Where applicable, a corresponding Tag ID or Index is also given for each tag. The Tag ID is the computer-readable equivalent of a tag name, and is the identifier that is actually stored in the file. Index gives the location of the information if it is located at a fixed position in a record. In some instances, more than one tag name may correspond to a single ID. In these cases, the actual tag name depends on the context in which the information is found.
The Writable column indicates whether the tag is writable by ExifTool. Anything but an "N" in this column means the tag is writable. A "Y" indicates writable information that is either unformatted or written using the existing format. Other expressions give details about the information format, and vary depending on the general type of information. The format name may be followed by a number in square brackets to indicate the number of values written, or the number of characters in a fixed-length string (including a null terminator which is added if required).
An asterisk (*
) indicates a 'protected' tag which is not writable
directly, but instead is set via a Composite tag. A tilde (~
) indicates
a tag that is considered unsafe to write under normal circumstances. These
'unsafe' tags are not set when calling SetNewValuesFromFile() or when using
the exiftool -AllTagsFromFile option, and care should be taken when editing
them manually since they may affect the way an image is rendered.
The HTML version of this document also lists possible Values for all tags which have a discrete set of values, or gives Notes for some tags.
Note: If you are familiar with common meta-information tag names, you may
find that some ExifTool tag names are different than expected. The usual
reason for this is to make the tag names more consistent across different
types of meta information. To determine a tag name, either consult this
documentation or run exiftool -S
on a file containing the information in
question.