Save Metadata for a PDF in Make
What this module does
PDF4me — PDF - Save metadata for a PDF writes title, author, creator, producer, subject, and keyword fields directly into a PDF from a Make scenario. Every field is optional — leave any field blank and the existing value in the document is preserved. Map values from prior steps to automate metadata tagging across a whole document library without opening a single file manually.
Authenticating Your API Request
Every PDF4me module in Make requires a valid Connection. Create or select one that holds your PDF4me API key so the scenario can call the metadata write service securely.
Important Facts You Should Not Miss
You do not need to re-enter all metadata every time. Any field you leave empty is ignored — the value already stored in the PDF remains. Update only what you need to change.
Google reads PDF metadata when crawling. A populated Title field can appear in search result headings. Keywords contribute to relevance signals. Setting these before publishing PDFs to your website is a direct SEO action.
Metadata lives in the document information dictionary — completely separate from the page content. Changing these fields does not affect what readers see when they open the file.
Fill only the fields you want to update. Empty fields preserve whatever value the PDF already has.
Parameters
Required: Connection and File. All metadata fields are optional — only the values you provide are written into the document.
| Parameter | Required | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connection | Yes | PDF4me API connection used to authenticate metadata write requests. | Your PDF4me connection |
| File | Yes | Source PDF. Choose Dropbox - Download a File for a direct Dropbox trigger, or Map to supply filename and binary content from a prior module. | Dropbox - Download a File |
| Title | No | Document title written into the PDF info dictionary. Appears in viewer title bars and is indexed by Google when the PDF is published on the web. | Q4 Financial Report 2025 |
| Author | No | Name of the person or team that created the document. Used for attribution in viewers and document management systems. | Finance Department |
| Creator | No | The application that originally authored the document — for example Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign. | Microsoft Word |
| Producer | No | The tool that generated the final PDF bytes — for example a PDF library or a print-to-PDF driver. | PDF4me |
| Subject | No | Short description of the document subject. Visible in the document properties dialog and used by some search systems. | Quarterly earnings summary |
| Keywords | No | Comma-separated keyword tags associated with the document. Contributes to Google indexing and internal search when the PDF is hosted online. | finance, Q4, 2025, earnings |
Quick Setup
- Add PDF4me → PDF - Save metadata for a PDF to your scenario.
- Select Connection (or click Add to create one with your API key).
- Set File to Dropbox - Download a File or Map from a prior module.
- Fill in the metadata fields you want to update — Title, Author, Creator, Producer, Subject, Keywords. Leave any field blank to keep its current value.
- To automate the values, map them from prior modules — for example, pull the title from an Airtable field or derive it from the filename.
- Save and click Run once. The output contains Document Name and Document Data — the PDF with updated metadata properties.
Output
| Field | Type | What it contains |
|---|---|---|
Document Name | String | Filename of the output PDF with updated metadata. |
Document Data | Buffer | Binary content of the PDF with the new metadata written in. Map this into an upload, archive, or email module. |
Workflow Examples
Workflow ExamplesCommon Make scenario patterns that use PDF - Save metadata for a PDF to tag, standardize, and optimize document properties.
- A new whitepaper PDF is uploaded to a watched Google Drive folder.
- A Google Sheets row with the document title, author name, and SEO keywords is looked up by filename.
- Save metadata for a PDF writes the Title, Author, and Keywords fields from the sheet into the PDF.
- The tagged PDF is uploaded to the public website folder — Google now has proper metadata to index.
- A Slack notification confirms the PDF is live with metadata applied.
- A scheduled scenario iterates over all PDFs in a legacy archive folder.
- Get Document Information checks whether the Author field is already populated.
- A filter skips files that already have an author; the rest continue.
- Save metadata for a PDF writes the organization name into Author and a standard keyword set into Keywords.
- The updated files are saved back to the archive, ready for compliant search indexing.
- A monthly report PDF is generated automatically from a data template.
- The scenario maps the current month and year into the Title field (e.g. Sales Report — April 2026).
- The department name is mapped into Author; relevant product keywords into Keywords.
- Save metadata for a PDF writes all three fields in one step.
- The metadata-tagged report is archived to SharePoint and emailed to the distribution list.