I have added tags such as Author, Subject and Title to some new PDF files I created. But they are not shown in Windows when I view file properties. Why?
In order to see this information I have to open the PDF file in Adobe Acrobat and show the Document Properties dialog (Ctrl+D).
This is what it looks like in Adobe Acrobat, the above mentioned Document Properties dialog.
Update:
I have found some interesting information on Adobe website.
When you view a PDF, you can get information about it, such as the title, the fonts used, and security settings. Some of this information is set by the person who created the document, and some is generated automatically.
In Acrobat, you can change any information that can be set by the document creator, unless the file has been saved with security settings that prevent changes.
Choose File > Properties.
Click a tab in the Document Properties dialog box.
And then there is also this:
To make a PDF easier to search, you can add file information, called metadata, to the document properties. (You can see the properties for the currently open PDF by choosing File > Properties, and clicking the Description tab.)
(Windows) You can also enter and read the data properties information from the desktop. Right-click the document in Windows Explorer, choose Properties, and click the PDF tab. Any information you type or edit in this dialog box also appears in the Document Properties Description when you open the file.
This is what I have been doing. Except I don't have a PDF tab available on my file properties dialog box. So I guess I'll have to focus on this now. Why is it missing? And how do I add it?
Update:
I have given up on this.
I just had Adobe Reader uninstalled, rebooted, had the latest version of Adobe Reader downloaded and installed, rebooted, had the Adobe Acrobat Pro Updater check for updates, new updates found and installed, rebooted, after logging back in Adobe Reader Updater automatically jumped out at me telling me about a new update even though I just had the latest downloaded and installed from Adobe website (DUH!!), but I had it do the update anyway, no reboot requested, done, end!
So now I have the latest Adobe Reader X (10.1.7) and the latest Adobe Acrobat X Pro (10.1.7). To no avail! The problem still remains, no PDF tab in properties dialog. The only way to view them is to open the PDF file in either Acrobat X Pro or Reader X and show the Document Properties window (Ctrl+D).
I read some old discussions (2011 and earlier) on this subject over at Adobe forums, and some people reported to have the PDF tab, some reported they didn't have it even though they were using the same version of the software. Some said you have to copy this and that DLL file from this and that version of Adobe Reader (kind of hacking it), some say this is not part of Adobe Reader and that it's probably part of a different software installation, some say go edit this key or string in registry, do this and that... CRAZY!!
Why can't it just work?? I have given up on this now. It is not worth my time, and it's not worth any of your time. If anyone, Adobe developers are the ones that should be looking into this, why should we do their work for them?!... they need to make better software.
And on Microsoft's part, they need to add more native metadata reading and editing capabilities directly into Windows, for any given number of file types. This should be supported out of the box. I can't believe it isn't. The PDF file format is fairly well documented and standardized. So I don't buy that argument that they can't do it because there's no generally accepted standard for embedding metadata or whatever.
Of course, e.g., JPEG file will have different metadata than a DOC or a PDF file, no one expects them to be the same. Maybe they can't do it for some file formats, but they could definitely do it for PDF, if they wanted to. If they need to they can go at it one by one, tackling each file format differently. They have the resources. Why not take the initiative and introduce a standard for embedding metadata into files?... others might just follow.
Answer
Windows doesn't have native support of metadata for every filetype, because there's no general standard of embedding those in files - it always depends on the format used. Various applications can add metadata support for some file formats.
Maybe some PDF reader will install tag support for explorer, Adobe Reader XI doesn't seem to do so.
It's also possible to completely remove metadata support from Windows installation disk with software like RT Se7en Lite, but I guess you'd know if you did it.
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