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Web Accessibility Training

Adding or editing a document title in an existing PDF

Exempt PDFs

You do not need to add a document title to any PDF that:

  • was published on the University website before 23rd September 2018
    and
  • has not been edited since
    and
  • is not used by any current process or activity.

Adding a document title in such cases would be best practice, but is not required, as these documents are exempt from accessibility legislation. Please note that a PDF created prior to 23rd September 2018 is not automatically exempt based solely on its creation date – it's the date of publication (when it was made live online in a new location) that matters. So even if a PDF was published somewhere else in 2015, if you're about to re-publish it in a new location, that's a new publication of that document and as such it's not exempt.

Important: third party PDFs

If the PDF was not created by the University, you should request an amendment from the party who produced the document, or request permission to make this amendment yourself before editing.

Please note that:
  • you will not be able to make amendments to any PDF that has been password-protected
  • you should not make amendments to third-party PDFs that have been digitally signed
– in both cases a warning will appear when you attempt to edit the PDF, so it's not possible to undertake either of these actions accidentally.

Choose your software

You will need to use one of the following:

  • Adobe Acrobat Pro
    This is not the free version of Adobe Acrobat, and you will need a licence for it.
  • ABBYY FineReader
    This is available to all University-owned staff computers – instructions for installation are provided below.

Note for programmers about Notepad++

It's theoretically possible to add or alter the document title using Notepad++ but this is not advised as it can result in a byte offset shift, which can corrupt the file.

Adobe Acrobat Pro

You will need a licence for Adobe Acrobat Pro (it's not possible to edit the document title using Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is the free version). If you don't have Acrobat Pro, see the instructions for ABBYY FineReader instead.

  1. Open the PDF in Acrobat Pro.
  2. Go to File, then Properties.
  3. In the Description tab, enter your title in the Title field.
  4. Select show Document Title (not File Name).
  5. Click OK.
  6. Save.

ABBYY FineReader

ABBYY FineReader is available to download to any University-owned staff computer from the Company Portal (found via the Start menu). Please use this method to ensure you have a legimate installation. It may take around 10-15 minutes to install. When it's installed you'll see multiple program options in the Start menu – you will need to choose 'ABBYY FineReader PDF'.

  1. Open your PDF using ABBYY FineReader.
  2. Open the Main Menu (the three bar button in the top left of the screen).
  3. Go to 'File' and then 'Document Properties...'
  4. Enter your title in the Title field and click OK.
  5. Click Save (the button to the right of the Main Menu) if you want to overwrite your original, or to save a copy, click on the Main Menu button and then choose 'File', 'Save As...', 'PDF Document'.