XMP metadata – worth learning about

Businesses see in metadata a useful tool for organizing their information and documents.

The maxim holds true: When collecting data, the more time you invest in intelligent management and the set-up and maintaining of databases, the greater will be the added value over the medium and long term. This is an investment that is obviously well worth making. With the help of metadata, fewer resources are needed to perform a wide range of actions and operations, one example of which is vastly simplifying searches by using consistent and standardized vocabulary.

What’s more, files will be found better in search-engine rankings. The selective use of metadata is the foundation for this. Every PDF file gives you the option of inputting certain data, such as the title, description or creation date. Although not visible to users, this information is weighted and used for the ranking – an aspect that should not be underestimated if you want to exploit its full potential for the benefit your marketing and corporate communications.

A key technical element is what is called XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform), which enables metadata to be integrated into all relevant Adobe applications using a uniform schema. XMP is based on the W3C industry standard and is available free as an open source tool. The decisive benefit: This intelligent solution lets you implement automated workflows and increase productivity. The PDF Association’s website has an interesting and informative article about this. Here you can not only become familiar with the basic principles for using and benefitting from metadata in PDF documents, but also find all the details about the added value XMP delivers. Reading this article will be well worth your time!