Forum Discussion
Is there any way at all to search for PDF files using PDF keywords in SharePoint Online?
SharePoint can query the properties (i.e. metadata) of a document only if there is a document parser that "promotes" such properties when uploading the document.
Unfortunately, SPO does not implement out of the box a document parser for PDF files, hence the PDF properties are not "promoted" (i.e. they are ignored).
So, if you want to query PDF properties in SPO, you have to fill by yourself, manually or automatically, the corresponding columns on the document library where the PDF is stored.
See https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/wbaer/2014/08/29/document-property-promotion-and-demotion-overview-and-considerations/
Thanks for the link. I don’t think it would be easy to automate property promotion and demotion without a server-side document parser, which doesn’t seem possible with SPO.
Hi stesdsuk,
Which PDF metadata fields are of interest to you? The core properties like Title, Author, CreatorDate, ... or also the metadata stored within the PDF files in XMP format?
(rationale: there might be a solution for this that will even work in SPO)
Paul | SLIM Applications
I’m interested in the basic metadata stored in the PDF information dictionary, specifically “Author”, “Title”, and “Keywords”. Do you think there’s a free and purely SPO-based solution?
- Well, the free and purely solution is what Microsoft provides with the search engine...putting on an additional layer to extract metadata for SPO files could be possible, but not for free
Hi Juan Carlos. What option (even if it is a payment solution) exists to index in SPO other type of properties / metadata, of PDF files?
