Open a PDF in Chrome or Firefox and look at the tab. Often it doesn't show the file name at all. It shows the Title stored inside the file, which might be something helpful like "2026 Price List", or something like "Microsoft Word - draft3_FINAL_v2.docx" left behind by whatever made the PDF.
That Title is one of a handful of fields every PDF can carry, and you can change all of them without touching the pages. Edit metadata does it in your browser, and the file isn't uploaded.
What's stored in a PDF's properties
The classic set of fields lives in a small block inside the file called the document information dictionary:
- Title: the document's name, as a person would write it.
- Author: a person or an organisation.
- Subject: a short description.
- Keywords: a comma-separated list of terms.
- Creator: the app the original was made in, such as Microsoft Word.
- Producer: the software that actually wrote the PDF.
- Creation date and modification date.
- Trapped: a prepress flag that tells a print shop whether colour trapping has been applied. If you don't work with commercial printing, ignore it.
Files can also carry custom fields with any name, often added by document management systems (a matter number, a department, a revision code).
Newer PDFs keep a second copy of much the same information as XMP, a block of XML embedded in the file. Some viewers, Adobe Acrobat among them, read XMP first. That's how you get the confusing case where you change the title in one app and another still shows the old one: only one of the two copies was updated. When a file has XMP, Edit metadata rewrites it to match the fields you saved, and tells you so with "This file also has XMP metadata. It is updated to match."
Where these fields show up
- Browser tabs. The PDF viewers built into browsers usually show the Title in the tab when the file has one, and the file name when it doesn't.
- Search results. When a PDF is public on the web, Google can use its Title as the headline of the result.
- Document properties. In Adobe Acrobat Reader, File > Document Properties shows Title, Author, Subject and Keywords on the Description tab, along with the dates, the creating application and the producer. On a Mac, Preview shows them under Tools > Show Inspector.
- Search and filing. Desktop search and document management systems often index Author and Keywords.
The Title and the file name are independent. Changing one never changes the other. If what you actually want is better file names, see the guide to renaming PDF files by their content.
Changing the fields step by step
- Open Edit metadata and add your PDF. Password-protected files ask for the password. The current properties are read from the file and listed as rows.
- Make sure "Change metadata" is selected in the bar at the top (it is by default).
- Edit Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Creator and Producer. Created, Modified, Trapped and any custom fields appear as extra rows if the file has them.
- To remove a field, clear it or click the × at the end of its row. An empty field is deleted from the file rather than saved blank.
- To add a field, click "Add new field" and pick its type from the list on the left of the new row. For your own field, choose "Custom field" and fill in a field name and a value.
- Click "Save metadata" and download the file.
The download keeps the original file name, so put it in a different folder if you want to keep the old version next to it.
What to write in each field
For Title, write what you'd want to see on the tab: "Northside Plumbing price list, October 2026", not "pricelist_v7". This is the field that matters most, because it's the one people actually see.
Author can be your name or your organisation. If the PDF came out of Word, check it. Word fills Author from the user name in its settings, which might be a nickname or a laptop's default account name.
Keywords are mostly useful for internal search. I wouldn't expect them to do anything for Google rankings.
I'd leave Creator and Producer alone unless you have a reason. Some people blank them so a file doesn't advertise which software and version made it, which is fair.
If the file has a Modified date, a checkbox labelled Set the "Modified" date to now is ticked by default, so the date records your edit. Untick it to keep the old date, or type a new one into the date box yourself.
Custom field names must start with a letter and can contain letters, digits, hyphens, underscores and full stops, with no spaces. Typing the name of a standard field (Title, say) as a custom field is refused; pick it from the list instead.
Removing all metadata before you share a file
Choose "Remove all metadata" in the top bar instead of "Change metadata" and the tool deletes every document property: title, author, subject, keywords, creator, producer, both dates, custom fields and the XMP block. It also removes the private data some design apps store alongside pages. The pages themselves aren't changed.
This is worth doing when a file is leaving your organisation. Author fields often hold a full name or a user name, custom fields can contain internal client or project codes, and the dates show exactly when a draft was made.
If you're also shrinking the file, Compress PDF has a "Remove document metadata" checkbox under "More options", so you can do both in one pass.
Do it last, then check
Metadata is easy to overwrite by accident, because a lot of PDF software updates Producer and the modification date whenever it saves. So make metadata the last thing you change, after merging, compressing or signing.
Then open the downloaded file in Acrobat Reader and look at File > Document Properties. If the title in your browser tab still looks old, close the tab and open the file again; the viewer may be showing a copy it already had open.
Also useful: Compress PDF · Delete annotations
