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Participant
December 2, 2016
Question

Keyword Delimiters InDesign CC

  • December 2, 2016
  • 1 reply
  • 1861 views

I work with a suite of designers who use InDesign CC to create documents they export  to PDF for uploading to our website.  The designers enter keywords in the file information and separate them with commas.  However, when they export the document to PDF all of the commas get changed to semicolons, which I understand is bad for Search Engine Optimization.

So two questions:

1.) Is there a setting somewhere we are missing to make sure our commas are retained?

2.) Does it even matter if keywords are separated by a semicolon vs. comma.  Will the keywords still be picked up by search engines?

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    barbara_a7746676
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    December 5, 2016

    It is not possible to retain the commas. The same thing happens when keywords are entered in other Adobe programs like Photoshop and Illustrator. It doesn't matter if keywords are separated by semicolon or comma.

    Known Participant
    April 13, 2020

    I've been having this problem with InDesign for about 10 years now. The File Info dialog says you can use semicolons or commas. But it should say "Use commas if you want, but we're gonna change them to semicolons as soon as you hit OK." Problem is: the website for which I'm creating my PDFs only supports commas for keyword and/or author lists. At least, neither the admin settings nor the documentation (of the background site architecture) mentions the use of any delimiter than comma. As smart as InDesign is, surely there's a way to make it stop doing that. I guess now I'll be looking for some kind of script to change the metadata semicolons in a collection of PDFs. What about it Adobe - any sort of solution?

    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Legend
    April 13, 2020

    Comma delimiters are the old standard from 20-30 years ago. About 15 years ago, the industry switched to semicolons. I doubt Adobe will go back to commas.

     

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