InfoSetter

User Guide — Mapsoft InfoSetter Plugin for Adobe Acrobat

Overview

InfoSetter is an Adobe Acrobat plug-in that allows you to view and set PDF document metadata. Every PDF file contains metadata fields such as title, author, subject, and keywords that are used by search engines, document management systems, and Acrobat itself to identify and catalogue documents. InfoSetter provides a straightforward interface for editing these fields individually or in bulk.

The plug-in supports all standard PDF document information fields: title, subject, author, keywords, creator, producer, index file, and base URL. Each field can be individually enabled or disabled, so you can update only the fields you need while leaving the rest unchanged. InfoSetter can also read metadata from the open document, from another PDF file or from a CSV file, and apply it to many PDF files at once.

For advanced workflows, InfoSetter provides XMP metadata support, allowing you to copy and manage the extended metadata stored in the document's XMP stream. A COM automation interface is available for programmatic access from scripts and external applications.

Getting Started

After installation, InfoSetter adds a menu item under Extensions › Mapsoft › InfoSetter in Adobe Acrobat. Click this to open the InfoSetter dialog.

Open a PDF document in Adobe Acrobat.
Go to Extensions › Mapsoft › InfoSetter.
Enable the checkboxes next to the metadata fields you wish to set.
Enter your desired values for each enabled field.
Click OK to apply the changes to the document. (OK stays disabled until at least one field is ticked or Copy all XMP from source is enabled.)

Tip: Click Current to populate the dialog fields with the metadata already stored in the open PDF. This is useful when you want to review or modify existing metadata rather than replacing it entirely.

Metadata Fields

InfoSetter supports the following standard PDF document information dictionary fields. Each field has a checkbox that must be enabled for the value to be written when you apply the settings.

Field	Description	Typical Use
Title	The document title, displayed in Acrobat's title bar and used by search engines.	A descriptive name for the document, e.g., “Annual Report 2025”.
Subject	A brief description of the document's subject matter or purpose.	A short summary, e.g., “Financial performance summary for FY2025”.
Author	The name of the person or organisation that authored the document.	An individual name or company name, e.g., “Marketing Department”.
Keywords	Keywords associated with the document, used for search indexing.	Comma-separated terms, e.g., “finance, annual report, 2025”.
Creator	The application that originally created the document content (before PDF conversion).	E.g., “Microsoft Word”, “Adobe InDesign”.
Producer	The application or library that converted the document to PDF format.	E.g., “Adobe PDF Library 15.0”, “Mapsoft InfoSetter”.
Index	A path to a PDF index file (.pdx) for full-text search integration.	Used in enterprise document management workflows with Acrobat Search.
Base URL	The base URL used to resolve relative web links within the document.	E.g., `https://www.example.com/docs/` for documents with relative hyperlinks.

Values in any language are supported, including non-Latin scripts such as Chinese, and long values such as extensive keyword lists are kept in full.

Reading Current Metadata

The Current button reads the metadata from the currently open PDF and populates the dialog fields, ticking each field that has a value. This is useful for reviewing what metadata a document already contains, or as a starting point for modifications. The From File... button lets you read metadata from a different PDF file on disk without opening it in Acrobat.

Clearing the Fields

The Clear button empties all field values and unticks every field. To remove a value from a document, tick its field and leave it empty.

Signed and Protected Documents

Acrobat does not allow the properties of a digitally signed document, or of one whose security settings forbid changes, to be changed. InfoSetter checks first, leaves such a document unchanged and tells you why.

Batch Processing

To apply metadata to many PDF files without opening them, choose Multiple files... under Apply to at the top of the dialog. A file list appears.

Tick the fields you want to set and enter their values.
Add PDF files with Add Files..., or a whole folder with Add Folder... (optionally including its subfolders).
Click OK and confirm. A progress window shows each file as it is processed, and you can abort at any time.
A summary shows how many files were processed and lists any that could not be, with the reason.

Field values can include template variables that are filled in for each file: %filename% (the file name without its extension), %filename_ext%, %folder%, %date%, %datetime%, and %existing_title%, %existing_subject%, %existing_author%, %existing_keywords%, %existing_creator% and %existing_producer% for the file’s current values. For example, %existing_keywords%, reviewed %date% appends to each file’s keywords.

Note: Batch processing changes files in place and cannot be undone, so keep backups of important documents. A file is saved only if every change to it succeeded; signed or protected files are left unchanged and listed in the summary.

Saved Configurations

The Name Configuration dropdown lets you save and recall named sets of metadata values. This is particularly useful when you regularly apply the same metadata to multiple documents — for example, setting a consistent author and producer across all documents from a specific department.

To save a configuration, fill in the fields as desired, type a name in the configuration dropdown, and click Save. To recall a saved configuration, select it from the dropdown. To remove a saved configuration, select it, click Remove and confirm.

Saved configurations are stored in the Windows registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mapsoft\InfoSetterConfigs and persist between Acrobat sessions. Each configuration stores the complete set of field values and their enabled/disabled states; XMP settings are not saved. The same configurations can be run by Mapsoft Automator, which fills in template variables for each file.

CSV Import

InfoSetter can fill in the dialog from a CSV (comma-separated values) file, which is convenient when document metadata is managed in a spreadsheet or database.

Click the CSV... button to select a CSV file. The first line must be a header row naming the columns: Title, Subject, Author, Keywords, Creator, Producer, Index and BaseURL (in any order and any case; you need not include them all). The values in the first data row are loaded into the dialog and their fields ticked; you then apply them to the open document or to multiple files as usual.

Fields may be separated by commas, tabs or semicolons, and may be enclosed in double quotes (write a literal quote as two). The file can be UTF-8, UTF-16 (Excel’s “Unicode Text”) or your Windows code page.

Tip: Prepare your CSV in a spreadsheet application like Microsoft Excel and save it as “CSV UTF-8”, so that accented and non-Latin characters come through intact.

XMP Metadata

In addition to the standard document information dictionary, modern PDF files store metadata in an XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) stream. InfoSetter can copy XMP metadata from one document to others: capture it with Current or From File..., tick Copy all XMP from source, and apply to the open document or to multiple files. The Advanced... button chooses which XMP namespaces are copied and whether the modify date, document IDs and Info dictionary are updated.

XMP metadata can contain richer information than the standard fields, including Dublin Core properties, rights management information, and custom metadata schemas. For the namespaces you do not copy, the target document keeps its own values, and it always keeps its own PDF/A, PDF/UA, PDF/X and PDF/E conformance identification. Fields you tick in the dialog are applied after the XMP, so they take precedence.

When you set standard metadata fields through InfoSetter, the corresponding XMP properties are also updated to keep the document information dictionary and the XMP stream in sync. This ensures consistency regardless of which metadata source an application reads.

COM Automation

InfoSetter provides a COM automation interface (IInfoSetterAuto) that allows external applications and scripts to set PDF metadata programmatically. The COM object exposes properties for each metadata field (Title, Subject, Author, Keywords, Creator, Producer, Index, BaseURL) and a Set() method that applies the configured values to a PDF document handle.

This interface is useful for integrating metadata management into automated document processing pipelines. You can call the automation interface from any COM-compatible language, including VBScript, PowerShell, C#, VB.NET, and Python. The automation DLL (MAPSInfoSetter.dll) must be registered on the system before use.

A typical automation workflow involves creating an instance of the InfoSetter COM object, setting the desired property values, and then calling the Set method with a reference to the target PDF. This can be repeated in a loop to process multiple documents with different metadata values.

System Requirements

Adobe Acrobat: Acrobat Pro or Standard DC (2017 or later). Not compatible with Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Operating System: Windows 10 or Windows 11 (both 32-bit and 64-bit Acrobat installations are supported).
Protected Mode: supported. InfoSetter runs with Acrobat’s Protected Mode switched on and does not require it to be disabled.
Optional: Microsoft Excel or another spreadsheet application for preparing CSV import files.

Support

If you encounter a problem or have a question not covered here, please get in touch: