Summary Information Fields
Summary Information Fields are data elements Windows stores within a file but that are not part of the file itself. Microsoft provides support for Summary Information fields in several ways:
 | Properties dialogs within applications |
| Explorer listview (right pane) |
| Explorer Property Sheet - Summary Page |
Microsoft Office applications maintain many public summary information fields, including many that provide internal information about the document such as page count, word count and character count. Microsoft also encourages developers to maintain their own private information fields in files they generate.
In Windows Explorer, the listview or right pane shows information about files. If you select detailed view and right-click on the header line you can select the fields to be displayed. These fields include Size, Type, Dates and numerous other fields. Many of these fields are summary information fields. Some are not summary information. Fields such as Program ID are drawn from the registry. Some fields are produced from less well documented information fields.
The Summary Information Fields include the following. Read-Only fields are generated and maintained by Microsoft Office products.
| Application | Read-Write |
| Author | Read-Write |
| Byte Count | Read-Only |
| Category | Read-Write |
| Character Count | Read-Only |
| Character Count w/ White Space | Read-Only |
| Clip Count | Read-Only |
| Comments | Read-Write |
| Company | Read-Write |
| Create Date | Read-Only |
| Digital Signature | Read-Only |
| Document Parts | Read-Only |
| Document Security | Read-Only |
| Edit Time | Read-Only |
| GUID | Read-Only |
| Heading Pair | Read-Only |
| Hidden Count | Read-Only |
| Keywords | Read-Write |
| Last Author | Read-Write |
| Last Printed Time | Read-Only |
| Last Save Date | Read-Only |
| Line Count | Read-Only |
| Link Changed | Read-Only |
| Links Dirty | Read-Only |
| Manager | Read-Write |
| Note Count | Read-Only |
| Page Count | Read-Only |
| Paragraph Count | Read-Only |
| Presentation Format | Read-Only |
| Revision Number | Read-Write |
| Scale | Read-Only |
| Shared Document | Read-Only |
| Slide Count | Read-Only |
| Subject | Read-Write |
| Template | Read-Only |
| Thumbnail | Read-Only |
| Title | Read-Write |
| Version | Read-Write |
| Word Count | Read-Only |
There are a few Microsoft imposed restrictions:
| Microsoft Explorer does not support Summary Information for directories. |
| Explorer has its own quirks. File Information Editor will allow you to edit information for .htm files, but Explorer will not display them (or display a Summary page in the property sheet). |
(This list will be expanded as additional quirks are discovered.)
File Information Editor allows you to view all of the fields listed above and to edit the fields indicated as Read-Write. File Grabber will let you include any of these fields in the clipboard for any file.