An illustration of a typical result. No real file, name or location is used.
Before — what you would be sending
contract-signed.pdfPDF
Authora.whitfield
CompanyNorthgate Partners LLP
Produced byMicrosoft Word for Microsoft 365
After cleaning
contract-signed-clean.pdfPDF
Authorremoved
Companyremoved
Produced byremoved
Values are blanked in place, byte for byte, so the file cannot be corrupted.
Blanked in place, byte for byte
A PDF depends on a table of byte offsets pointing at every object in the file. Rewriting the structure risks breaking that table and producing a file that will not open. Instead, this replaces the metadata values with spaces of the exact same length, so every offset in the document remains correct and the file opens exactly as before.
What is covered
The Author, Title, Subject, Keywords, Creator and Producer fields, the creation and modification timestamps, and any XMP metadata packets embedded in the document.
What it will not do, and why
If a PDF has been saved incrementally, its earlier versions are part of the file body rather than its metadata. Removing them means rewriting the document, which is a different and riskier operation. The tool detects this and tells you, so you can re-export the file instead. Printing to PDF from a viewer flattens it reliably.
In practice
What blanking in place actually looks like
The author field in a PDF is stored as /Author (Jane Smith). Blanking it writes /Author ( ) — the same number of characters, all spaces. Every byte after that point stays exactly where it was, so the cross-reference table at the end of the file still points at the right objects. The alternative, deleting the text and closing the gap, shifts everything after it and invalidates every offset in that table.
When to re-export instead
Cleaning metadata is the right operation for a document whose only problem is its properties. It is the wrong operation for a document that has been saved incrementally, has annotations you want gone, or contains a redaction applied as a shape. For any of those, print the document to a new PDF. You lose bookmarks and form fields, and you gain a file with no history whatsoever.
Checking your work
After cleaning, right-click the file and open its properties. Author, Title, Subject and Keywords should all be empty. If your operating system still shows an author, the document may carry an XMP packet as well as an information dictionary — some producers write both, and a tool that only clears one leaves the other. The checker on this page reports and clears both.
Common questions
Will this break my PDF?
No. Values are overwritten in place without changing any byte lengths, so the cross-reference table stays valid.
Does it remove text or images from the PDF?
No. Only metadata fields are affected. Page content is untouched.
Does it remove redaction failures?
No. If text was covered with a black box rather than deleted, it is still page content. Re-export the document properly.