Metadata Fields Management

The Metadata Fields Management task can be used to add new fields into your Metadata, either for every element or through conditions.

For more information about Metadata see Metadata.

Note: This task will automatically loop through the Metadata and repeat its action for each of your Metadata's datapages. This task should not be placed after a Metadata Sequencer.

Input

Any data file with accompanying Metadata.

Processing

Fields are added, removed, modified, etc, according to the actions defined in the task properties. If the field is present in a level that repeats (for example, the data page level), this task loops so that the action may take place on each of the occurrences of that level.

Updating all nodes

For a given Metadata Field Management action, all nodes of a given level might be updated with a New Field value. To accommodate this, all Metadata/data selection functions accept a wildcard parameter "?", indicating the function operates on all nodes (not just one) of a given level. See: Data selections.

Limitations

  • The name of the Metadata field to add must adhere to these syntax rules: start with a letter, followed by zero or more letters, numbers, underscore or dash. The name is not case-sensitive.
  • Metadata Fields Management actions on the page level are not possible since the entire task execution is based on the data page node.
  • The task raises an error if the selected Metadata Fields Management action is Sum and if one of the field values is not numeric. The task supports approximately 15 digits of precision in a range from 2.23 x 10-308 to 1.79 x 10308.

  • Values inserted in a field or attribute of the Metadata cannot exceed 1MB.

Output

The original data file is outputted, along with the modified Metadata.

Task properties

General Tab

  • Action: Select the type of Metadata Field Management action to perform. Five action types are available:
    • Add/Replace: Create a new Metadata field. If the name already exists, the value is overwritten with the new one.
    • Duplicate: Create a new Metadata field. If the field already exists, a new instance is created.
    • Append: Append the new value at the end of the current one. If no field with that name exists, a new one is created.
    • Sum: Calculate the sum of all values found in all fields of a given name, at a given level. The resulting number is formatted by default with the dot decimal separator.
    • Delete: Delete the Metadata field if it exists and disable the Field information column's Field value option.
  • Field Information: Specify the Metadata node level, field name and field value of the specified action.
    • Level: Choose between Job, Group, Document, Datapage. The task will loop through each selected node of the chosen Metadata level.
      • Job: Apply the action on the specified field at the Job level.
      • Group: Apply the action on the specified field at the Group level.
      • Document: Apply the action on the specified field at the Document level.
      • Data page: Apply the action on the specified field at the Data page level.
    • Field Name: Enter the Metadata field name on which the task will operate.

    • Field Value: Enter the Metadata field value. Note that if the chosen action is Delete, this parameter is disabled. For other action types, in order to set the field value, click the [...] button. This button opens the Data Selector, which allows to specify a data selection as the field's value.
      Note that when adding a Metadata field, if you perform a multi-line data selection on a PDF region, only the first line of that region will be set to the Metadata field.

      Note: Values inserted in a field or attribute of the Metadata cannot exceed 1MB.

    • Decimal Separator: Set the decimal separator for the Sum option. 3 possible modes are offered:
      • Auto-detect: Interpret automatically the value. This option is ideal for documents using mixed decimal separators. Note that the auto-detect option encountering the value 1,000 (with a comma separator), interprets it as a thousand while interpreting 1.000 (with a dot separator), as one.
      • .: Treat every value with the dot (".") decimal separator. Commas (",") are treated as thousand separator.
      • ,: Treat every value with the comma (",") decimal separator. Dots (".") are treated as thousand separator.
  • Rule: Define criteria for the Metadata Field Management action execution. The condition must be TRUE for the action to execute. To set up conditions, the Rule Interface is displayed, allowing to edit the condition for the given action. See the Rule Interface page for more details.

On Error Tab

For a description of the options on the On Error tab see Using the On Error tab.

Miscellaneous Tab

The Miscellaneous tab is common to all tasks.

It contains a text area (Task comments) that lets you write comments about the task. These comments are saved when the dialog is closed with the OK button and are displayed in The Task Comments Pane.

Check the option Use as step description to display the text next to the icon of the plugin in the Process area.

The tab also provides an option to highlight the task in The Process area with the default color, set in the Preferences (see Colors), or the color selected or defined under Highlight color on this tab.
To revert the selected highlight color to the default color, open this tab, turn the Highlight option off and close the dialog with the OK button; then turn highlighting back on.
Highlighting can also be turned on and off via the task's contextual menu and with the Highlight button on the View ribbon.