As a long-time Adobe Acrobat instructor, I've spent many hours showing Acrobat students how to modify and enhance their PDF documents. They learn how to add bookmarks, links, movies, document properties, and more.
These are great features that should be part of any interactive PDF document, but if you put them directly into the PDF, you will overwrite them if you ever have to enter corrections into the source file and then regenerate the PDF.
A much more efficient workflow is to do as much work as possible in the source files. In this article, I want to show you how to enter document information directly into FrameMaker so that it will be in the PDF document as soon as you create it.
File information, called metadata, is often added to the document properties of a PDF document to make it easier to search. (You can view the properties by choosing File > Properties, and clicking the Description tab.) To enter this information into FrameMaker in advance of the PDF conversion, follow these steps:
- Open a FrameMaker document (this also works for a book file).
- Choose File > File Info.
- Enter your metadata into the following dialog box (if you are not sure what to add into the various boxes, please see the notes at the bottom of this article).
- Click the Set button.
- Save the document.
- Choose File > Save as PDF.
- After naming the PDF, choose your favorite conversion settings and click the Set button.
- When the file opens in Acrobat, choose File > Properties > Description to see the metadata displayed in the resulting PDF.
Notes on XMP Fields:
- Title: Use a good, descriptive document title.
- Author: Identify the person or group responsible for the document.
- Subject and Keywords: Can be used either alone or together, to categorize documents by type.
- Copyright: Copyright information.
- Web Statement: The location of a web page describing the owner and/or rights statement for this resource.
- Job Reference: Supply number or publisher's job references.
- Marked: If the information in the file is copyrighted, pick Yes. If in the public domain, pick no. When unsure, pick Unknown.
If you are new to FrameMaker and want to get up to speed quickly, join IconLogic's instructor-led, online Introduction to Adobe FrameMaker 9 class. Too elementary for your skill level? How about the Advanced FrameMaker 9 class? Hope to "see" you there.
About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.
The Copyright, Web Statement, Job Reference and Marked fields are not carried over to PDF. (See http://www.microtype.com/ImprovePDF01.html for more information/examples).
The Copyright, Web Statement, Job Reference and Marked fields are not carried over to PDF. (See http://www.microtype.com/ImprovePDF01.html for more information/examples).
The Copyright, Web Statement, Job Reference and Marked fields are not carried over to PDF. (See http://www.microtype.com/ImprovePDF01.html for more information/examples).
Barbara:
Good to see that you are encouraging Adobe Framemaker and Acrobat users about the File Info Feature. You may not be aware, but the File Info feature originated with Photoshop and is available throughout the Adobe Creative Suite products as well (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.).
File Info is actually a gathering point for a number of different types of metadata from a number of standards bodies. The bulk of these are from the International Press Telecommunications Council or IPTC and have designated functions.
For instance, you might not know that the Title field is intended to contain a shorthand reference for the image or “photograph” – primarily for identification. Most photographers use this as a place to store the filename of their original scan or digital camera file. For news organizations it might be the name of a story it accompanies. For publications it might a place to put the name of the file, or maybe even the ISBN number.
The intended use for each of the fields can be found within the “User’s guide to the IPTC Core custom panels” on the IPTC side (PDF)
http://www.iptc.org/std/Iptc4xmpCore/1.0/documentation/Iptc4xmpCore_1.0-doc-CpanelsUserGuide_13.pdf
or
http://tinyurl.com/qw25p
The field definitions in alphabetical order can be viewed on the PhotoMetadata site http://www.photometadata.org/META-Resources-Field-Guide-to-Metadata as well.
Hope these resources help your viewers.
David
Barbara:
Good to see that you are encouraging Adobe Framemaker and Acrobat users about the File Info Feature. You may not be aware, but the File Info feature originated with Photoshop and is available throughout the Adobe Creative Suite products as well (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.).
File Info is actually a gathering point for a number of different types of metadata from a number of standards bodies. The bulk of these are from the International Press Telecommunications Council or IPTC and have designated functions.
For instance, you might not know that the Title field is intended to contain a shorthand reference for the image or “photograph” – primarily for identification. Most photographers use this as a place to store the filename of their original scan or digital camera file. For news organizations it might be the name of a story it accompanies. For publications it might a place to put the name of the file, or maybe even the ISBN number.
The intended use for each of the fields can be found within the “User’s guide to the IPTC Core custom panels” on the IPTC side (PDF)
http://www.iptc.org/std/Iptc4xmpCore/1.0/documentation/Iptc4xmpCore_1.0-doc-CpanelsUserGuide_13.pdf
or
http://tinyurl.com/qw25p
The field definitions in alphabetical order can be viewed on the PhotoMetadata site http://www.photometadata.org/META-Resources-Field-Guide-to-Metadata as well.
Hope these resources help your viewers.
David
Barbara:
Good to see that you are encouraging Adobe Framemaker and Acrobat users about the File Info Feature. You may not be aware, but the File Info feature originated with Photoshop and is available throughout the Adobe Creative Suite products as well (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.).
File Info is actually a gathering point for a number of different types of metadata from a number of standards bodies. The bulk of these are from the International Press Telecommunications Council or IPTC and have designated functions.
For instance, you might not know that the Title field is intended to contain a shorthand reference for the image or “photograph” – primarily for identification. Most photographers use this as a place to store the filename of their original scan or digital camera file. For news organizations it might be the name of a story it accompanies. For publications it might a place to put the name of the file, or maybe even the ISBN number.
The intended use for each of the fields can be found within the “User’s guide to the IPTC Core custom panels” on the IPTC side (PDF)
http://www.iptc.org/std/Iptc4xmpCore/1.0/documentation/Iptc4xmpCore_1.0-doc-CpanelsUserGuide_13.pdf
or
http://tinyurl.com/qw25p
The field definitions in alphabetical order can be viewed on the PhotoMetadata site http://www.photometadata.org/META-Resources-Field-Guide-to-Metadata as well.
Hope these resources help your viewers.
David