PDF Metadata Viewer
Read everything a PDF says about itself — including the XMP packet most tools forget — then edit it or remove it.
Drop a PDF here
Read in this page. Nothing is uploaded, edited or kept.
What readers see in the window title bar.
Often your account name, put there without asking.
A one-line description. Rarely filled in.
Comma separated.
The application the document was written in.
The library that wrote the PDF itself.
Fonts
Page sizes
XMP packet
Security
Metadata removal is not redaction
Stripping clears the fields, the XMP packet and the timestamps. It cannot remove a name written into the page content itself — that is a different job.
Everything here runs on your device. Nothing you enter is uploaded or stored.
Read every field a PDF stores about itself — title, author, subject, keywords, the software that produced it, both timestamps, every font it uses, every page size it contains, and the XMP packet that most tools pretend does not exist. Then edit any of it, or remove all of it. The file is read and written in this page and never uploaded.
How to use it
- Drop or choose a PDF. The panel fills in immediately.
- Read the fields, the font list, the page sizes and the XMP section.
- Edit any text field and press Save, or press Strip everything.
- Download the result, or download the report as a text file.
Two copies of the same secret
A PDF stores its metadata twice. The Info dictionary is the old mechanism, a simple list of key-value pairs, and it is what a properties dialogue shows you. The XMP packet is the newer one, a block of XML attached to the document catalogue, and it holds much of the same information plus a document identifier that survives every save.
This matters because the two drift apart. Edit a file in one program and the Info dictionary updates while the XMP packet keeps the previous author. More seriously, tools that advertise metadata removal almost always clear the Info dictionary alone, producing a file that looks clean in every dialogue and still names its author in readable XML a few thousand bytes in. Anyone who opens it in a text editor finds it in seconds.
Both are shown here, side by side, and Strip removes both.
The font list is the useful part
Fonts are where a PDF quietly stops being portable. Each one is listed with three facts: its name, whether the glyph program travels inside the file, and whether it was subset.
A font that is not embedded is a substitution waiting to happen — the reader picks something approximate, metrics change, and a layout that was correct on your screen reflows on someone else’s. A font that is embedded, subset carries only the characters the document uses, which is the right default and the reason files are not enormous. A font that is embedded, full carries the whole typeface, which occasionally matters for later editing and usually just costs space.
The count beside each font is the number of pages that reference it, which is how you find the one stray font on page 12 that is pulling in another half-megabyte.
Page sizes, grouped
Sizes are listed by how many pages share them, most common first, with the exact page numbers of any group that does not match. This is the fastest answer to why one page prints wrong or comes out shrunk: it is a different size from its neighbours, and now you know which page and by how much. Standard papers are named — A4, Letter, Legal, A3 and the rest — with a two-point tolerance, because real producers round.
What stripping actually removes
Six text fields, the XMP packet including its stream object, and both timestamps set to the Unix epoch rather than deleted. What it does not touch is anything in the page content itself: text that names you in the document body, a signature image, a header. Metadata removal is not redaction, and no tool that only edits metadata can make it one.
Which tool for which job
| You want | Use |
|---|---|
| To see what a PDF reveals | This tool |
| To clear author and producer | This tool, Strip everything |
| To read a photo’s camera data | EXIF Viewer |
| To remove a password first | PDF Unlock |
Questions
What is the XMP packet and why does it matter?
It is a second, independent copy of the document's metadata, stored as XML inside the file alongside the older Info dictionary. Almost every "remove PDF metadata" tool clears the Info dictionary and leaves the XMP packet completely untouched, which means the author's name, the originating software and a document identifier linking every revision of the file together are still sitting in the output in plain readable XML. This tool shows you both copies and removes both. It also deletes the XMP stream object rather than just unlinking it, because an unlinked stream is still written into the file and still readable in a text editor.
What does embedded versus subset actually mean for a font?
An embedded font travels inside the PDF, so the file renders identically on a machine that has never heard of that typeface. A referenced font does not — the reader substitutes something it has, and your careful line breaks move. Subset means only the glyphs the document actually uses were embedded, which is the normal and sensible default and keeps files small; the trade-off is that anyone editing the file later cannot type a character that was not in the original. If a font shows as not embedded and the document matters, that is worth fixing before you send it.
Why are the dates set to 1970 rather than removed?
Because a missing date is not an absent date. PDF writers stamp a modification date on save whether or not one was there before, so a deleted timestamp quietly becomes the moment you pressed the button — which tells a reader exactly when you edited the file. Setting both dates to the Unix epoch is unambiguous instead. Anyone looking sees a value that cannot be real, which reads as "deliberately cleared" rather than as a fresh edit you were hoping to hide.
Can I edit a locked or encrypted PDF?
The tool will read and report an encrypted file, including its cipher, key size and permission flags, so you can see what it restricts. Writing to one is different — saving an edited copy would need the file decrypted first, which requires the password. Use PDF Unlock to remove the encryption with a password you hold, then bring the result back here. For a file with permission flags but no open password, unlocking with a blank password works and takes a moment.
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