setpdfmetadata(1)

📦
version 1.9.6 · 3 versions
, in debian trixie, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 setpdfmetadata — the PDF Metadata Updater ✨

okay bestie, gather round, because this is a little command from the General Commands Manual section 1 and it is genuinely SO useful. it's giving "I just want to fix my PDF's vibes" and honestly? same. 💅

🌸 NAME 🌸

setpdfmetadata — the PDF Metadata Updater, no cap 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

setpdfmetadata [Input PDF] [Metadata] [Output PDF]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so like, setpdfmetadata is the tool you call when you want to add and update the metadata of a PDF file. that's the whole main character energy of it. in particular, it can be used to add outlines (aka bookmarks, yes the little sidebar tree, iconic) to a document. 🫶

and on top of that? it can set the document properties, like author, title, keywords, creator, producer. all of them. slay.

⚠️ okay important warning time: note that all metadata content will be encoded in ISO-8859-1 encoding. it is not (yet) possible to use non-ISO-8859-1 text in the PDF metadata. so no emoji in your metadata, sadly, I know, I'm devastated too 😭

the metadata may contain the following commands:

  • outline Level Page Bookmark — add a PDF outline at the given level (0=chapter, 1=section, 2=subsection, 3=subsubsection, 4=paragraph, ...) and pointing to the given page number. Bookmark denotes the label text. 📑
  • author Author — sets the document author to the given value. ✍️
  • title Title — sets the document title to the given value. 👑
  • title Subject — sets the document subject to the given value. 💌
  • keywords Keywords — sets the document keywords to the given value. 🔍
  • creator Creator — sets the document creator to the given value. 🧚
  • producer Producer — sets the document producer to the given value. 🌈

💜 ARGUMENTS 💜

the following arguments have to be provided — like, they're not optional bestie, they're required fr fr:

  • Input PDF — the input PDF file name. 📥
  • Output PDF — the output PDF file name. 📤

🍓 EXAMPLES 🍓

a setpdfmetadata usage example, look at her go:

setpdfmetadata MyDocument.pdf MyMetadata.meta MyDocument-Updated.pdf

and a metadata example, so you can see what the vibe of the metadata file is:

outline 1 1 Chapter 1
outline 2 2 Section 1.1
outline 2 4 Section 1.2
outline 1 6 Chapter 2
author John Smith
title An Example Document
keywords Example, PDF, setpdfmetadata

🌟 AUTHORS 🌟

and that's the whole page, bestie. go forth and give your PDFs the metadata glow-up they deserve 💖✨

this one came from the setpdfmetadata manual, dated May 18, 2017 — written by Thomas Dreibholz, and I hope you loved reading it as much as I loved explaining it to you. mwah. 💅🎀

📦 where this page comes from