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The Place for PDF Information

Tip: How Not to Worry about PDF Metadata Pos ted on A pril 29, 2010 by  Duff Johns on in Privacy, Reda ctio n, Security , T alking PDF 

 We g et th is qu est ion a lot , esp ec ia lly fr om ou r le g a l cu st om er s:

“How do we av oid creat ing PDFs tha t conta in potentially ha rm ful, emba rr assing or

confidential metadata?”

THE AN SWER: Stop creat ing m etadata in th e first place, or delete it all before deliver y , ther e’s help

e ith er wa y .

PDF metada ta ca n inclu de inform ation such as a drafting title, fi le-na m e, aut hor or orga nization.

Metadata is useful, an d this inform ation m ay be conv ey ed from th e auth orin g application (for

exam ple, Microsoft Word) int o a PDF as a conv enience featur e. For som e, howev er, t his isn’t a

conv enience, but a nuisance.

There ar e two basic way s to ensur e that y our PDF contains no potentia l ly rev eal ing m etadata.

1 – Create No Metadata

If you ar e using MS Word, you m ay be using the A dobe Acrobat plugin to create y our PDFs, or y ou

m igh t be u sing Microsoft’s PDF creat ion softw ar e.

In y ou a re u sing Adobe’s tool, go to the Preferences dialog an d un check “ Conv ert Docum ent

Inform ation”.

If y ou ar e does a Sav e As to get to Microsoft’s Publish as PDF featu re in Office 2 007 , go to the

“Options” dialog an d un check t he “ Docum ent Properties” ch eck-box.

2 – Destroy All Metadata

 A n other approach is act ing to ensur e that a l l m etadata in a g iv en collection of fi les ha s been pur ged.

Th is approach is especially useful for situ ations in wh ich th e PDF fi les ha v en’t all been created un der

contr olled circu m stances (see abov e).

Happily , Adobe Acr obat m akes it easy to elim inate PDF meta data on th e desktop.

In Acrobat 9 .0, select the “Examine Docum ent” option from the “Docum ent” m enu. This feature

allows y ou to elimin ate m etadata a nd optiona lly , ann otations from th e open PDF docum ent. With

 A dob e A cr oba t Pr ofession a l, y ou ca n r u n th is fu n ction in Batch Pr ocessin g m ode to h a n dl e folde r s of 

PDFs at a tim e.

Enterprise Class Metadata Management

If y ou need industria l s trength PDF metadata m ana gement, look no further than our enterprise-

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class pdfHarmony serv er softwa re. It ’s av ailable for W indow s, Linu x an d sev eral UNIX opera ting

system s.

 What about Track Changes data?

Man y ha v e also w ondered if the pa ge-content in a PDF can contain a r ecord of the editing sessions in

a Word file used to create the PDF. The an swer is sim ple: NO. When y ou cr eate a PDF from a Word

file, the text in th e PDF is entir ely un related an d un affected by wh atev er editing sessions in Word

preceded its creation.

How do I redact (remove) content from a PDF document?

First, do not repeat th e sam e m istake so m an y other s hav e m ade! NEVER cover or color or “h ide”

conten t in Word (or elsew here) an d expect it to be redacted in th e PDF. Gov ernm ent ag encies,

 bu sin esses, la w fi r m s a n d ev en th e m il it a r y h a v e le a r n ed th e h a r d w a y th a t r ed a ct in g PDF f il es

m eans using a pr oper redaction tool such as Redax, our industry -leading plug in for Adobe Acr obat.

Metadata, Redaction