PDF document properties can look similar, but each field has a different purpose. Knowing the difference makes metadata cleanup more deliberate.

Title and Subject

Title is the human-readable name of the document. Subject is a short description or topic. These fields may be shown by PDF readers, search tools and document-management systems. They are often useful in published material, but old working titles can be confusing or reveal internal project names.

Author

Author identifies the person or organization associated with the document. In office software, it may be filled automatically from an account profile. That convenience is useful internally but can accidentally expose a personal name when a document is shared publicly.

Creator versus Producer

Creator generally describes the application that created the original content. Producer generally describes the software that converted or generated the PDF. For example, a document may be authored in one application and exported to PDF by another. These values can be different.

Keywords

Keywords are descriptive terms used by some publishing and indexing systems. They are not usually visible on the page. Remove outdated or confidential project terms, or replace them with intentional public keywords when metadata is useful for organization.

Dates, XMP and identifiers

Creation and modification dates can reveal timing information. XMP can duplicate or extend standard document properties. Document identifiers help distinguish PDF instances. A complete review should look beyond the six most familiar text fields.

Edit or remove?

If a field has a useful public purpose, edit it. If it is accidental or unnecessary, remove it from the sharing copy.