Extract metadata from PDF documents Leave feedback

PDF files often contain metadata such as the title, subject, author, creation date, and application used to generate the document. With GroupDocs.Parser for Java, you can easily read these metadata properties programmatically using the getMetadata method.

This guide shows how to extract metadata from PDF documents in Java step by step.

The getMetadata method can return the following properties from a PDF document:

Note: The available metadata depends on the PDF file itself. Properties that are empty in the document are not included in the result.

Follow these steps to get metadata from a PDF document:

1. Instantiate the Parser object for the PDF file.
2. Call the getMetadata method to retrieve the collection of MetadataItem objects.
3. Iterate through the collection and read metadata names and values.

// Create an instance of Parser class
try (Parser parser = new Parser(Constants.SamplePdf)) {
    // Extract metadata from the document
    Iterable<MetadataItem> metadata = parser.getMetadata();
    // Iterate over metadata items
    for (MetadataItem item : metadata) {
        // Print an item name and value
        System.out.println(String.format("%s: %s", item.getName(), item.getValue()));
    }
}

Warning

getMetadata method returns null value if metadata extraction isn’t supported for the document. For example, metadata extraction isn’t supported for TXT files. Therefore, for TXT file getMetadata method returns null. If PDF document has no metadata, getMetadata method returns an empty collection.

Extracting PDF metadata is useful for:

• Document management – quickly find and categorize files by author, subject, or keywords.
• Compliance checks – verify creation and modification dates.
• Search indexing – improve search accuracy by including document properties.

You may easily run the code above and see the feature in action in our GitHub examples:

• GroupDocs.Parser for .NET examples
• GroupDocs.Parser for Java examples

Along with full featured Java library we provide simple, but powerful free Apps.

You are welcome to parse documents and extract data from PDF, DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, XLS, XLSX, Emails and more with our free online Free Online Document Parser App.