On Nov 15, 2021, at 5:24 PM, Kari R Smith <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> I'm looking for suggestions of a metadata editor to use that can edit embedded metadata in files - like Windows finder used to do.   I want to be able to edit metadata in bulk, like can be done with Adobe Bridge, but without needing such a complex / elaborate system.  I have in mind something like ExifTool GUI  but for Word, PDF, etc (office type documents) instead of images.
> 
> Ideally, I would like such a tool to be usable for a Mac ... but in Mac Finder the metadata is sidecar and I want to embed the metadata into existing fields (creator, title, copyright, tags, description, etc.) b/c over time, I don't want to rely on the sidecar metadata when the files are transferred to a Windows operating system.

I don’t know what you mean by ‘sidecar’ on the Macs, but if you’re talking about the resource fork, yeah, that’s not where you want to be stashing information if you want it useful across platforms.

Adobe bridge was likely using XMP, which is now an ISO standard, but was originally written by Adobe.  See the wiki page for a list of tools that can write XMP:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Metadata_Platform

-Joe