Plain English — promise
PDF metadata: what your documents reveal
The text you can see is only part of what a PDF carries. Author names, edit history, comments, and even the GPS position of embedded photos travel with the file — and outlive the redaction bars you drew on top.
What hides in a PDF
Document properties
Author, organisation, software versions, creation and modification dates — the DocInfo and XMP records most tools never show you.
Comments & tracked changes
Annotations, sticky notes and review history imported from Word can carry exactly the discussion you meant to keep internal.
Embedded image data
Photos and scans carry EXIF data of their own — camera serial numbers, timestamps, sometimes GPS coordinates.
Redaction isn't finished until the metadata is gone
Drawing a black box over a name does nothing to the author field, the annotation history or the EXIF block. Omitly scrubs document metadata as part of every redaction — DocInfo, XMP and embedded-image EXIF — and the seal records that it happened.
Help Centre: how to check what your PDF is carrying A step-by-step guide to inspecting metadata before you send a file — no Omitly required.Scrub it before you send it
Run the free leak checker on a redacted PDF — or let Omitly strip metadata as part of the redaction itself.