Loading PDF Scans

Some of the PDF's you have may have been created in the past by scanning in letters, as they were received or, after signature, just before they were sent, or other paper documents. 

When a PDF file is created by scanning a letter it will have  file system "date last modified" metadata showing the date of scanning. In some cases this will be the same date as the letter bears but often it will be several days later - or perhaps even years later if, for example, paper records had initially been relied on before being scanned in bulk when a decision was made to keep electronic copies. It is also possible for the file system "date last modified" metadata of a PDF scan to change when being copied from an old computer to a new one.  

When you load a PDF to a document management system, by default it might set the Document Date to the file system "date last modified" date. If this is not the true date that the letter (or other scanned document) bears, you can manually correct the Document Date but if you have a large number of such PDFs a more efficient method is to create copies of the PDFs in a temporary folder and rename them to include the date in dd MMM yyyy format - e.g. Letter Smith to Jones  12  Aug 2015. If you do this then the system should automatically set the Document Date accordingly as each PDF is loaded from the temporary folder.       

Renaming temporary copies of PDFs can be a laborious task, if there are a lot of them and you have to open each PDF, note down the date which the document bears, close the PDF, and then rename it. But you can speed up the process dramatically using PDF X-Change Editor which allows you to rename PDFs without having to close them first - so that you can see the date which the document bears at the same time as you are typing in the new filename.

1. Copy the PDFs to a temporary folder.

2. In PDF X-Change Editor, tap File - Open - Browse. Navigate to the temporary folder, tap on one of the PDFs to select it, tap CTRL-A to select all the PDFs, and tap OK.     

3. All the PDFs will then be open in PDF X-Change Editor. You can use File-Rename but it is best to set up a keyboard shortcut of CTRL-R to rename the first PDF to include the date in the filename. Then tap CTRL-TAB to go to the next PDF and rename that, and so on.

4. Finally load the renamed PDF copies by tapping the Add Documents button (see video).    

Disclaimer

This information page is designed to be used only by clients of John Antell who have entered into an agreement for the provision of legal services. The information in it is necessarily of a general nature and will not be applicable to every case: it is intended to be used only in conjunction with more specific advice to the individual client about the individual case. This information page should not be used by, or relied on, by anyone else.

The information on this page about specific computer techniques is provided for information purposes only. Every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that the information is accurate and up to date at the time it was written but no responsibility for its accuracy, or for any consequences of relying on it, is assumed by me. You should satisfy yourself, before using any of the techniques, software or services described, that the techniques are appropriate for your purposes and that the software or service is reliable.

This page was lasted updated in May 2025. Disclaimer