Hi Phil,
Is there any way to get Windows Explorer Comments supported by ExifTool please? If duplicated from either JPG Comment or IPTC Caption, it woud be a convenient way to view them.
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4019461/ExifTool-WindowsComments.jpg)
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Terry, East Grinstead, UK
Hi Terry,
Did you read FAQ number 3 (https://exiftool.org/faq.html#Q3)?
- Phil
Thanks Phil. I'd briefly scanned the whole FAQ a couple of days ago. But just gone back and read #3 properly after your post. But I don't see how it helps answer my question?
Do you mean, have I checked whether Windows Comments already appear in the full set of metadata reported by ExifTool? If so, yes, I'd already pretty well established that it doesn't. But to double check I just now wrote a Windows comment abcxyz, applied the command suggested in FAQ 3 and searched for it in the full output. Not there.
What I meant was: is there some clever hack or trick that could enable ExifTool to write to Windows Comments? I guess that's a No then!
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Terry, East Grinstead, UK
Hi Terry,
I don't understand this. I thought that Windows wrote this information into the file. But if ExifTool isn't reading it, then it isn't in the file.
- Phil
As mentioned previously (https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php/topic,4890.msg23447.html#msg23447), the tag you're looking for is the XPComment tag. That's where windows is adding this info. I previously mentioned this is how it works in Windows 8 and I just verified it's the same for Windows XP.
The command to see it would be ExifTool -XPComment <file>. To change it with exiftool, ExifTool -XPComment="New Comment" <file>
edit: grammar and additional info
Thanks StarGeek. My bad - I somehow managed to miss all 3 earlier replies from you, HaNu and Tarn on this, sorry. :-[ Premature senility, coupled with starting too many posts within a few days!
Phil: I used this from FAQ 3c
First, make sure you are looking at the right information. Use ExifTool with a command like this to extract all information from the file, along with the location it was written:
exiftool -a -G1 -s c:\images\test.jpg
But running this didn't find my XPComment
exiftool -a -G1 -s "C:\Docs\My Pictures\PHOTOS\Tests\TestForXPComment.jpg"
Today I tried this from the detailed documentation:
exiftool -a -u -g1 "C:\Docs\My Pictures\PHOTOS\Tests\TestForXPComment.jpg"
which did find it.
I gather XPComment is therefore classified by ExifTool as an 'Unknown' tag? I find the whole subject of Tags bewildering. So many conflicts, no apparent standardisation, ambiguous labels and descriptions, reports of inconsistencies, etc. So this is probably a naive question, but in what sense is XPComment 'unknown'?
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Terry, East Grinstead, UK
Hi Terry,
XPComment should always appear in the output if it exists. It is not unknown, so it doesn't require the -u option. And its name is unique so the -a will have no effect either.
I'm guessing you either checked the wrong file, or Windows hadn't written it yet, or you just missed it in your earlier test.
- Phil