Remove the author name from a PDF
PDFs remember who made them. The author field usually holds a real name or a company login, the producer field names the exact software and version, and the timestamps say when. For a document that's supposed to be anonymous, that's a lot of attribution.
This tool shows you every metadata field in your PDF, then writes a fresh copy with the identity fields emptied and timestamps normalized. It reopens its own output and reads every field back to confirm they're gone.
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This is PDF Metadata Viewer & Remover preconfigured for this task — open the full tool for every option.
How it works
Select a PDF. Document metadata is parsed and displayed locally.
Review fields: title, author, subject, keywords, creator, producer, dates.
Export a cleaned copy written as a fresh document.
The output is reopened and rescanned to confirm the fields are empty.
What the tool does
- Reads the PDF Info dictionary (author, title, creator, producer, dates, keywords)
- Clears all identity and history fields in a fresh-saved output
- Removes the XMP metadata stream where present
- Post-export rescan with before/after field counts
How the result is verified
The cleaned output is reopened and every Info-dictionary field is read back; verification passes only when all identity fields are absent or empty.
Frequently asked questions
Where does the author name even come from?
Your word processor fills it in from your account or license name when exporting to PDF. Most people never see the field, which is exactly why it leaks.
Can the cleaned fields be recovered?
No. The output is written as a fresh document rather than an incremental save, so old field values aren't lurking in the file's history.