"How can I add metadata access to my programs?"

By Rowan Hanna
PDF Store Support Team
Issue 20 for 2005

First, let's look at metadata itself: "metadata" is defined as data about data. To be more specific, standard metadata for PDF documents includes things like author name, document title, keywords, etc. If you want a way to quickly and simply categorize your PDF documents, then metadata is the way to go.

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If you want to run a search to either return results based on a search of metadata or, even more importantly, process PDF documents based on metadata properties, then you'll need a way to access them programmatically. As with most developer-based functions, the question that you need to ask yourself at this point is whether it's more appropriate to buy a component that already delivers this functionality, or to build an equivalent in-house.

While building components yourself does grant you ownership of the technology, it also involves more lead-time, development costs, and the responsibility to support and troubleshoot it all yourself. If you decide to buy, you can get a component that is ready-to-use, tried and tested, and you cut down the setup and deployment time considerably. XpdfInfo -- a developer component used to access standard and customized document metadata -- is one of our most popular developer components, and fits the bill nicely.

Watch this space! Until next time, please browse PDF Store's PDF Developer aisle for the complete range of PDF development tools and components.