Definition of "Author" in SharePoint

Question

When I search for a file in SharePoint, it comes up with a file name and a list of "Authors" for that file. What does "Author" specifically refer to? The creator of the file? Whoever has edited the file?

Can you change who the author for a file is?

Answer 1

If you look at the Author managed property in the Search service you will find that it can come from a variety of sources.  By default the Author property also includes multiple values.  That means that when it is crawled it will record both the actual author (as recorded in the document metatdata in Office) and the person who uploaded the document.  If they are not the same person it will normally present both as authors.  This can be confusing.  this thread talks about some possibilities for changing this behavior.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-CA/sharepoint2010general/thread/f667a439-15e9-4d8d-8052-63b7a244bdc1

---

Paul Stork SharePoint Server
MVP Senior Solutions Architect: BlueChip Consulting Group
Blog: http://dontpapanic.com/blog
Twitter: Follow @pstork
Please remember to mark your question as "answered" if this solves your problem.