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A Comprehensive Guide to Extract Metadata From PDF File 2 Ways

author
Published By Raj Kumar
Aswin Vijayan
Approved By Aswin Vijayan
Published On January 22nd, 2024
Reading Time 4 Minutes Reading
Category PDF Updates

Do you want to know how to extract metadata from PDF files? Well, may be there are sevral other users who doesn’t know the actual solution and looking for an easy method to get the PDF file metadata.  In this blog, we are going to educate you on how to do it by using Python programming and Automated Extractor software. You can use this tool for PDF Forensics.

But first, let’s understand what is the meaning of Metadata in PDF.

PDF metadata is structured information that can be used to identify what the document is about. It consists of components like- Title, Author, Subject, keywords Document language.

You can access Metadata in Adobe Acrobat Pro- just go to File > Properties > Description.

Extract Metadata From PDF Using Professional PDF Extractor Tool

has designed a prominent PDF File Extractor Software to extract components from PDF documents. This includes metadata as well. It has a quite simple interface, using this tool once extract GIF images from PDF file, apart from that they can also extract Text, Comments, Hyperlinks, Bookmarks, Rich Media files etc. Just follow these below steps to automatically gets metadata from PDF files:

  • Download the utility and insert PDF files using Add File(s)/ Add Folder. Click on Next.

insert PDFs

  • Here, you have to choose what you want to extract from PDF and click on the Metadata option.

  • This software provides you with the option to save the extracted metadata content in PDF or DOC or DOCX file format.

tool to extract metadata from PDF files

  • Along with this, you can apply page settings from which you want information like you can page number or page range or you can extract metadata from all odd pages or all even pages.

  • Hit the Extract button to extract metadata from PDF file.

tool to extract metadata from PDF files

You can take out other components from the PDF with the help of this software. Components like attachments and portfolios, text, images, any type of rich media, bookmarks, hyperlinks, highlighted text, and comments.

How to Extract Metadata From PDF Files Using Python?

Well, if you are a techie (even if you are not) using Python language you can take out the metadata of any PDF. All you have to do is to install the pyPDF2 package.

Let’s see how you can achieve this-

The PDF sample used here is called “reportlab-sample.pdf”.

Here’s the code:

# get_doc_info.py

from PyPDF2 import PdfFileReader

def get_info(path):
with open(path, ‘rb’) as f:
pdf = PdfFileReader(f)
info = pdf.getDocumentInfo()
number_of_pages = pdf.getNumPages()

print(info)

author = info.author
creator = info.creator
producer = info.producer
subject = info.subject
title = info.title

if __name__ == ‘__main__’:
path = ‘reportlab-sample.pdf’
get_info(path)

As you can see, we have imported the PdfFileReader class from PyPDF2. This class has the ability to read a PDF and extract data from it. Next, we create our own get_info function that will take a PDF file path as its argument. Then we will open the file in read-only binary mode. Finally, we pass that file handler into “PdfFileReader” and create an instance out of it.

We can use the getDocumentInfo method to extract useful information from PDF files. It will return an instance of PyPDF2.pdf.DocumentInformation, which will have useful attributes like author, creator, producer, subject and title.

Also Read: Use the Best PDF Restriction Remover For Mac OS X

Conclusion

In this blog, you learnt 2 methods to extract metadata from PDF files. First, we used automated software. It is an all-in-one software with many components from PDF files like hyperlinks, text, rich media, inline images, highlighted text, bookmarks, comments, attachments and portfolios. It’s very easy to run even for non-technical users. You can download the free version of the tool and check it yourself.

Secondly, we used Python language to take out PDF metadata for which we used the PyPDF2 package.

Whichever method you are comfortable with, go ahead that way!

Commonly Asked Question

Q1. What are the methods available to extract metadata from PDF documents?

Those who know coding can use Python for extraction, other than this you can use automated software that can easily take out the metadata from the PDF files.

Q2. Can we use this tool to get the metadata from multiple Adobe PDF files?

Yes, this tool is capable of taking out multiple metadata from several PDF files.

Q3. Does it have any limitation on the number of files inserted?

No, the tool does not impose any file size limitations for the extraction process. You can add multiple PDF files

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