Subject is duplicated to keywords

Started by rwagner, February 04, 2011, 06:48:17 AM

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rwagner

February 04, 2011, 06:48:17 AM
Hello all,

I'm new to this forum and a newbie to exiftool, so please have patience with me even if I ask stupid questions.

I'm working on Mac with applescript and I use exiftool over the "do shell script" command.
When I'm setting the subject tag the content is also duplicated to the keywords. I don't find a way to avoid this.

The command is "exiftool -Subject='<theSubject>' -E <pathToFile>"

Can anyone help me with this issue?

Thanks in advance
Rudolf

Phil Harvey

#1
February 04, 2011, 07:13:39 AM
Hi Rudolf,

The problem is the software you use to read the metadata.  ExifTool only writes what you tell it to.

- Phil
...where DIR is the name of a directory/folder containing the images.  On Mac/Linux/PowerShell, use single quotes (') instead of double quotes (") around arguments containing a dollar sign ($).

rwagner

#2
February 04, 2011, 07:49:29 AM
Hi Phil,

Thanks for your reply.

Here are some more details: I'm writing to pdf files and I modify title, author, subject, keywords and instructions.
Everything works fine except for the fact that the content of subject is attached to the keywords.
I can see this by opening the file in Acrobat Professional and looking on the property window.

I hope this helps.

Rudolf

Phil Harvey

#3
February 04, 2011, 07:59:24 AM Last Edit: February 04, 2011, 08:08:46 AM by Phil Harvey
Hi Rudolf,

Yes.  XMP-dc:Subject is used to store keywords, and is commonly called keywords when viewed in other applications.  (I have no idea why the XMP specification used this convention, but welcome to the inconsistent world of metadata.)

See FAQ number 3 for suggestions about how to determine what you should be writing.

- Phil

Edit: Or maybe you are trying to write the native PDF tags and not XMP.  In this case, use PDF:Subject and PDF:Keywords, although I'm not sure what Acrobat will display if the XMP is also written and disagrees with the PDF information.  Maybe it is a good idea to write both.  In the full exiftool distribution you will find a pair of ".args" files which give the mappings between PDF and XMP tags.  You will notice that PDF:Subject maps into XMP-dc:Description, and PDF:Keywords maps into XMP-pdf:Keywords (not XMP-dc:Subject!).
...where DIR is the name of a directory/folder containing the images.  On Mac/Linux/PowerShell, use single quotes (') instead of double quotes (") around arguments containing a dollar sign ($).

rwagner

#4
February 04, 2011, 08:21:23 AM
Hi Phil,

Thanks a lot for your support. You made my day!

The hint to use 'PDF:<tag>' was the solution. Great!
I start loving exiftool!

Best wishes, Rudolf
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