I have Adobe Acrobat Professional (v6) on my pc, and have noticed that when i convert a Word document for example to a pdf, metadata previously available in the properties of that document have gone, apart from the date created which was when the pdf was first saved on its creation, not the contents created. I have also noticed since, a lack of metadata on other pdf documents…does anybody know why this is, i.e why the pdf does not keep the metadata of the original file? and also once a document has been converted to pdf is there any way of retrieving the previous metadata, assuming the original document is not obtainable or the pdf is on a different machine for example?
alan
"I have also noticed since, a lack of metadata on other pdf documents…does anybody know why this is, i.e why the pdf does not keep the metadata of the original file?"
Well, keep in mind that Word documents are OLE-2, and PDF is another format all together…conversion tools don't read all OLE-2 data, just like they don't read alternate data streams. The fact of the matter is that they just don't…
Now, PDF documents do have metadata…I covered this in both my first and second books.
"and also once a document has been converted to pdf is there any way of retrieving the previous metadata…"
Well, logically, if the converter doesn't read the metadata from the Word document, I wouldn't see how you'd be able to recover the original metadata. I've looked at these files, but I could be wrong.
Harlan
Here's some additional insight in to the conversion process
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Prior to Acrobat 5.0 MetaData was inherited from the originating document, but only in special circumstances (see PDF for Lawyers below). In 5.0 and later there is a whole new method for dealing with MetaData especially to accommodate Version Cue (To view MetaData in a PDF document, open it with Acrobat or Acrobat Reader and select "Document Properties" in the File menu).
Adobe swinging from graphic to corporate focus?
The article by Ms. Payne and Mr. Lewis leads one to the impression that this conversion process will automatically carry over the 'tracked changes' information into the resulting PDF file. It certainly does not dispel that concern, which is likely to arise in the minds of many lawyers. I know about this concern firsthand because our law firm's liability carrier recently warned us in an E-mail about PDF metadata and the immediate reaction of most attorneys was shock that when they converted a word processing file to PDF all of their tracked changes were automatically being sent into the PDF file. I have friends in other law firms who received the same E-mail and it generated the same concern in their firms.
As I understand it, the 'tracked changes' in Word do not ordinarily pass into a PDF file when the word processing document is converted. It can happen, but it takes unusual conditions. After reading the article, I asked Ms. Payne in an E-mail to explain to me how the 'tracked changes' would be passed into a PDF file and she gave me two examples.
First, if the person who converted the Word document attached the Word file into the PDF in its native format (Acrobat allows you to attach files into a PDF document). Okay, but how many people know about this feature and would want to use it if they did? She gave a couple of better examples of where the tracked changes could pass over (1) if you have the tracked changes visible when you convert to PDF (yes, that would create a PDF with the tracked changes blatantly showing; so make sure you look over the resulting PDF file to verify what you are sending before you send it); (2) if you have your printing configuration in Word set to print 'tracked changes' along with the document (now this is something that could sneak up on you, although you can avoid it again by reading the resulting PDF file after you create it; or you can make sure that your default printing choice is set to not include the tracked changes).
In Acrobat 8 Professional there is a new redaction and metadata removal tool.
Thanks, useful info guys…Cheers !