ExifTool Forum

Hi Guys,

I cannot figure out why it doesn't remove the tags directly from the file, yes I cannot view the tags via adobe reader, but I can do them easily via notepad++ or any other text editor.

Here is the file.

I still can preserve the xmp tags:
<</Type/Metadata/Subtype/XML/Length 3093>>
stream
<?xpacket begin="" id="W5M0MpCehiHzreSzNTczkc9d"?><x:xmpmeta xmlns:x="adobe:ns:meta/" x:xmptk="3.1-701">
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""  xmlns:pdf="http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/">
<pdf:Producer>Microsoft® Word for Microsoft 365</pdf:Producer></rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""  xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
<dc:creator><rdf:Seq><rdf:li>Sergejs Kravcenko</rdf:li></rdf:Seq></dc:creator></rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""  xmlns:xmp="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/">
<xmp:CreatorTool>Microsoft® Word for Microsoft 365</xmp:CreatorTool><xmp:CreateDate>2022-03-18T14:30:33+01:00</xmp:CreateDate><xmp:ModifyDate>2022-03-18T14:30:33+01:00</xmp:ModifyDate></rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""  xmlns:xmpMM="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/">
<xmpMM:DocumentID>uuid:6DCF3265-39E1-4E52-9D49-8A969D0BD1D4</xmpMM:DocumentID><xmpMM:InstanceID>uuid:6DCF3265-39E1-4E52-9D49-8A969D0BD1D4</xmpMM:InstanceID></rdf:Description>

From the PDF tags page (https://exiftool.org/TagNames/PDF.html)
    It uses an incremental update technique that has the advantages of being both fast and reversible. If ExifTool was used to modify a PDF file, the original may be recovered by deleting the PDF-update pseudo-group (with -PDF-update:all= on the command line).
...
All metadata edits are reversible. While this would normally be considered an advantage, it is a potential security problem because old information is never actually deleted from the file. (However, after running ExifTool the old information may be removed permanently using the "qpdf" utility with this command: "qpdf --linearize in.pdf out.pdf".)

Also note #7 under Supported File Types table (https://exiftool.org/#supported) for PDFs
     Old metdata is never actually deleted

Thank you for clarification, qpdf worked well and did the job.