PDF Metadata Extraction with Python

Bibliographic Entry

Plaisance, Christopher A. "PDF Metadata Extraction with Python." Forensics Reading Room. SANS Institute, 5 February 2019.

Abstract

This paper explores techniques for programmatically extracting metadata from PDF files using Python. It begins by detailing the internal structure of PDF documents, focusing on the internal system of indirect references and objects within the PDF binary, the document information dictionary metadata type, and the XMP metadata type contained in the file’s metadata streams. Next, the paper explores the most common means of accessing PDF metadata with Python, the high-level PyPDF and PyPDF2 libraries. This examination discovers deficiencies in the methodologies used by these modules, making them inappropriate for use in digital forensics investigations. An alternative low-level technique of carving the PDF binary directly with Python, using the re module from the standard library is described, and found to accurately and completely extract all of the pertinent metadata from the PDF file with a degree of completeness suitable for digital forensics use cases. These low-level techniques are built into a stand-alone open source Linux utility, pdf-metadata, which is discussed in the paper’s final section.

Keywords

Python, digital forensics, PDF, metadata