the exported book, not only the library record
Check a published title and author
Use the author named in the source
Handle collections, editions and organisation names
Read the library title before adopting a new file

Correct the book title and author

Keep the original EPUB as a backup.
Check the title page for the correct spelling.
Edit title and author metadata in your library editor.
Save and reimport a separate copy to check the display.

Update the exported book, not only the library record

In Calibre, select the book and use Edit metadata to correct the title and author. Check the spelling against the title page and decide whether an organisation should be recorded as author. A library database change and a change embedded in a saved EPUB are different things. Save the updated book using Calibre’s Save to disk workflow, then import or open that saved copy to inspect the title independently of the original library entry.

Use distinct filenames while checking so an old library copy does not disguise the result. If the library shows the correct title but the book’s title page still contains an error, that is a content edit rather than a metadata edit. Changing the title field will not rewrite the title page or cover artwork. Keep those three checks separate: library label, internal metadata and visible title text.

Check a published title and author

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland names Lewis Carroll as its author. Compare the title page with the library entry and the book’s metadata. A downloaded filename is only a storage name; changing that name does not necessarily change the title displayed by a reading app. Copy the spelling from the edition you actually have, preserve any translator or edition information, save a separate edited copy and reopen that copy. We have not reported a metadata defect in the linked Gutenberg book.

Open the published source.

Published title and author provide the reference for metadata. Open full-size image

Use the author named in the source

Do not invent an author when the document has only an organisation name. Metadata edits do not repair missing paragraphs, and a changed filename is not the same as updated book metadata.

Handle collections, editions and organisation names

A report can name both an organisation and individual contributors. Use the source title page to decide what belongs in the author field; do not turn every acknowledgement into an author. If the document is an issue of a newsletter, retain the issue or date information in a sensible title so different editions remain distinguishable in your library.

Check the sort behaviour separately from visible wording. A library may use an author-sort field or its own sorting rules, so a correctly displayed name can still appear in an unexpected place. Inspect the actual library listing before making repeated changes. For a one-off reading copy, a clear identifying title is often more useful than elaborate cataloguing.

After exporting, open the saved EPUB as a separate file and check both the library label and the title page. If only the library label changed, decide whether that is sufficient for your use. Do not rewrite publication identity to make a document seem to be a different edition or claim a different author. Metadata should describe the source accurately.

Read the library title before adopting a new file

Our NASA download uses a generic Front matter chapter label. That navigation label does not establish a defect in the book title or author metadata. Open the file in your library and compare its displayed title and author with the source. EPUBTurn creates a reading copy from the PDF; it does not edit the metadata of your existing EPUB. Correct a known title-field problem directly if the rest of that EPUB already reads well.

Open the actual source PDF · Download the saved EPUBTurn sample.

For your own document, create an EPUBTurn sample from your PDF, then use the reading checks described here.