VERSION 1.0.

9
JUNE 19, 2016

AutoMetadata
AUTOMETADATA USERS GUIDE
SOFTWARE FOR EDITING METADATA IN PDF FILES

EVERMAP COMPANY LLC

WWW.EVERMAP.COM
 AutoMetadata User Guide

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................................ 2
FUNCTIONALITY OVERVIEW .................................................................................................................................... 2
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ........................................................................................................................................... 2
INSPECTING AND EDITING PDF METADATA............................................................................................................. 3
LOADING PDF FILES .................................................................................................................................................... 3
EDITING INDIVIDUAL METADATA RECORDS ........................................................................................................ 4
PERFORMING SEARCH AND REPLACE ON METADATA FIELDS ..................................................................... 4
SETTING DOCUMENT PROPERTIES TO THE SAME VALUE.............................................................................. 5
CLEARING METADATA FIELDS FOR MULTIPLE FILES .......................................................................................... 6
RESTORING ORIGINAL METADATA VALUES FOR SELECTED FILES ................................................................ 6
SAVING CHANGES TO FILES ..................................................................................................................................... 6
CLEARING INPUT FILE LIST ........................................................................................................................................ 6
EXPORTING METADATA FOR MULTIPLE FILES INTO A TEXT CONTROL FILE ............................................. 6
IMPORTING CONTROL FILE INTO MICROSOFT EXCEL .................................................................................... 7
IMPORTING METADATA INFORMATION FROM TEXT FILE............................................................................... 8
INSPECTING AND EDITING DOCUMENT PROPERTIES ......................................................................................... 9
INSPECTING AND EXPORTING BOOKMARKS........................................................................................................ 10
EXPORT FILE FORMAT ............................................................................................................................................... 11
BOOKMARK ACTION TYPES .................................................................................................................................... 11
USING XML NOTEPAD TO VIEW BOOKMARK EXPORT FILE ......................................................................... 12

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 AutoMetadata User Guide

INTRODUCTION

FUNCTIONALITY OVERVIEW
The AutoMetadata software is designed for performing the following tasks:
• Loading and displaying metadata for one or more PDF files.
• Inspecting PDF document’s properties such as security permissions, document statistics, file
details, display settings.
• Listing and exporting PDF bookmarks into XML file.
• Listing named destinations and form fields.
• Setting display preferences and document properties for multiple files at once
• In-place editing (in spreadsheet-like interface) of metadata fields and saving changes back to
PDF files.
• In-place editing of viewer preferences for individual PDF documents
• Performing search and replace operation on metadata fields.
• Exporting metadata into a tab-delimited text format (Excel-ready).
• Importing and updating metadata for a list of PDF files from a tab-delimited text file.
The following standard metadata fields are supported:
• Title
• Author
• Subject
• Keywords
The software can be used to update metadata in multiple PDF files by:
• In-place editing (including search and replace functionality) of metadata fields.
• Importing metadata from a tab-delimited text file.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
The AutoMetadata software supports Windows 7, 8, 10.
Application can be downloaded free of charge from the following location:
www.evermap.com/AutoMetadata.asp.

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 AutoMetadata User Guide

INSPECTING AND EDITING PDF METADATA

LOADING PDF FILES

1. Select “File > Select PDF Files to Edit…” from the application to load one or more PDF files into
editing interface. Alternatively, press either “Select Files” button or “Load Folders…” button
located on the main toolbar.

2. Select input files in the “Open File” dialog.

3. The “Load Options” dialog will appear on the screen:

4. If you are not interested in loading bookmarks, form fields and named destination information
from each input PDF file, then uncheck all options on this screen. It can speed up file loading if a
large number of input files are selected. Press “OK” button to continue. However, if document is
loaded without bookmarks, fields and destinations, then no information will be available for
review in the corresponding information tabs (“Bookmarks”, “Fields”, and “Destinations”).

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5. All selected files will be loaded into a spreadsheet-like interface:

EDITING INDIVIDUAL METADATA RECORDS

Click on a metadata field to select it. Field is going to be highlighted with blue color. Click on it
second time to start editing its content. Type a desired metadata value and click on another field to
finish editing. The checkbox in “Modified” column will appear as “checked” to indicate that metadata
information for this PDF file has been modified from its original value.

PERFORMING SEARCH AND REPLACE ON METADATA FIELDS

1. Click on the first column to select any record (and complete any field editing).
2. Select “Edit > Find and Replace” from the application menu.
3. Enter desired search and replace text into corresponding entry fields. Press “OK” button to start
search and replace operation. Use regular expressions when it is necessary to search for pattern.

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4. All modified fields will be marked in “Modified” column. Please note that metadata information is
not written back to the PDF files at this moment, no files are yet modified.

SETTING DOCUMENT PROPERTIES TO THE SAME VALUE

It is often necessary to set the same value to certain metadata fields for a set of PDF files. For
example, “Author” field is frequently needs to be set to a common value for multiple files produced
by the same person or organization.
1. Select a set of records that needs to get the same metadata value for a specific field. The easiest
way is to click on the first column of the first record you want to select and then click on the last
record that needs to be selected while holding a Shift-key. This will effectively select all records
from first to last one.
Alternatively, records can be selected in any order by holding a Ctrl key and clicking on the first
column of each record.
2. Once all desired records are selected, choose “Edit > Set Properties for Selected Records…” from
the menu. Use “Specify Document Properties” dialog to modify both metadata and initial display
preferences in multiple PDF documents at once.

3. Press “OK” button to start processing. Please note that document properties are not written
back to the PDF files at this moment, no files are yet modified.

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 AutoMetadata User Guide

CLEARING METADATA FIELDS FOR MULTIPLE FILES

It is often necessary to clear content of one or more metadata fields from its current values and do it
for the multiple PDF files are once. Use “Edit > Clear Properties for Selected Records” menu to do
that in one simple step. Choose a specific metadata field to clear or select “All” to clear all 4
standard fields (Title, Author, Subject, Keywords).

RESTORING ORIGINAL METADATA VALUES FOR SELECTED FILES

In case of mistakes, original metadata field content can be restored back to their original values (of
changes have not been applied to files yet). Select a set of file records to restore metadata
information and select “Edit > Restore Original Properties for Selected Records” from the application
menu.

SAVING CHANGES TO FILES

Use “File > Save Changes to Files” menu or press “Save Changes” button located on the application
toolbar to save modified metadata information and document properties back into corresponding
PDF files. Note that saving changes will overwrite existing values in PDF files on disk. If a file
metadata has not been modified from its original values and is not shown as “Modified” in the
AutoMetadata interface, then no changes to this PDF file will occur. Only files with modified
information will be processed.

Only this file will

be modified

CLEARING INPUT FILE LIST

Press “Clear File List” to remove all currently loaded PDF files from the AutoMetadata user interface.
This operation does not affect PDF files in any way, just clear current processing list. Use this
operation before editing a different set of input files.

EXPORTING METADATA FOR MULTIPLE FILES INTO A TEXT CONTROL FILE

Use “File > Export Metadata Records to Text File…” menu to export metadata for all currently loaded
PDF files into a tab-delimited text format. The output file can be opened by any spreadsheet
applications including Microsoft Excel. The following 5 fields are exported: Full path to the file, Title,
Author, Subject and Keywords metadata fields. Use this operation to export data for editing in other
applications and then import changes back into PDF files by using “Import Metadata” operation (see
next topic).

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IMPORTING CONTROL FILE INTO MICROSOFT EXCEL

Start Microsoft Excel or any other similar spreadsheet application and use “File > Open” menu to
select a text control file exported from AutoMetadata. The “Text Import Wizard” screen will prompt
to confirm field separator and other file format parameters:

Simply press “Finish” button to import the control file, because Excel should automatically set all
correct values for this file. Here is an example of the text control file opened in Microsoft Excel
application:

If document has been modified or created in Microsoft Excel, then make sure to export it into “Text
(Tab delimited) (*.txt)” file format using Excel’s “File > Save As” menu:

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IMPORTING METADATA INFORMATION FROM TEXT FILE

Use “File > Import Metadata Records from Text File…” menu to load metadata update instructions for
multiple PDF files from a tab-delimited control text file. You can generate a sample text control file
by using ““File > Export Metadata Records to Text File…” menu and edit its content using Microsoft
Excel and then import it back. The input control file is expected to use tab symbol as field separator
and be in plain text format. Each line (record) in the control file should contain full path and
metadata information for a single PDF file. There should be exactly 5 fields in every data record.
The order of the fields in the control file:
1. Full file path to the PDF file.
2. Value of the “Title” metadata field.
3. Value of the “Author” metadata field.
4. Value of the “Subject” metadata field.
5. Value of the “Keywords” metadata field.
IMPORTANT: The AutoMetadata checks path to each PDF file listed in the control file. If a file is not
present at the listed location, then corresponding record is not loaded and an error will be
reported.
Please verify that all input PDF files have both file and PDF document permissions set to allow
document modification and are not password-protected. The AutoMetadata cannot open and
update files protected by “open document” password or located in file area where user does not
have “Write” access permissions.

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INSPECTING AND EDITING DOCUMENT PROPERTIES

Select a file record in the input file list to display all details about the selected PDF file. “Document
Properties” tab on the right will be updated with detailed information about document properties:

This parameter
can be edited

Document properties include several categories:

• Document access permissions (as set by document’s author to control document
functionality such printing, editing and opening).
• Document statistics such number of pages, bookmarks, destinations, form fields, file
attachments.
• File details such as creation date, file name, size and read/write status.
• List of metadata fields
• Viewer preferences that control how PDF file is initially displayed in the PDF viewer.
All properties that are shown in bold font can be edited in-place. For example, it is possible to
change all viewer preferences and 4 standard metadata fields.

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INSPECTING AND EXPORTING BOOKMARKS

If document has bookmarks and it was loaded with bookmark option turned on, then “Bookmarks”
tab will contain a list of document’s bookmarks.

Press “Export to XML” button to export bookmarks into XML document. Select a desired output file
name and press OK button in “Save File” dialog. By default, output file is named by adding .xml to
the original PDF file name including extension. For example, the default file name for Overview.pdf
will be Overview.pdf.xml. The output document can be opened by any web browser or XML editor.
Microsoft provides a free XML Notepad editor for handling XML documents. It can be downloaded
from the following location: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7973.

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EXPORT FILE FORMAT

The XML document records hierarchical structure of the PDF bookmarks and provides information
about actions associated with every bookmark title. The document is organized in the following
hierarchical structure:

<Bookmark>
<Title Page=”5” Action=”GoTo” Open=”true”>First Level Bookmark
<Title Page=”6” Action=”GoTo” Open=”false”>Second Level Bookmark</Title>
…..
</Title>
<Bookmark>

Each bookmark is encoded as a single <Title> element that contains all its child bookmarks. Every
<Title> element has the following properties:
• Page – destination page number (if a bookmark refers directly to a page) and page view
details. Page numbers are zero-based. The index of the first page is 0.
• Named – name of the destination (if bookmark uses named destinations to refer to a page
view).
• Action – type of the action used by the bookmark.
• Open – true if bookmark is shown expanded and shows its child bookmarks, or false
otherwise.
• File – path to the file for “Open a file” PDF action (Action=“Launch”) or for “Go to a page in
another document” PDF action (Action=”GoToR”).
• URI – web address for “Open a web link” PDF action (Action=“URI”)

BOOKMARK ACTION TYPES

List of “Action” values and corresponding PDF action types:
• GoTo – “Go to a page view”
• GoToR – “Go to a page view in another document”
• Launch – “Open a file”
• URI – “Open a web link”
Here is a visual appearance of the XML file with bookmark information as shown by a typical web
browser:

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USING XML NOTEPAD TO VIEW BOOKMARK EXPORT FILE

Alternatively, if XML editing is required, use free XML Notepad application provided by Microsoft.
Here is a screenshot showing bookmark export file as shown by this application:

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