File name vs document title:

Report · Aug 04, 2016

Something seems to have changed in recent updates for my Acrobat XI Standard. Just in the past month or so, Acrobat has started defaulting to using the document title rather than the file name.

To give some background; my company has several Word templates from which we create documents, which are then PDF'd (via Save As function) with the Standard options, which includes bringing across the document properties. In the document properties, the Title (under details) shows the template name; but the File Name has important information such as job reference number and date.

PDFs have just recently started to show the document title (template name) in the bar by default, and I have to manually change it back to file name under the initial view settings in Properties. But this is tiresome to do for every document I PDF.

Why has this changed? Can I change it back to always PDF with document title?

I have Office 2016/365, and I'm on version 11.0.12 of Acrobat XI Standard.

Report · Aug 05, 2016

As far as I recall, this is a setting of the file itself, not of the application. You'll find it under File - Properties - Initial View.

Maybe what changed was how these files are generated, now how your application is displaying them...

Report · Aug 05, 2016

I haven't checked versions but my recollection is that Acrobat has always done this. Certainly it did years ago. If I Am right, what has changed is that your generating app is adding a title.

Report · Aug 08, 2016

Thanks for your thoughts, guys.

@testscreenname, you said that 'my generating app is adding a title' - well my generating app is the Acrobat PDFmaker COM Add-in, and it does appear to be adding a title now. I've had this program for several years, and none of my programs, source documents, or processes have changed - except for maybe an Office or Adobe update - so I don't know why just this particular aspect is different.

I've tried to edit the settings via the Distiller app, and the Save As PDF 'options' button but neither of those seem to address my particular issue. My only option seems to be not bringing across any document properties, which I would prefer not to do.

Report · Aug 09, 2016

You can perhaps check an old PDF from the same method to see if anything has changed in PDFMaker. I'm not aware if any change at all.

Report · Nov 07, 2016

I'm having a similar issue. In the past I was able to download files and it would put the file name, now it just puts a number. E.g.. 919.pdf and it just keeps counting up with each item I download. I can't search for my documents with the number, I need a name. Is there a way to change this back to how it was?

Report · Nov 07, 2016

You can only change it on a file-by-file basis, and only if you have Acrobat. It can't be done with the free Reader.

Report · Jan 10, 2018

Took me a very long time to figure this out...but if you go into the Word document and change the Title to blank, it will not carry anything over when you do the conversion to pdf, and then the tab will show the file name. To do this, go to Insert -> Quick Parts -> Document Property -> Title. Then make the title blank.

A second workaround is to "Print" the document to a pdf file instead of saving it. But for me this had the unwanted effect of also disabling all the links in the document.