PDF metadata viewer
See which software produced a PDF, when it was modified and how many times it was re-saved. Free and without sign-up: the file is read in your browser and sent nowhere.
A "Look closer" signal says where to look, not that the document is fake. An editing tool may have been used to compress a genuine file, and a careful forgery can leave perfectly ordinary metadata.
What metadata shows
A bank statement comes out of the bank's core system, a payslip out of payroll software, a tax return out of the tax authority's portal. Each leaves the signature of the tool that wrote it in the file, and dates. When the document later goes through a PDF editor, a word processor or an online tool, that pass often shows: the producer changes, the modification date moves away from the creation date, a new version is appended to the end of the file.
The viewer shows these fields and flags them when they are out of the ordinary: a producer known for editing PDFs, a modification after creation, successive versions, editing operations in the XMP history, or two different producers declared in the same file.
What it does not show
Metadata describes the file, not what is written on it. An amount changed in a spreadsheet before export, a page printed and scanned, a photo taken with a phone: the PDF that comes out has entirely ordinary metadata.
So does a document redrawn by an AI image generator: someone photographs a real payslip, asks for a different net pay, and the image that comes back has never seen a PDF editor. These frauds are found in the content and in the pixels, not in the metadata. That is what Holograin, our model for documents redrawn by AI, does. Its measured results against frontier LLMs are in AI-generated document detection: facts and figures.
Frequently asked questions
What is PDF metadata?
Information the software writes into the file as it produces it: the producer, the creator application, the creation and modification dates, and sometimes an XMP history of saves. It is not shown on the page but stays in the file.
Is my file uploaded anywhere?
No. The viewer runs in your browser: the file is read on your device and sent to no server, neither Holofin's nor anyone else's.
Does metadata prove a document is fake?
No. It tells you where to look. A statement re-saved with an editing tool deserves a check, but the tool may only have compressed or merged the file without touching the content. Ordinary metadata does not prove a document is genuine either.
Which frauds leave no trace in the metadata?
An edit made before export to PDF, a printed and scanned page, and a document redrawn by an AI image generator all come out with ordinary metadata. The content has to be checked instead: fonts, alignment, totals, and the texture of the image.
What does "several saved versions" mean?
A PDF can be changed by appending: each save adds a section at the end of the file without erasing the previous one. An electronic signature adds one, and so does an edit. Several versions in a bank statement or a payslip deserve a look.
What is the difference between Producer and Creator?
Creator is the application the document was designed in, for example payroll software. Producer is the component that wrote the PDF file. A bank statement whose Producer is an online PDF editor was rewritten after it left the bank.
Hundreds of files to check?
Holofin reads every document in a case, extracts its data and runs more than 100 fraud checks on it: metadata, PDF structure, fonts, totals, and Holograin for documents redrawn by AI.
See fraud detection