Allow the vault to map custom properties of PDF files

[Anonymous]

I want to keep PDF files in the vault but also use custom properties.  Currently, you cannot do that.  See below from customer service:

I was able to confirm with development that this is working as design. As Vault does not have a dedicated IFilter for pdf files to map customer properties. To request this feature be added to Vault please post in the Vault Idea Station.

I did test a 3rd party IFilter, this adds a few more property options but does not add custom pdf properties. This behavior works the same in Vault 2016 and 2018. 
 

[ihayesjr]

There are multiple iFilters available on the web. You might want to give some of the other ones a try.

[Anonymous]

@ihayesjr thanks for the suggestion, however because the developer told me it would not work, I am not sure I want to spend the time tying to make something work.

Thanks!

[YounesYammouri]

Hi Ronald,

if you use the delivered capability of PDF publishing in Vault 2018, you are able to inherit properties (incl. custom properties) from the CAD drawing file. You will need to add the same CAD drawing file properties you would like to inherit to the Category DesignRepresentation.

I hope this help you reach what you are looking for.

Thanks

Younes

[Anonymous]

@YounesYammouri Are you talking about CAD files?  I am trying to do that with PDF files.

[YounesYammouri]

@Anonymous I'm referring to publish pdf capability in Vault 2018 and during the publishing, Autodesk Vault does inherit the CAD UDP properties and value (like title, part number or any other p) and add them to the PDF, so e.g. shopfloor users can use search capabilities (based on part number, title) to access the PDFs (while they do not have access to the CAD files at all).  

[Anonymous]

@YounesYammouri so you are saying if you let the vault make the PDF, the created file can have custom properties?  Thanks for that.  Most of my problem is related to PDF's form other sources that need the custom properties.

[smilinger]

@YounesYammouri I guess these UDPs are just Vault UDPs, not custom properties on the PDF itself?

[YounesYammouri]

@smilinger those UDPs are Vault UDPs which can search on etc. within the Vault environment.

[Anonymous]

In ETPO Inginering we use Vault for CAO and for all our files (Word, Excel..) and we use a lot of PDF file. In france we have for exemple Formular in PDF (CERFA). Il want to mapped this PDF Formular to Vault loke we can mapped with WOrd or Excel. It's really important.

A Folder have properties, File can herited properties by the add-on "Updated Prperties From Folder" avec if we can mapped the formular in PDF then properties can be write into the PDF.

[Anonymous]

We would like to get the possibility to map properties of pdf-files with item properties.

In the project explorer we have a lot of assembly instructions that need to be an item, cause they need to be part of our BOM.

When I try to assign a item to a pdf the title and the description field, were we wrote text before, it will be deleted and the title turns into read only.

[ihayesjr]

You need to install an iFilter to extract extra properties from the PDF. These can be found on the web.

[Anonymous]

@ihayesjr

Thank you very much for the iFilter!

But thats not working for the problem I wrote! 

I dont want to extract PDF properties, I want properties from PDF-files within Vault to be mapped to Items! Thats what I wrote above and thats what the screenshot shows. There are Vault properties written to pdf file in Vault-Explorer. But it is not possible to map these to items.

Please reopen the idea or write an fix for this.

It would be very kind from Autodesk to read first the whole post, think about and then answer or close something.

Kind regards.

[ihayesjr]

@Anonymous

Let me explain how properties and property mappings work.

1. A property and it's value is not known in Vault until a User-Defined Property (UDP) is created and the property is extracted from the file (PDF).
   In your case, you need to be able to extract the Title and Description from the properties in the PDF file.
2. Once the property values can be extracted, then they can be mapped to Item properties.

For PDF files, you need an iFilter which allows the system, Vault, to be able to see and extract the property and the property value from the PDF file. Without that you will not be able to start the mapping to an Item.

[Anonymous]

@ihayesjr

Lets try it again:

1. I dont want to extract properties of PDF-Files, because it is not working in the depth as it is needed.

But thats a Autodesk known issue.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/vault-products/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles...

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-forum/edit-pdf-properties-in-autodesk-vault/td-p/5009022

And, Yes, I tried it by myself with 3 different iFilters in Dec.

2.Here it comes a bit closer.

It should be possible to do UDP DB-Property mappings in the UI instead of only allow File-Property mappings.

Please see the idea on the following link. It is very close to mine.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideas/allow-the-vault-to-map-custom-properties-of-pdf-files/idi...

[Anonymous]

Bonjour,

Avec les PDF nous pouvons créer des propriétés personnalisées malheureusement celles-ci ne sont pas mappables avec les propriétés de Vault, c'est un manque important. Pensez-vous le mettre en place ?

[guenther_schrattenecker]

what's the state of this idea?
Definitely not done in 2020

Idea in simple words (seems that everyone outside Autodesk understands it after 5sec):
We need to have costum properties from vault mapped and exported to pdf's (like it is done for dwfx's).
Useful for everyone who deals with external docu-management using pdf's.