Editing Stripping Metadata from PDFs (section)

== Scrub Images ==
'''NOTE''': It is important to scrub images '''before''' embedding them into your document. Scrubbing a PDF does not scrub any images inside of it.

'''NOTE''': You should take backups of any images you perform this process on. Consider copying them into a new folder and then working on those copies.

These instructions focus on JPEGs but can be adapted for other formats, like PNG or TIFF. Use <code>-ext png</code> for PNGs, or specify multiple with <code>-ext jpg -ext png</code>. Scrub only the images you'll embed; if your document includes vectors or other embeds (e.g., from LibreOffice Draw), they must be scrubbed separately. Make sure that all of the images have been scrubbed before you proceed to creating your pdf.

Open a <code>cmd.exe</code> window and change directory to the new image folder (you did read the notes at the top of this section, right?). The command to do this is below. Be sure to use the correct filepath:

<code>cd C:\[path to folder]\images</code>

Scrub all JPEG images that will be inserted into the doc using <code>exiftool</code>. The command to do this is below. Be sure to use the correct file path:

<code>exiftool -overwrite_original -all= -r -ext jpg C:\[path to folder]\images</code>