Metadata

PDF files do not have a ComicInfo.xml, but they can have some limited metadata embedded in the file inside an <x:xmpmeta> tag, which can be edited with the calibre app or the ebook-meta command line tool shipped with calibre.

See the table below to know what tags Kavita reads from the PDF file and how they can be set using calibre’s built-in ebook-meta CLI tool.

PDF

Conversion table

In PDFebook-meta flagEquivalent In Kavita
dc:title (this can be overridden by calibre:series)--title or -tChapter Title
calibre:series--series or -sName
calibreSI:series_index--index or -iVolume
calibre:rating--rating or -rUserRating
dc:description--comments or -cSummary
dc:publisher--publisher or -pPublisher
Year, Month, Day--date or -dRelease Date (Release Year for series)
dc:creator--author or -aWriter
dc:subject--tagsGenres
dc:language--language or -lLanguage (Kavita will only take the first)
pdfx:isbn or prism:isbn--isbnISBN

You can only change one file at a time, but you can set multiple flags at once.

Example ebook-meta Command

ebook-meta -t "My Title" -a "Jane Doe" -s "Great Literature" -i 2.00 "filename with spaces.pdf"

Some flags (like --author and --tags) can accept multiple arguments. To set multiple arguments in each tag, you can seperate them with commas. Be sure to put them in quotes.