ExifTool Forum

[Originally posted by jefferyjjensen on 2008-03-18 03:37:10-07]

Hello ExifTool Users,

I have several scanned TIFF images from my County Recorder's Office. I also have a database which has metadata on these images, for example Record Number=20080317, Map Type=SV, Map File Number=135, Map Page Number=0096, Name of Surveyor=John Doe, PLS, and so on. I would like to embed this metadata information into the TIFF image. It appears I have two options - use keywords or create user-defined tags. I need to know the pros and cons of each. Ideally these keywords and/or metadata can be searched/extracted by windows explorer, adobe acrobat and Google.

Lastly, some of these TIFF images are multi-page, so does this mean each page has its own metadata or do all the pages share the same metadata? I believe the multi-page TIFF images were created by IrfanView.

Thanks for the assistance,

Jeff

[Originally posted by exiftool on 2008-03-18 12:17:48-07]

Hi Jeff,

It is unlikely that you will be able to search the meta information
with these other applications if you use non-standard tags, but
you should test this to be sure.  So I would guess that storing them
in XMP:Subject is probably the way to go.

It is possible, although not easy, to use exiftool to store meta
information for each of multiple images in a TIFF file.  By default,
exiftool writes XMP and IPTC to IFD0 (the first image) in a TIFF
file, but it is possible to copy XMP and IPTC as a block into
the ApplicationNotes and IPTC-NAA tags (respectively) to any IFD.
However, if you do this I'm not sure if any utilities will be able to
handle it.

- Phil

[Originally posted by jefferyjjensen on 2008-03-18 23:20:38-07]

Thanks for the help. To clarify things:

I would store the comma separated keywords in the xmp-dc:subject
(XMP Dublin Core Schema with tag name subject).
This should allow me to use the Find command
in other applications
such as Windows Desktop Search, Adobe Bridge, Photoshop and
Acrobat to query these keywords stored in xmp-dc:subject. Yes?

Second task, if I ever wanted to extract the metadata into an excel spreadsheet or database,
I should use custom tags (see https://exiftool.org/config.html to
created these) because I can create not only a value but a name/field to assign the value to. I'm
guessing I would create these custom tags under XMP-pdf tag group since
Adobe Acrobat already has the ability to create Custom Properties (Name and Value)
within the application. Is this how you would do it?

Thanks again,

Jeff Jensen

[Originally posted by exiftool on 2008-03-19 11:10:58-07]

Hi Jeff,

Yes, XMP-dc:Subject is the one to use.  However, these aren't stored
as a comma-delimited list.  They are stored individually, and should
be entered like this:


For your custom tags, I would recommend creating your own namespace
(as the XMP-xxx group in the sample config file), because the new tags
aren't part of the XMP-pdf specification, so it is best to avoid potential
conflicts with these tags.

- Phil