Generating PDF/A compliant PDFs from pdftex: Difference between revisions

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When we compile it with pdflatex and check for pdf/a compliance, we will get a report like this:[[Image:Hello-report.png|Report of checking hello.pdf]]
When we compile it with pdflatex and check for pdf/a compliance, we will get a report like this:[[Image:Hello-report.png|Report of checking hello.pdf]]
So it looks like our pdf is missing metadata. To fix this, we make a copy of hello.tex named hello-pdfa-1b.tex that looks as follows:
<geshi lang="latex">
\documentclass{report}
%****************
% define medatata
%________________
\def\Title{An Example Document}
\def\Author{Some Name}
\def\Subject{An Example Document}
\def\Keywords{LaTeX,Example,Document}
%***************************************************************************
% \convertDate converts D:20080419103507+02'00' to 2008-04-19T10:35:07+02:00
%___________________________________________________________________________
\def\convertDate{%
    \getYear
}
{\catcode`\D=12
\gdef\getYear D:#1#2#3#4{\edef\xYear{#1#2#3#4}\getMonth}
}
\def\getMonth#1#2{\edef\xMonth{#1#2}\getDay}
\def\getDay#1#2{\edef\xDay{#1#2}\getHour}
\def\getHour#1#2{\edef\xHour{#1#2}\getMin}
\def\getMin#1#2{\edef\xMin{#1#2}\getSec}
\def\getSec#1#2{\edef\xSec{#1#2}\getTZh}
\def\getTZh +#1#2{\edef\xTZh{#1#2}\getTZm}
\def\getTZm '#1#2'{%
    \edef\xTZm{#1#2}%
    \edef\convDate{\xYear-\xMonth-\xDay T\xHour:\xMin:\xSec+\xTZh:\xTZm}%
}
\expandafter\convertDate\pdfcreationdate
%**************************
% get pdftex version string
%__________________________
\newcount\countA
\countA=\pdftexversion
\advance \countA by -100
\def\pdftexVersionStr{pdfTeX-1.\the\countA.\pdftexrevision}
%*********
% XMP data
%_________
\usepackage{xmpincl}
\includexmp{pdfa-1b}
%********
% pdfInfo
%________
\pdfinfo{%
    /Title    (\Title)
    /Author  (\Author)
    /Subject  (\Subject)
    /Keywords (\Keywords)
    /ModDate  (\pdfcreationdate)
    /Trapped  /False
}
\begin{document}
Hello, world!
\end{document}
</geshi>

Revision as of 20:58, 23 November 2008

Introduction

This page describes necessary steps to create PDF/A compliant PDFs from pdftex and related issues. When we compile a latex document with pdftex, there can be a few issues that can prevents the result from begin pdf/a compliant, such as:

  • problems with fonts:
    • font files are not embedded,
    • mismatch of character widths,
    • characters of zero widths,
    • fonts don't have a ToUnicode mapping
  • problems with metadata:
    • XMP data not included,
    • XMP data don't match the info in pdfInfo catalog.
  • problem with interword spacing: pdftex don't use space to separate words in pdf output.
  • problem with color data.

The usual way to verify if a pdf file is pdf/a compliant is to use a validating tool. There are a few pdf/a checking tools; the most common one is the Preflight tool in Acrobat Professional version 8 or newer. Beware that these checking tools can give very different the result on pdf/a compliance of a given pdf: a pdf file that passes pdf/a compliance checking in acrobat 8 can still fail to pass a check by another tool. In this document, we assume the following:

  • input are latex documents
  • tex live 2008 (which includes pdftex version 1.40.9) is used for latexing
  • Acrobat 8.0 for pdf/a validation

We start by a minimal example, and then move to more complex ones, to illustrate the issues one may encounter when trying to achieve pdf/a compliance.

A minimal example

Let's have a minimal document hello.tex that looks as follows: <geshi lang="latex"> \documentclass{report} \begin{document} Hello, world! \end{document} </geshi>

When we compile it with pdflatex and check for pdf/a compliance, we will get a report like this:Report of checking hello.pdf

So it looks like our pdf is missing metadata. To fix this, we make a copy of hello.tex named hello-pdfa-1b.tex that looks as follows: <geshi lang="latex">

\documentclass{report}

%**************** % define medatata %________________ \def\Title{An Example Document} \def\Author{Some Name} \def\Subject{An Example Document} \def\Keywords{LaTeX,Example,Document}

%*************************************************************************** % \convertDate converts D:20080419103507+02'00' to 2008-04-19T10:35:07+02:00 %___________________________________________________________________________ \def\convertDate{% 

   \getYear

}

{\catcode`\D=12 

\gdef\getYear D:#1#2#3#4{\edef\xYear{#1#2#3#4}\getMonth}

} \def\getMonth#1#2{\edef\xMonth{#1#2}\getDay} \def\getDay#1#2{\edef\xDay{#1#2}\getHour} \def\getHour#1#2{\edef\xHour{#1#2}\getMin} \def\getMin#1#2{\edef\xMin{#1#2}\getSec} \def\getSec#1#2{\edef\xSec{#1#2}\getTZh} \def\getTZh +#1#2{\edef\xTZh{#1#2}\getTZm} \def\getTZm '#1#2'{% 

   \edef\xTZm{#1#2}%
   \edef\convDate{\xYear-\xMonth-\xDay T\xHour:\xMin:\xSec+\xTZh:\xTZm}%

}

\expandafter\convertDate\pdfcreationdate

%************************** % get pdftex version string %__________________________ \newcount\countA \countA=\pdftexversion \advance \countA by -100 \def\pdftexVersionStr{pdfTeX-1.\the\countA.\pdftexrevision}


%********* % XMP data %_________ \usepackage{xmpincl} \includexmp{pdfa-1b}

%******** % pdfInfo %________ \pdfinfo{% 

   /Title    (\Title)
   /Author   (\Author)
   /Subject  (\Subject)
   /Keywords (\Keywords)
   /ModDate  (\pdfcreationdate)
   /Trapped  /False

}


\begin{document} Hello, world! \end{document} </geshi>

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