# Can you rename books already on your Kindle?



## pile of monkeys

So I have a lot of converted .pdf and other format files and books (public domain stuff and some personal files), which I exported through Stanza and converted to .azw and USBed to my Kindle. This, of course, was before I knew anything about metadata and mobi2mobi, so I have many many files with gibberish names. Is there any (relatively simple) way to rename already converted and loaded books once they're on your Kindle so that they are easily identifyable on the list of books? All the information I've found indicates you need to change the metadata before converting, which suggests to me that I'm out of luck and have to make notes for each book so I know what the heck they are. Thanks for any help!


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## pomlover2586

Hmmm......good question! I'm interested to know the answer too!


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## Forster

I suggest you use calibre.

http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/wiki

It does a bang up job of fixing the metadata. You will probably need to reconvert them with calibre after you import them into the program though.


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## pile of monkeys

Well, I sort of answered my own question. (I always seem to do that after I finally ask!)

-Go back into Stanza 
-open the file I want to retitle
-go to "view," book info, and change the "title" line to whatever makes sense to me, select OK
-re-export the file in Kindle format back to the same folder I got it from, effectively replacing the previous file with the wonky name with the new file. Even though they have the same file name, the title metadata will be updated
-re-USB my Kindle and drop the folder back into the "documents" folder, again replacing the previous files with the same file name. This deletes the wonky names and replaces them with my new names.
-Open up my Kindle home page, sort by title, and there are all my new pretty titles.

It would have been a lot easier to do as I was converting, but it's good to know it can be done.


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## Anju 

I'm glad to know this in case I ever need to use it.


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## mlewis78

I'm still having a problem with renaming a book.  The title of Les Miserables - Victor Hugo reads "please read important header" (something close to that but longer).  I hooked up the kindle to my computer and changed the name of the file, but it doesn't help.

I can't find the info in calibre that someone here linked to.  I did not convert the file myself.  It was already an AZW file and I got it from manybooks.com

Thanks.


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## Sweety18

Anju No. 469 said:


> I'm glad to know this in case I ever need to use it.


Same here, I didn't know this could be done.


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## mlewis78

Just solved my problem by downloading the calibre software from the website someone here linked.  I added the book I needed to change title of and then -- don't remember if I clicked change metadata or convert -- and then there was a place to type the title and author.  There is also a place on the calibre software to send to your device -- it worked and now my book is properly labeled.

The file is a bit messy.  It was already an AZT file, but the table of contents has each chapter number repeated several times.  Well, can't have everything!


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## tsemple

Yes, the directory pulls Title/Author information from the metadata. You can change the file name (by attaching via USB & renaming with Explorer/Finder) but doing so won't change this data.

Now. It is probably technically possible to 'unpack' the file (return it to some editable state, in the form of an XHTML file with the content/metadata plus whatever support files go with that), since ebook formats are basically packaged-up HTML. But I'm not aware of a tool that does that, and Amazon is unlikely to provide it to us. ePub files for example are .zip archives, and you can use an unzip utility to restore the files archived therein. KZW are probably created using some more proprietary compression method.


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