Convert Content to PDF Archives for Long-term Accessibility
When it comes to long term digital archiving, the PDF archive format (known as PDF/A) ensures the long-term accuracy and accessibility of your content. Regular PDF files can depend on system fonts and other external content that may not be available when accessing a file decades from now. However, a PDF/A file is self-contained and device-independent.
Adlib includes PDF/A-specific functionalities:
- Conversion of Microsoft® Office® and hundreds of other supported file types to PDF/A
- Validation of PDF documents for PDF/A compliance
- PDF to PDF/A repair: Correcting issues associated with legacy PDF documents, so you achieve a higher success rate
- Fidelity and Searchability: Transforming image-based content into searchable PDF/A files
- Validation: Adlib's tools catch potential validation issues, reducing the risk of creating non-PDF/A compliant documents andthe cost of manual intervention
Adlib is an active member of the PDF/A Competence Center, which is supported by more than 100 companies in 20 countries. The Center's intention is to secure the PDF/A format as the industry standard for long-term data archiving.
A Technical Snapshot of PDF/A
-
Fonts: All fonts used in a document, including standard PDF fonts, must be embedded, ensuring the document is converted in the way originally intended
-
Digital Signatures: PDF/A supports the use of digital signatures which allow documents to be reliably checked for authenticity
-
Security: PDF/A files cannot contain encryption or be password protected, since security measures hinder the accessibility of the documents
-
Forms: The appearance of fields and their data must be predefined rather than dynamically created by the viewer, and dynamic form field actions are not permitted
-
Accessibility: Since PDF/A supports content tagging, documents can be read by screen readers, helping those who are visually impaired
-
Multimedia : Embedding of sound and movies is prohibited in the PDF archive format
-
Storage Management: Since a PDF/A document must include all the fonts, images and other elements required to render it consistently, the resulting file will typically be larger than an equivalent PDF file that does not have these embedded elements. However, PDF/A eliminates the need to store the larger source file
-
Metadata: Adlib incorporates metadata (information such as title, author, dates, copyright) into PDF/A files by way of the XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) standard
