Metadata inspector
Drop one or more PDFs and see a card per file with the embedded metadata, page count, and page dimensions. Useful for spotting weird author fields before sharing, or sanity-checking a batch.
Drop PDF files here or click to select
Multiple files allowed — one card per file
When to use this tool
Look inside a PDF without opening it. Useful before sharing (does the title field embarrass me?), when triaging a folder of unknown PDFs (when was each created? how many pages?), or when debugging tooling output (which library produced this file?).
Step by step
- Drop one or more PDFs. Each file gets its own card.
- Click "Inspect". The cards populate with metadata, page count, and page dimensions.
- If you find something to fix, run the same files through Edit metadata.
Fields shown
- file / size — original filename, file size.
- pageCount — total pages.
- title / author / subject / keywords — Info-dictionary metadata.
- producer / creator — the PDF library and the source application.
- created / modified — embedded timestamps in ISO 8601 (UTC).
- pageSize — width × height of page 1 in PDF points (72 pt = 1 inch). A4 is 595 × 842, US Letter is 612 × 792, US Legal is 612 × 1008.
Common use cases
- Pre-share check. Make sure the embedded title and author look OK before sending the file externally.
- Audit a folder. Drop a stack of files and skim the cards for anything weird (a 0-page PDF, a wildly old creation date, an unexpected author).
- Debug a converter. If a tool is producing PDFs with mangled metadata, the inspector tells you what's there before you adjust the converter.
- Format identification. The producer field often reveals what created the file — Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word, a server-side tool.
- Sanity check after editing. After running Edit metadata, drop the result here to confirm fields landed.
What's not shown
- Per-page sizes (mixed-size PDFs only show page 1's size)
- Embedded font list
- Bookmarks / outline structure
- Form field counts
- Annotations / signatures
- XMP metadata (only Info-dictionary fields)
FAQ
Why is the title or author blank?
Many PDFs ship with empty Info-dictionary fields. The em-dash (—) shown means the field is unset. To populate it, use Edit metadata.
Is "creator" the human author or the software?
By PDF convention, "creator" is the application that produced the source content (e.g. Microsoft Word) and "producer" is the library that wrote the PDF (e.g. Adobe PDF Library). The human author is typically in the "author" field.
Why are dates sometimes weird?
PDF timestamps are written by the application; some embed the user's local time, some embed UTC. The inspector renders them as ISO 8601 — but the underlying value reflects whatever the producer wrote.
Is the file ever uploaded to verify metadata?
No. Inspection happens entirely in the browser via pdf-lib and pdf.js.