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Wrong document title shows when I open a file

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
August 22, 2016
25 replies
305367 views

Hi All:

I am working on an iMac using El Capitan 10.11.6. Until last week, when I upgraded to DC, hoping it would solve my problem (did not) I was using the previous version of Acrobat Pro. Regardless of version of Acrobat, whenever I open a PDF that came originally form a Word file, the wrong file title appears in the title bar above the page. Instead of "BigFile-Client ABC-2016" the title will be what it was in Word the first time I made the file "BigFile-GENERIC-2009" Even if I resave the file, add or subtract security, close and reopen, the name in the title bar is still wrong, and always an old name from years ago. This is a problem since I am customizing the same document for different clients and changing the names so I can tell them apart. Oddly enough, if I save and close the file, it appears in the desktop with the correct name and this does not happen at all with files that were originally made in InDesign. This problem just started a couple of weeks ago. Any ideas? What could have changed to cause this to just start happening?

Correct answer AbhigyanModi

If you get the right title in the source document in Word (or even blank), that would automatically be carried over when you create PDF.

Show previous replies

HeCK

Known Participant

This isn't just a Word problem. This is an Acrobat problem. I created a document in FrameMaker 2019 and have the exact same issue. It doesn't matter who opens it after it's renamed, it retains the original name. Adobe should fix this, rather than requiring people to open the document in the original program to rename it. This isn't a Word issue. So where is this happening? All other documents allow renaming in Windows. One must assume that it has to do with the pdf file type. I'd be fascinated to know if other pdf read/write programs have this issue, or if this is Adobe specific. This makes my job less convenient, since I have to rename this three times in my workflow. All I can do is assign the final name that I want, and rename in between, so that when I assign the final name, it is the name that shows in the Reader/Acrobat.

Bernd Alheit

Community Expert

Change the title in the FrameMaker document.

HeCK

Known Participant

That's absurd. We have documentation naming standards, and my documents HAVE to follow those. Fix the product.

philk5057951

Participant

Having recently come across this issue (which it seems has been going on for longer than I have noticed), I think the previous posts can be summarised as below. There are two points of view, both of which are correct - and a little bit mutually exclusive (if that's possible!)

Adobe is apparently behaving "as designed" in displaying the document title meta-data in the application title bar & document tab.
You can argue whether the programmers made the right decision here - I'm not enough of a PDF expert to say.
Every other mainstream Windows-based program that I use DOES NOT DO THIS - it displays the file name of the file, and it does this regardless of whether there is any meta-data present.
It is this final point that is the crux of the discussion - yes Adobe's working as designed, but seemingly not how a large number of users expect it to. It seems odd that there's not a setting within Adobe to choose whether you want to see file name or title meta-data displayed on the title bar & tab.
As a side note, I have encountered some inconsistencies - sometimes it displays meta-data title and sometimes it displays file name (even when there is a meta-data title to display) - see screen shots below.

If anyone has any deeper insights I'd be grateful to hear them. Thanks.

try67

Community Expert

This is not up to Adobe. This is how the PDF format is defined. There's an (optional) flag in each PDF file that defines whether the document's title should be displayed or the file-name. From the PDF ISO Specifications (Table 150 – Entries in a viewer preferences dictionary):

DisplayDocTitle
boolean
(Optional; PDF 1.4) A flag specifying whether the window’s title bar should display the document title taken from the Title entry of the document information dictionary (see 14.3.3, “Document Information Dictionary”). If false, the title bar should instead display the name of the PDF file containing the document. Default value: false.

If this flag is missing (or is set to FALSE), the file-name will be displayed. If it's not missing and is set to TRUE it means the author explicitly decided to show the file title, instead. Whether or not they are aware of this decision, or have specified the correct title for the file, is another matter.

By the way, this is certainly not the only place where this happens. When you open an HTML file in your browser it does not show the file's name. It shows the value of the <Title> tag from it, as well as other applications. This is common practice.

J

johns42761495

Participant

I struggled with this when changing a computer, but here is what you do:

With your document opened in MS word, go to File > Info > Properties > Advanced Properties and erase the title that is there. It then defaults to the file name. If you do this with your source document, everything else after will not have a file name. But if you have a lot of source docs like me, then you'll be doing this for a while and then eventually it will be fine. I have no idea why this changed all of a sudden. With my old computers, I had been doing this the same way for 15 years w/o a problem. I assume there might be a way to just change the default to file name for all docs all the time, but I haven't found that.

K

Keith__Solterre_

Participant

Word [Office 365 PC version] in the File menu, it shows "properties" in the right-hand pane, or a button for "advanced properties." Make the title blank, and it will then export the pdf title as the document title.

pdfa8255420

Participant

In Word you can remove metadata by clicking FILE>INFO and Inspect Document (Check for Issues). Remove document properties then export to PDF.

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

There is no setting to change in Acrobat. Acrobat is working as designed. The design is that if the PDF creation software sets a title, then the title is shown. Word puts the document name as title. This is as designed. Post 9 gave exact instructions to change this in Word, does this not work?

J

jazamm

Participating Frequently

Said "design" does not appear to be working when exporting from .PPT to .PDF. The Document Title is indeed what we need to display by default, otherwise it fails the Accessibilty Check, required for gov't compliance w/ the Disabilities Act. Instead, despite having set a title in the metadata, and that title being well passed along to the .PDF, the exported file now defaults to showing Filename. Please tell me how to fix this w/out having to manually set it for each .PDF, as we have thousands of files we need to make government compliant. Given the law, this issue (which was never a problem in previous versions) seems astoundingly moronic.

T

techu67492984

Participant

Turn off Track changes or finalise the word doc before exporting

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Test Screen Name

Legend

Please read the Message just before your own.

A

amandar1510

Participant

I'm having the same issue - Adobe using the Title instead of File name. I can change the document properties but with the amount of PDF files I work with and as much as they are shared among different users that is NOT a practical solution. It just started when I switched to a new computer and reinstalled Adobe Pro DC. Still using my old computer (temporarily) and not an issue there. Following if anyone else has a solution.