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Adobe Offers More Helpful Metadata Scrubbing Tips

August 4, 2010

Thanks once again to Dave Stromfeld, Acrobat's Senior Product Manager, for his response below to yesterday's post on removing metadata from PDFs. Dave has provided some very valuable information here, so pay heed if you want to scrub metadata using Acrobat.

Sharon,

Thanks for posting my response and your comments.

I think there are advantage to either or both types of workflows. The advantage of tools like Metadata Assistant, as you point out, is that it sits at the point of “send” or “check into DMS”. The attorney doesn’t need to remember to do an explicit scrubbing step. The advantage of a tool like Acrobat is that it sits at the point of “authoring” or “editing”. The attorney is preparing his document using Acrobat’s editing tools (rearranging pages, redacting content, adding Bates numbers); checking for and removing metadata is just one of those editing steps. And obviously Acrobat knows a lot about the details of a PDF document and can do a very thorough job scrubbing it.

Also, the firm has options in order to make Acrobat metadata scrubbing more automatic. The IT person at the firm can configure Acrobat (prior to installing it on the attorney’s computer) so that “Convert Document Information” is off by default when creating PDF documents. (See my earlier email.) And if the attorney would like to be reminded to scrub a document’s metadata when closing Acrobat or when sending a file using Acrobat, there are preferences under Edit > Preferences > Document which will prompt the attorney to remove the metadata. So Acrobat also has the capability to show the attorney “pop up” messages if he would like to be reminded about scrubbing his PDF.

Thanks.

Dave

Dave's first paragraph is well-articulated and very well taken. Indeed, there are advantage to both types of workflow. I love the second paragraph, which details how to make Acrobat function more like Metadata Assistant. I think this is a great solution for mid to large enterprises, which often have savvy IT folks who can do exactly what Dave suggests (if that's the preference). I fear the small enterprises will rarely have IT folks who will know these options exist – and certainly very few users will know. As is so often the case, even with an extraordinary product like Acrobat, only a small portion of its feature set tends to be used.

But this discussion has been most instructive and John and I will join Dave in "spreading the gospel"  whenever we lecture.

Thank you Dave for the illumination. 🙂

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