Wrong document title shows when I open a file

[avalonpp]

Hi All:

I am working on an iMac using El Capitan 10.11.6. Until last week, when I upgraded to DC, hoping it would solve my problem (did not) I was using the previous version of Acrobat Pro. Regardless of version of Acrobat, whenever I open a PDF that came originally form a Word file, the wrong file title appears in the title bar above the page. Instead of "BigFile-Client ABC-2016" the title will be what it was in Word the first time I made the file "BigFile-GENERIC-2009" Even if I resave the file, add or subtract security, close and reopen, the name in the title bar is still wrong, and always an old name from years ago. This is a problem since I am customizing the same document for different clients and changing the names so I can tell them apart. Oddly enough, if I save and close the file, it appears in the desktop with the correct name and this does not happen at all with files that were originally made in InDesign. This problem just started a couple of weeks ago. Any ideas? What could have changed to cause this to just start happening?

[George_Johnson]

For the problem file, what does it show when you select: File > Properties > Description > Title

[avalonpp]

Sorry it took so long to get back. Anyway, under File> Properties > Description > Title it shows the old messed up title, and I can change that and then go to Initial View > Show > Document title to get what I want, but these files (and there are thousands of them) get changed regularly in their original program, which is Word. That means every single time I update the document I have to go into Properties and mess around with all this stuff? This was not a problem in earlier versions of this software. Isn't there some Preference I can set to make Acrobat always read the Filename and not the Document Title?

[Test Screen Name]

There's no preference. If a file has a title Acrobat has always assumed It is more meaningful than the filename. Nothing has changed there so perhaps what has changed is that the way you make PDF files is now setting this title, and it wasn't before. It's coming from Word, I guess.

[davidLACUSC]

This worked for me.

Thank you

[rpmerchant]

Hi George I have the same problem except that the Adobe file does NOT allow me to save a new name when I am in File > Properties > Description > Title

[rpmerchant]

My daughter helped me to figure it out - I have to go to the source Word document that had preserved that title and change it there first before converting to PDF. Thanks! Problem solved! 

[aenneyp42176687]

Could you please tell me how you did it? I have no idea how to change that. Thank you.

[try67]

In Word go to File - Info, and on the right you'll see a Title field.

[Vinoth5ED2]

Thanks a lot, it worked for me

[Arabella23826669t5xj]

This was soooo helpful! I was having the same problem! With mutiple files! I guess I likely saved as to create the documents and it made the same weird title for all of them. I have no idea how that title ever got there, and I still don't know what it will do for new documents but at least I know how to fix it now. Thanks again!

[Michel236127116d94]

George, RPMerchant, I work in Adobe Pro. Then Adobe does allow to save the new name following the above procedure. (It is not a very logic preset feature at all though that Adobe shows the title instead of the filename)

[Gass3k]

This is the best answer. No need to go into Word. as @rpmerchant said... File > Properties > Description > Title

[user2008151314]

File > Properties > Initial View > Windows Options

Show: Choose File Name rather than Document Title.

But it seems that when converting MS documents to pdf, the default setting is always Document Title.  So it's a pain to have to change this setting for each pdf document, but for each document, you only need to change once. 

I believe it's more of MS's side to set the default show setting being FileName or DocumentTitle. 

I did some test, if you use "Print" to PDF, the default show setting will be FileName.

If you use "Save As" to convert to PDF, the default show setting will be "DocumentTile" which is carried over from the Title field in MS Word/Powerpoint.

[AbhigyanModi · Accepted solution]

If you get the right title in the source document in Word (or even blank), that would automatically be carried over when you create PDF.

[JH12]

This just isn't the case in my situation. My pdf doc has exactly the same filename as the Excel doc it came from, and it comes up with something different. I don't know where the pdf title is coming from but it is a problem. 

[JH12]

Actually, I think it's an old filename for the Excel spreadsheet. Not sure how Adobe is even seeing it. 

[Bernd Alheit]

May be it is the title in the Excel file.

[default58v0dbyqcasd]

Documents can have the same title but different versions like numbers in the filename. Intead of always putting the failure on other software, ,Adobe should tell us where to find the setting in Acrobat Writer where we can choose if the tab shows the filename or the document title. I've seen this question over and over on internet butnever seen a good answer from Adobe!

[try67]

There's no such setting at the app-level, only the doc-level.

[Bernd Alheit]

You can specify this in the preferences of Adobe Acrobat DC and Acrobat Reader DC. 

[Andrea24549350cx6t]

Not true. This is not the correct answer. Or, at least, it is not the correct answer if the source document is already a PDF document (which I have not created and for which I don't have access to the original Word document) and I try to change its name to a new one.

[Cdekoter]

Thanks so much!

Print to .pdf is a great solution for me.

[davidk68352095]

This is not correct.  I renamed an MS ppt document and still had the same issue.

[Test Screen Name]

Not correct? The point was about Word documents, not PPT documents, and said nothing about renaming. Anyway, it's down to the software that makes the PDF. If it puts the wrong title, then Acrobat will happily show it.