Unable to Edit Certain Embedded Metadata Fields in PDFs

[maryjdc]

I am using ExifTool GUI v5.9.0.0 / ExifTool v8.87 on Windows XP Professional to manage embedded metadata in PDF files.

I have been unable to successfully edit the metadata in 7 of my 28 embedded metadata fields. Two errors occur when I try to make these changes and I hope that someone on the forum can help explain to me why they have occurred and whether there is any way to unlock these fields so that I can edit them.

The errors are:

Warning: Sorry, ... doesn't exist or isn't writable
Nothing to do.
<-END-

where ... corresponds to the following tags:
xmp-pdf:linearized
xmp-pdf:pagecount

Warning: Tag '...' does not exist
Nothing to do.
<-END-

where '...' corresponds to the following tags:
xmp-pdf:ModifyDate
xmp-pdf:CreateDate
FilePath (-XMP-stRef:FilePath)

Interestingly, our embedded metadata schema repeats the values of these last three 'do not exist' tags in -XMP-xmp:ModifyDate, -XMP-xmp:CreateDate, and -XMP-dc:Identifier, respectively, which are editable in the GUI. I do not know whether this is somehow causing the problem.

Many thanks!

Mary

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Mary,

The Linearized and PageCount tags are PDF properties that can not be edited by ExifTool, not XMP tags.

CreateDate and ModifyDate are XMP-xmp tags, so it should work if you specify XMP-xmp instead of XMP-pdf.

FilePath is a member of the ResourceRef structure, and can be written directly through the appropriate flattened tag DerivedFromFilePath, IngredientsFilePath, MangedFromFilePath, ManifestReferenceFilePath or RenditionOfFilePath.

See the XMP tag name documentation for a complete list of XMP tags writable by ExifTool. 

- Phil