Extract author from title field?

[srv181]

So sorry to ask, but my programming days were 40 years ago. Many .pdf's I import don't have the author in the correct field, instead it is in the title, for instance "Agriculture The Food We Grow and Animals We Raise (Natural Resources) by Julie Kerr Casper".
Right now I have to
go to each title,
cut text starting with "by" to the end of the title,
wait for the edited title to store,
enter the author column
paste the authors name
return to beginning of the field
delete "by "

Please, please don't tell me to study the template language - I'm happy to make an appropriate donation for a solution to the problem - see screen-clip.
Many thanks!

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by srv181

Please, please don't tell me to study the template language - I'm happy to make an appropriate donation for a solution to the problem - see screen-clip.
Many thanks!

I would start with something like (in Edit Metadata (in bulk) -> Search and replace):

Search field: Title

Search for: \(.*\) by \(.*\)

Replace with: \2

Destination field: Author

Note that this will not take any 'by' in the Title into account, so it's very basic.

Assuming this worked, you can do the same with Replace with: \1 and Destination field: Title to update the title.

Again, test whether it does what you want, this is off the top of my head. You will have to fix the author field yourself afterwards (thing like commas instead of & and stuff like that).

[srv181]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

I would start with something like (in Edit Metadata (in bulk) -> Search and replace):

Search field: Title

Search for: \(.*\) by \(.*\)

Replace with: \2

Destination field: Author

Note that this will not take any 'by' in the Title into account, so it's very basic.

Assuming this worked, you can do the same with Replace with: \1 and Destination field: Title to update the title.

Again, test whether it does what you want, this is off the top of my head. You will have to fix the author field yourself afterwards (thing like commas instead of & and stuff like that).

Thanks for your reply, unfortunately, now I have the whole text string in both the title and the authors fields and need to:
- delete the authors from the title
- delete the title from the authors
oh well, it may still be quicker than simple cut and paste and edit. I'll give it a try with more than 1 title

[BetterRed]

If you swap the Author & Title columns, then you could

• press F2 on the Title,
• cut the 'by <Author Name>' text with Ctrl+X,
• tab into Author,
• paste the 'by <Author Name>' with Ctrl+V,
• cut the 'by ',
• press enter.

BR