ibooks ver1.5 pdf file name changed

Yay for it... I didn't need that til they effed up iBooks...maybe that will underscore my point.

PDFinfo didn't work for me. It would not process a folder without crashing and then when I did singles the change never applied.

I ended up creating a batch process in Acrobat to strip metadata. Unfortunately it strips all metadata, but I didn't have anything else important in there. Just something to be aware if you do.

Yes, PDFInfo is a bit flaky. I had to resort to Automator to finish the job: 'Ask for Finder Items' and 'Set PDF Metadata' are all that's needed. And you can choose the metadata fields too.

Thanks for the info - Exoriare.

Could I trouble you for a little more description on the Automator process for someone who has never done it?

I am a clutz with automator.

I am willing to pay $200 to someone that can make me an automator app, provide a "how-to guide for dummies" for this automator process, or a "how-to guide for dummies" on the Acrobat batch process way to achieve this on a folder of PDFs.

I can pay by PayPal to anyone or by email money transfer to any Canadian.

Send me an email at:

luke@dldgroup.net

Thanks.

There are several possible ways to do this in Automator. This is just one:

Open Automator and choose 'Application' from the menu that opens.

From menu in the left-side window click on ‘PDFs’ to select it then look for ‘Set PDF Metadata' to the right

Or

Scroll down the long menu window (2^nd from left) until you come to ‘Set PDF Metadata'

Double click ‘Set PDF Metadata’ to send it to the big window on the right.

Tick the ‘Title’ box but leave the box blank.

Get ‘Save…’ from the File menu and save the app to the desktop.

Quit Automator.

Any pdf you now drop on the Automator app on the desktop will have the title metadata field cleared.

Two warnings: 1) Batch processing can take a long time. Best to drop the pdfs on the app from an open Finder window and watch how quickly the Date Modified field changes before you decide if you really want to process your 1000 pdfs in this way 2) For some reason (that somebody who knows more about pdfs than I do might explain) the file size increases. This is a nuisance.

(If it doesn’t work, keep your $200; if it does work, keep it anyway.)

Here’s how you do it in Acrobat Pro 10.

Open Acrobat

File menu: Action Wizard: Create New Action

Open the Protection menu on the left and select Remove Hidden Information item to populate the Steps stage in the window on the right. Use the options menu to select Metadata.

Amend the Start with: and Save to: options to how you want them

Save and run the Action

This is quicker than Automator, but it doesn’t bloat the file size. It does remove all the metadata though, not just the title field.

Wow, thank you, exoriare!

The Automator process seems to be working.

I stand by my offer, so I can make a donation to a charity of your choice if you prefer.

Do you like water.org?

I really appreciate your help. Apple owes you for helping to keep their customers.

Thank you.

Thanks, but it took only a few minutes and I wanted to crack it myself anyway. If you run through the Automator process to clear the title field and then run the same files through the Acrobat process, but clearing something other than the metadata you can keep the rest of the metadata intact and reduce the filesize too. I do wish Apple would fix this app though.

Unfortunately for those of us without a MAc (thus no Automator program) and Acrobat Reader (or in my case Acrobat Pro 8), this doesn't work. Acrobat 8 doesn't have the Action Wizard option.

This... needs... to be fixed!!!

I have just written this quick follow-up to thank Exoriare once again and to let people know that I had the best success using Exoriare's Acrobat 10 Pro solution, which had maintained the PDF file sizes.

I had to upgrade my Acrobat 9 Pro to Acrobat 10 Pro for the Action Wizard. Thankfully, there is a 20% off promotion right now at Adobe.

Acrobat had ripped out the metadata from 4,735 PDF files within 15-minutes. I had then deleted my PDFs in iBooks and added the new ones. I had done the same on my iPhone and iPad.

Everything works perfectly now.

Exoriare, if I were in Apple management, I would be sending you free product right now. Thank you very much!

While I truly hope that Apple fixes this bug, I do not think that they will, as they would have done so by now. At the very least, they should have acknowledged the issue.

APPLE FIX THIS ISSUE!

Apple seriously needs to fix this. I'm a student who has to wade through hundreds of pdf articles and the like for research. The iTunes/iBooks/iPad sync has amazing potential for organization - and I'm a stickler for keeping all my files categorized, named, and the like. Additionally, I have iTunes keep my files clean, so they all get renamed and placed in Author folders as I work with them.

I just fixed the iTunes metatags for 300+ items these last two days, synced them over to my iPad, just to have them revert everything I opened them! Thankfully, only the title has reverted, not the author or category data. The crazy thing is, though, it's not every file! I can't figure out the pattern of those that are all jacked up either.

Exoriare, I'll have to try this Automator process.

Did they fix this in 2.0 released today?

iBooks 2.0 seems to have fixed the problem.🙂

Great. Do I have to reload everything? I'm not close to my iTunes, but 2.0 still how's the altered names to me. Do I just have to sync or do i need to delete and reload my PDF?