Cumulus 8 - Canto

CATALOGS 19are included in the metadata stored for your photograph assets. If youneed to find a Microsoft Word file that includes a certain text phrase, isassociated with a given fiscal year's revenue, and edited within the lastmonth, the proper metadata enables that too. A complete DAM solutionlike Cumulus can also enable you to automatically find all images used inthat document, and even find the PDFs that were later generated from it.With regard to file formats, Cumulus can catalog any type of digital assetand offers enhanced support for the most popular formats. The term“enhanced support” means different things, depending on the file formatin question. For example, Cumulus offers enhanced support for Adobe®InDesign® and QuarkXPress® files by enabling you to preview individuallayout pages right from within Cumulus. Enhanced support forMicrosoft® PowerPoint files enables you to actually generate new Power-Point presentations—right from within Cumulus—using assets and PowerPointslides cataloged in Cumulus. Enhanced support for Microsoft®Word, Excel, Illustrator and PDF files includes extracting text that'sincluded inside the files and making it searchable catalog metadata. So,not only can you find the files in Cumulus based on metadata—file name,modification date, production status, etc.—you can also find some filesbased on their actual contents.When you catalog digital assets, Cumulus performs a number of behindthe-scenestasks in order to generate an asset record that best representsthe asset. It’s easiest to think of these tasks as a series of steps throughwhich the asset flows during the cataloging process. They are:• Filters• Metadata Extraction• Field Linking• Metadata Templates• Central Asset Storage Options• Asset Handling SetsFiltersFilters provide “knowledge” of a given asset type to Cumulus. They are, infact, what enables the program to offer enhanced metadata support forso many file formats. For example, the JPEG filter knows to parse incomingJPEG assets for information common to that file type, such as horizontaland vertical dimensions (and much more). The MP3 filter extractsaudio-related metadata, such as length and sample rate. Filters are likeplug-ins—they can be added, activated and deactivated at any time. TheCumulus SDK (software development kit) enables others to create customfilters.Metadata ExtractionAs mentioned, all file formats include at least a basic set of metadata thatCumulus captures during the cataloging process. For many file formats,this core information is the only metadata captured during cataloging.Some formats, however, store extensive metadata right “inside” the fileitself through the use of metadata standards called XMP, IPTC and EXIF.Popular formats that support one or more of these standards includeJPEG, PDF and TIFF.Many applications enable users to “stuff” metadata directly into files usingthese standards. During the cataloging process, Cumulus copies this data