One lovely feature of iTunes when re-importing songs (i.e. they used to be MP3, and you want them as AAC) is that it will automatically copy the information from the old song only if the following data is exactly the same: track number, disc number, album name, artist name, and title. Otherwise, it thinks that it is a different song.
This can be highly annoying if you've customized every song title to a specific format (especially if it's a long title i.e. "Beethoven: Cello Sonata No.1 Mvt.2-Rondo"). Also, there is no easy way to paste in multiple song titles to a CD. So, I created a short AppleScript to copy the names from an imported album to the CD.
Make a new AppleScript document, enter the following script, and save it in the "~/Library/iTunes/Scripts" folder if you want to execute it from the iTunes script menu. Or, you can just save it anywhere and execute it manually through Script Editor.
tell application "iTunes"
--figure out the old and the new songs
set theCD to the audio CD playlist 1 of source 3
set theList to user playlist ("Copy" as string)
set theNumber to the number of audio CD tracks in theCD
--copy characteristics from the old songs to the cd
set the artist of theCD to (the artist of track 1 of theList) ¬
as string
set the composer of theCD to (the composer of track 1 of theList) ¬
as string
set the name of theCD to (the album of track 1 of theList) as string
set the disc count of theCD to (the disc count of track 1 of theList) ¬
as integer
set the disc number of theCD to (the disc number of track 1 of theList) ¬
as integer
set compilation of theCD to (compilation of track 1 of theList) ¬
as boolean
--copy the names from each song
repeat with i from 1 to theNumber
set the name of (audio CD track i of theCD) to ¬
(the name of track i of theList) as string
end repeat
set the view of browser window 1 to theCD
end tell
First, create a playlist called "copy" and drag the songs from your album in the library into the playlist (it's best to choose "Sort by Album" to do this quickly). Next, choose your script from the script menu or press "play" in Script Editor. Your songs on the CD should have the same names as your old ones. Now, just press Import and choose "Replace Existing," and you've just saved yourself from manually renaming all of the songs!
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20030514005957814