It's easy to ignore the Description tab of the Document Properties dialog box in Adobe Acrobat. You may never even think about it as you create, enhance and review your PDFs. But if you start amassing a large collection of PDFs, ignoring the Description tab would be a mistake. The Description fields are easily searched (both locally and online) and taking a few minutes to fill them out as you go will save you the headache of realizing a few years down the road that you should have been doing it all along.
My personal rule is to make sure I get those fields filled out when I make a PDF. I set the fields up in advance for files created in InDesign, FrameMaker and Word so that they are saved with the source file and simply appear each time I create a PDF.
The general steps are the same for all three applications (and many others that I won't address here). Basically, it's:
- Open up a native file in your source application.
- Figure out where to enter the description fields.
- Create the PDF.
- Open the PDF in Acrobat or Reader.
- Choose File > Properties > Description to view the fields.
For the specifics on setting this up in InDesign, FrameMaker and Word, read on.
- Open any InDesign document.
- Choose File > File Info > Description (Mac & Win), fill out the description fields and click OK.
- Choose File > Export to create the PDF document.
- Open Acrobat or Reader.
- Choose File > Properties > Description to see the fields.
To see any additional fields, click the Additional Metadatabutton.
- Open any FrameMaker document.
- Choose File > File Info, fill out the description fields and then click OK.
- Choose File > Save as PDF to create the PDF document.
- Open Acrobat or Reader.
- Choose File > Properties > Description to see the fields.
Microsoft Word
- Open any Word document.
- Choose File > Properties (Mac) or File > Prepare > Properties (Windows) and fill out the description fields.
- Choose File > Save as PDF (Mac) or PDFMaker(Win) to create the PDF document.
- Open Acrobat or Reader.
- Choose File > Properties > Description to see the fields.
On Word for Windows, the fields appear at the top of the document. If you want to see the dialog box, you have to click Document Properties, and navigate to the Summary tab. On a Mac, you are taken right to the dialog box.
I know and use all of the steps as described above. Even so, yesterday I found myself with 50+ PDFs that I had just created. I was ready to send them off to the client and realized that I forgot to enter the description fields… on all of them! If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, check out next week's article: Adobe Acrobat X: Adding Description Fields to Multiple PDFs.
I personally perefer entering the doc properties before delivering to the customer. Of course the author and company complete by default from the program license, but as far as I noticed, for Microsoft Word if you use an existing template (one created by another person which already ha completed the doc properties fields) the doc properties from the initial template apply to your doc too. Therefore it might be a good idea to check these fields before sending docs to clients.
For pdfs I only enter the author field. I don’t think it is very important completing thse fields. At least not at the moment.
I personally perefer entering the doc properties before delivering to the customer. Of course the author and company complete by default from the program license, but as far as I noticed, for Microsoft Word if you use an existing template (one created by another person which already ha completed the doc properties fields) the doc properties from the initial template apply to your doc too. Therefore it might be a good idea to check these fields before sending docs to clients.
For pdfs I only enter the author field. I don’t think it is very important completing thse fields. At least not at the moment.
I personally perefer entering the doc properties before delivering to the customer. Of course the author and company complete by default from the program license, but as far as I noticed, for Microsoft Word if you use an existing template (one created by another person which already ha completed the doc properties fields) the doc properties from the initial template apply to your doc too. Therefore it might be a good idea to check these fields before sending docs to clients.
For pdfs I only enter the author field. I don’t think it is very important completing thse fields. At least not at the moment.