How can I generate PDF metadata from LaTeX?

Question

I am writing a document using LaTeX and generating PDF. Can anybody tell me how I can generate the PDF metadata, e.g. author or title, from LaTeX? On Windows XP, I am using MikTex's texify to generate the PDF. On linux, I am using pdflatex to generate the PDF. Any answers for either platform would be much appreciated!

Answer 1

Use the hyperref package, included in pretty much every latex distribution these days.

\usepackage[pdftex,
            pdfauthor={Your Name},
            pdftitle={The Title},
            pdfsubject={The Subject},
            pdfkeywords={Some Keywords},
            pdfproducer={Latex with hyperref, or other system},
            pdfcreator={pdflatex, or other tool}]{hyperref}

Answer 2

Use the \pdfinfo macro, where the contents are given in PDF notation:

\pdfinfo{
   /Author (Nicola Talbot)
   /Title  (Creating a PDF document using PDFLaTeX)
   /CreationDate (D:20040502195600)
   /Subject (PDFLaTeX)
   /Keywords (PDF;LaTeX)
}

(Source: http://theoval.cmp.uea.ac.uk/~nlct/latex/pdfdoc/pdfdoc/pdfdoc.html)

Answer 3

You explicitly asked for generating the metadata from LaTeX, and using one of the answers of Ken Bloom seems the right way for me.

For the case that you want to add metadata to a file not created with LaTex (or an existing pdf you do not want to recompile) I just wanted to point you to http://www.bureausoft.com/products.html#PDF%20Info%20%28Freeware%29 which is a free Windows programme to change the pdf metadata. (I do not recommend this instead of the pdfLaTeX way!)