PDF/A is an ISO standard for long-term archiving of documents. PDFreactor does support the creation of PDF/A-1a conformant files. The standard's goal is to ensure the reproduction of the visual appearance as well as the inclusion of the document's structure. All information necessary for displaying the document in the same way every time, is embedded in the file. Dependencies on external resources is not permitted.
To create a PDF/A conformant document, the method "setConformance" can be used in the PDFreactor integration:
pdfReactor.setConformance(PDFreactor.CONFORMANCE_PDFA);
If CMYK colors are used in a document to be converted into a PDF/A-conformant file, an Output Intent has to be set. It is possible to use the following API methods:
pdfReactor.setOutputIntentFromURL
(String identifier, String profileUrl);or
pdfReactor.setOutputIntentFromByteArray
(String identifier, byte[] profileData);The first parameter is a string identifying the intended output device or production condition in human- or machine-readable form. The second parameter points to an ICC profile file or contains data of such a profile.
Table IV.1. PDF/A conformance requirements
| PDF/A restriction | PDFreactor actions |
|---|---|
| All used fonts are embedded. | PDFreactor ignores the option to disable font embedding. |
| All images are embedded. | Images are always automatically embedded by PDFreactor. |
| Multi-media content is forbidden. | Embedding objects is automatically prevented by PDFreactor, when PDF/A conformance is set. |
| JavaScript is prohibited. | No JavaScript is embedded, when PDF/A conformance is set. |
| Encryption is disallowed. | This is automatically prevented, when PDF/A conformance is set. |
| The PDF must be tagged. | This is automatically done by PDFreactor, when PDF/A conformance is set. |
| Metadata included in the PDF is required to be standard-based XMP. | This is automatically done by PDFreactor, when PDF/A conformance is set. |
| Colors are specified in a device-independent manner. | In PDFreactor colors are defined either as RGB or CMYK. When PDF/A conformance is set, one of these color spaces has to be set in conjunction with a color space profile. CMYK requires an ICC profile to be set, RGB colors use a default sRGB profile, if no other is set. |
When PDF/A conformance is set, encryption, restrictions and other non-PDF/A-conformant features are automatically overwritten, regardless of their own settings.