国产传媒

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Adding or editing a document title and subject in an existing PDF

Important: Design studio created PDFs

All PDFs created by the Design Studio should automatically have embedded document titles. If you've submitted a Design Studio created PDF to the Web Team and they've advised you that the document title is missing, please return the PDF to the Design Studio and they will quickly amend this for you so that you can resubmit it – you do not need to follow the remaining instructions on this page.

Exempt PDFs

You do not need to add a document title to any PDF that:

  • was published on the University website before 23rd September 2018
    and
  • has not been edited since
    and
  • is not used by any current process or activity.

Adding a document title in such cases would be best practice, but is not required, as these documents are exempt from accessibility legislation. Please note that a PDF created prior to 23rd September 2018 is not automatically exempt based solely on its creation date – it's the date of publication (when it was made live online in a new location) that matters. So even if a PDF was published somewhere else in 2015, if you're about to re-publish it in a new location, that's a new publication of that document and as such it's not exempt.

Important: third party PDFs

If the PDF was not created by the University, you should request an amendment from the party who produced the document, or request permission to make this amendment yourself before editing.

Please note that:
  • you will not be able to make amendments to any PDF that has been password-protected
  • you should not make amendments to third-party PDFs that have been digitally signed
– in both cases a warning will appear when you attempt to edit the PDF, so it's not possible to undertake either of these actions accidentally.

If you need to upload a third-party PDF without a document title, and that party is not responding to attempts to contact them for an amendment or permission to edit the document, please email digitalteam@exeter.ac.uk for advice.

Choose your software

You will need to use one of the following:

  • Adobe Acrobat Pro
    This is not the free version of Adobe Acrobat, and you will need a licence for it.
  • ABBYY FineReader
    This is available to all University-owned staff computers – instructions for installation are provided below.

We do not recommend the use of PDF Creator to edit PDFs intended for our websites. 

Note for programmers about Notepad++

It's theoretically possible to add or alter the document title using Notepad++ but this is not advised as it can result in a byte offset shift, which can corrupt the file.

Adobe Acrobat Pro

You will need a licence for Adobe Acrobat Pro (it's not possible to edit the document title using Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is the free version). If you don't have Acrobat Pro, see the instructions for ABBYY FineReader instead.

  1. Open the PDF in Acrobat Pro.
  2. Select 'File', then 'Properties'.
  3. In the resulting 'Description' tab
    1. Enter your title in the 'Title' field (required)
    2. Enter a subject in the 'Subject' field (optional – read more about why you might include a subject).
  4. Select 'Show Document Title' (not File Name).
  5. Click 'OK'.
  6. Save.

ABBYY FineReader

ABBYY FineReader is available to download to any University-owned Windows staff computer from the Company Portal (found via the Start menu). Please use this method to ensure you have a legitimate installation. It may take around 10-15 minutes to install. If you require a download for a University-owned mac this can be arranged – please .

When the program is installed you'll see multiple options in the Start menu – from these you should choose 'ABBYY FineReader PDF'.

  1. Open your PDF using ABBYY FineReader.
  2. Open the Main Menu (the 'hamburger menu', a three bar button in the top left of the screen).
  3. Go to 'File' and then 'Document Properties...'
    1. Enter your title in the 'Title' field
    2. Enter a subject in the 'Subject' field (optional – read more about why you might include a subject).
    3. Click 'OK'.
  4. Click 'Save' (the button to the right of the Main Menu) if you want to overwrite your original, or to save a copy, click on the Main Menu button and then choose 'File', 'Save As...', 'PDF Document'.

It's worth checking that the embedded title is now present in your saved PDF. Usually it's fine, but if the PDF you're working on is particularly old or has some unusual coding within it, then sometimes these issues can cause a conflict.

If you find you can't get a document title to save, please contact digitalteam@exeter.ac.uk for advice.