Kindle 2 DX PDF Metadata... all sorts of wrong.

[unrequited]

I can't tell why some PDFs the Kindle scrapes metadata (title, author, etc.) correctly from, and others it doesn't. I've verified the correct metadata as well as resaving them all using Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended. Some it puts correctly if I sort by author, but then about 2/3rds of them it lists no author. ALL of the title metadata wrong and instead it uses the filename as the "title". Has anybody had luck organizing their PDFs correctly on the DX? Thanks.

[ddavtian]

I can confirm the same problem here, couldn't find a pattern for showing/missing author names.

[sirbruce]

I haven't tried yet, but you might try editing the metadata in Calibre and then seeing if the updated PDFs work.

[unrequited]

What a poop. I wish there was rhyme or reason for stuff like this.

[O.S.F]

I have about 30 PDFs on the KDX. All of them pick up the correct Titles and Author from the metadata. These are a mix of PDF ebooks that I have and technical documents that was converted from Word. I also use Adobe Prof. to edit the meta properties. These files was dropped onto the KDX (w/o going through any sw like Calibre).

I have one document that has nothing in the tag and the KDX uses the filename as the title. This one was password protected and I could not edit the metadata.

The other one was generated from Word->PDFs and also has no metadata.

I will look into this more and report back if I found anything.

[unrequited]

After playing around with PDFs for the last 2 hours...

Any PDF I resaved wouldn't read metadata, but it's strangely related to document PDF compatibility version, I have "good" PDFs ranging from v1.4 (Acrobat 5.x or higher) to v1.6 (Acrobat 7.x or higher). However, when I take any "bad" PDF and resave it using Advanced --> PDF Optimizer I can only generate "good" PDF's that are v1.4 (Acrobat 5.x). Make sure even though you change the PDF version, you deselect any of the rendering options on the left, you only want to change the PDF version.

Eventhough I have "good" PDFs all the way up to PDF v1.6 (Acrobat 7.x) if I try and convert any "bad" PDFs, the highest that the Kindle 2 DX will read is v1.4 (Acrobat 5.x). VERY ANNOYING.

Long story short, if you have Adobe Acrobat (not reader), go to the Advanced menu --> PDF Optimizer and resave your finicky PDFs by selecting "Make compatible with: Acrobat 5.x" and unchecking all of the options on the left.

AMAZON FIX YOUR PDF READER.

[unrequited]

Oh I forgot, if you do use Acrobat or BeCyPDFMetaEdit to edit the metadata, make sure to put your author tag in "[surname], [firstname]" format so it shows up in the list correctly.

[MacMelo]

Also, restarting the Kindle makes it update the Title/Author list.
I was going crazy trying to edit the metadata on a bunch of PDFs and even 'though all the necessary data was already on the files, the items would not show correctly on the Kindle. After a simple restart, everything is fine...
So far, it seems that the problems occur—as expected—with files that were initially moved to the Kindle without the correct metadata (if you keep the filename after editing the metadata, the Kindle will not refresh the data automatically).

[unrequited]

That wasn't my problem above, I tried that multiple times. but glad to hear it worked for you. Like I said, all I've been able to find a workaround for is resaving PDFs in compatibility mode.

[MacMelo]

I've been doing that too (after reading your original post).
I only posted about the restart issue because even after resaving the PDFs in compatibility mode, several of them were still not shown correctly until I restarted the Kindle and that information was not posted on the thread. Hopefully it will help someone in the future...

Anyway, the compatibility save seems to be reliable so far. I already processed about 50-60 files and none had any problems. Not an ideal solution, but for my particular files I guess I won't have any problems for missing features of "higher" Acrobat versions.

[dharmaprotector]

This is an old thread, but I still have this problem on my kindle today, so I thought I would post this solution.

No need to mess around re-saving with compatibility. Just put in the correct metadata (agree with the suggestion of using Last, First to get good author sort) and re-name your file. I just put an extra space at the end of the filename before the dot - ie
"File Name.pdf" becomes "File Name .pdf" I guess when Kindle detects a filename it never saw before, it gets the metadata fresh.

[unrequited]

No no, it's definitely not just a filename change. You have to resave with compatibility, and you may have a "magic" pdf like I described above.

[bear4hunter]

Could there be a glitch with FW 2.5.6? My homescreen shows instead of the Title (as in the PDF Metadata) the Filename without extension.

See attached screenshot - the 3 lines on top:
Upper line = Title out of Metadata (Überflieger: Warum....)
Middle line = Author as in Metadata (Malcolm.....)
Bottom Line = Filename on Kindle (Überflieger - Warum....)

My homescreen displays the title "Überflieger - Warum...," so is obviously using the filename instead of the metadata?

I already tried the optimizing trick & restart mentioned before, but it didn't work.

[significance]

I find that metadata edited in Calibre comes through correctly, but not metadata edited in Adobe Acrobat. I will try the "save as" option in Adobe Acrobat in future - thanks for the top!