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Participant
January 29, 2020
Question

Information about modified document

  • January 29, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 533 views

I have a situation with a real estate agency where they have send me what they say is a pdf copy of a document that was emailed to me in 2016 (unfortunately I dont have the original) . But I'm sure they have changed the original doc by adding several pages of photos. When I look at the 'Document Properties' of pdf they sent I can see it was Created only a week ago and then Modified a few minutes later. Is there any way I can find out exactly what this modification was? 

 

tia Phil

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1 reply

Thom Parker
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 29, 2020

The short answer is no. Without the original, special tools, or a digitally certified PDF you can't be sure about the history of changes in the PDF.  However, there is something you can do. The document properties dialog in Acrobat displays the interal modification date. This is different than the file date shown in the file system explorer. It the date of the last save from a PDF editing tool. 

 

If there is anything legal or financial about this doc, then you can't rely on it. 

 

 

Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often
try67
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 29, 2020

Just be advised there's no guarantee as to the validity of that date. One can easily change the system date, modify the file, and then change it back, and the file will appear as if it was edited at the time the system was set to.

Participant
February 7, 2020

Thanks, here's the actual info. So it was modified and then created after that. Is that consistent with somebody taking an original document and then adding pages to it?

 

 

thanks, Phil