PDF Get Metadata

PDF Get Metadata

Type: pdf-get-metadata  ·  Package: PDF Activities v1.2.4  ·  Output: Dictionary<string,object>

Returns the metadata of a PDF: title, author, creation and modification dates, number of pages and more. Useful to classify documents, check where they come from or log information about the file.

How it works

Reads the document’s information dictionary and returns it with fixed keys. It doesn’t modify the file. Many PDFs don’t fill in every field: missing ones come back as null.

Required parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
path	string	—	Path of the PDF file.

Optional parameters

None.

Output

Returns a Dictionary<string,object> with these keys, always present:

Key	Type	What it is
Title	string or null	Document title.
Author	string or null	Author.
Subject	string or null	Subject.
Creator	string or null	Application that created the original (e.g. a word processor).
Producer	string or null	Application that produced the PDF.
Keywords	string or null	Keywords, as stored in the document.
CreationDate	string or null	Creation date in PDF date format, unconverted: D:YYYYMMDDHHmmSS with an optional time zone, e.g. D:20260115093000-05'00'.
ModDate	string or null	Date of the last modification, in the same format.
PageCount	int	Number of pages.

To use a date as a date, extract its parts from the text: substring(meta["CreationDate"], 2, 8) gives "20260115" (year, month and day).

Common errors

Message	Cause and fix
File not found.	The path doesn’t exist.
'path' is required.	path was left empty or its expression returned null.
PDF library error when opening the file	Password-protected, damaged or not a PDF. See Protected and damaged PDFs.

Example

PDF Get Metadata   path = filePath   → output: meta
Log   message = "Title: " + str(meta["Title"]) + " — " + str(meta["PageCount"]) + " pages"
If   condition = meta["Producer"] == null
 └─ then:
      Log   level = warning   message = "The PDF doesn't say which application produced it"

Related activities

• PDF Get Page Count — just the number of pages.
• PDF Get Text — the content of the document.