Importing metadata from PDF file

[genrou]

Wondering if this is possible.. PDF in a container, I want to autofill filemaker data fields from PDF metadata... possible?

[BobWeaver]

This has been asked a few times before, but I don't recall anyone coming up with a solution.

[stanley]

Perhaps PDF metadata is accessible via AppleScript?

-Stanley

[Fenton]

Yes, it is accessible via AppleScript. Not that I know much about what it is :-]

To see the tags available:

set theFile to (choose file)

tell application "Image Events"

set theImage to open theFile

set theMeta to metadata tags of theImage

close theFile

return theMeta

end tell

To return a value, such as the height:

set theFile to (choose file)

tell application "Image Events"

set theImage to open theFile

set theHeight to value of metadata tag "pixelHeight" of theImage

close theFile

return theHeight

end tell

Some of the values can be gotten directly by ImageEvents:

set theFile to (choose file)

tell application "Image Events"

set theImage to open theFile

set theSpace to color space of theImage

close theFile

return theSpace as string

end tell

From ImageEvent's dictionary:

color space Eight channel/Eight color/Five channel/Five color/Seven channel/RGB/Lab/XYZ/Six channel/CMYK/Six color/Seven color/Named/Gray [r/o] -- color space of the image's color representation

resolution list [r/o] -- the pixel density of the image, in dots per inch, as a pair of integers

bit depth sixteen colors/color/four grays/black & white/thousands of colors/grayscale/two hundred fifty six grays/four colors/sixteen grays/millions of colors/best/two hundred fifty six colors/millions of colors plus [r/o] -- bit depth of the image's color representation

name Unicode text [r/o] -- the name of the image

dimensions list [r/o] -- the width and height of the image, respectively, in pixels, as a pair of integers

image file file [r/o] -- the file that contains the image

file type PICT/Photoshop/BMP/QuickTime Image/GIF/JPEG/MacPaint/JPEG2/SGI/PSD/TGA/Text/PDF/PNG/TIFF [r/o] -- file type of the image's file

[comment]

Hmmm ... I'd think "PDF metadata" meant details such as creator, title, keywords, etc. that are embedded in a PDF file?

[stanley]

Fenton was on the right track. Image Events' Image Suite has a metadata tag class - the question is figuring out the name of the metadata tags in a PDF. The AppleScript dictionary shows the following for it:

Class metadata tag: A metadata tag: EXIF, IPDC, etc.

Plural form:

metadata tags

Properties:

<Inheritance> item [r/o] -- All of the properties of the superclass.

name Unicode text [r/o] -- the name of the tag

description Unicode text [r/o] -- the description of the tag's function

value item [r/o] -- the current setting of the tag

-Stanley

[Fenton]

Comment is undoubtedly correct, that the metadata they're talking about it is something else. I imagine if it's an Adobe Acrobat file with that kind of metadata then you could get it with Acrobat, if it's available. But I don't know.

[stanley]

Unfortuately, the Acrobat Reader application is not scriptable. Perhaps the deluxe (or whatever it's called version is scriptable.)

-Stanley

[dhuttonkc]

Did you ever find a solution to obtaining PDF metadata directly from the file? I am working on a similar project (I believe), would like to extract the PDF Metadata (Author, create date, modified date, Page Count, File Size) and use this information to manage and manipulate the PDF(s) in a DocManagement system.

Before all of the suggestions....TROI and DACONS will NOT perform the desired routine as detailed above.

Had worked with some COMs from "veryPDF" however they are a bit pricey and buggy and are, apparently, not scriptable in FM8.