How to strip metadata from a PDF

A PDF quietly records who made it, with what software, and when. Before publishing a document, it is worth clearing that trail.

What metadata reveals

• Author and organisation names.
• The software and template used.
• Creation and modification history.

Why it matters

Metadata has outed anonymous authors and leaked internal details. If you are publishing or sharing widely, clear it.

One clean pass

Strip the standard fields and re-save. For total certainty on sensitive files, flatten as well.