Wisdom of the PDF Sage

Yesterday, Adobe posted a public beta of the next generation of Acrobat 3D - aka Version 8 - to our Adobe Labs website.

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If you are have any interest in 3D, AEC or engineering - you really want to take a look at the amazing work done for version 8. From fantastic compression ratios for your data, to conversion of just about every other CAD format, to support for PMI (Product Management Info) and more. (I’m still trying to find the kitchen sink - because it has to be in there somewhere!)

This fully functioning preview release of Acrobat 3D Version 8 will be available for trial use until June 15, 2007. So what do you have to lose?

A colleague sent me the following statement today and asked me to respond to it. I first wrote only to him, but then thought that it was worth posting here.

He wrote:

Policymakers seem to cherish the ‘perception’ that the advent of ODF and/or OOXML will make PDF/A-1 a ‘redundant’ standard for long-term document preservation. Their ‘case’: it’s based on XML and XML-related open standards, so long-term accessibility is granted. They may reason as follows: just wait, implement a few Office plug-ins for conversion of the useful Office legacy files to ODF and/ or OOXML and ‘we’ have taken care for the long-term accessibility of these legacy files, adequately. This will keep ‘us’ away from ‘obscure’, PDF-derived, open standards. If it’s not XML, the format has no right to exist, at all. Even Adobe admits this by developing MARS. Please, let ‘us’ avoid the costs involved in developing and maintenance of PDF-infrastructure, PDF-training and PDF-knowledge.

Here is what I have to say.

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Before one can argue over file formats, one needs to determine what it is that is being archived and why. For example, if I was interested in archiving an address book - I would probably focus on the data and not on a single presentation of that data. However, if I was archiving the Declaration of Independence, then I would focus on the presentation of the content in addition to the actual content. I also want to ensure that any content is maintained in its original “format” - so that vector diagrams from a CAD-generated floor plan would remain as rich vectors and not be converted to something like raster data. Finally, in all cases, I would want to ensure that any relevant marginalia (metadata, comments/markup, etc.) could be incorporated.

This is why the archival community approached Adobe about the use of PDF for long term archival storage of content containing text, images and raster data. PDF is the only format that encompasses ALL of the above needs - content, presentation and metadata for all standard content elements (text, vector, raster). Combined with that is a technical design that enables easy creation of a “reference implementation” at some point in the future without any ambiguities - thus ensuring that the content and its presentation will survive.

Neither OOXML or ODF address all these needs. In fact, they are focused primarily on the textual content and (limited) metadata - and in no way help preserve the presentation of that content. As such, they aren’t even acceptable for the archiving of simple Office documents They also do nothing to address the needs of those wishing to archive scans, CAD drawings, print publications and many other types of documents. Combine those limitations with the fact that neither was designed with the intent of ease of creation of a reference implementation (it’s IMPOSSIBLE to write a fully compliant OOXML viewer), also make their use as archival standards insufficient.

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This morning (East Coast time), Adobe announced that they intend to submit the PDF 1.7 reference to ISO. In addition, there is a FAQ that should address some common questions.

This is the next logical step for PDF in its long history of openness, and will serve to strengthen PDF’s position as the truly open solution for electronic document distribution and archiving. In addition, it will give others an opportunity to bring their specific needs and desires to PDF helping to drive it in new directions.

For me, this announcement is the start of a journey that I am looking forward to - that of shepherding PDF through the process to being an ISO Standard. I will be sure to keep folks up to date with this blog and hope you’ll come along for the ride!

Brian Jones recently wrote up a history of OOXML for Microsoft and it dawned on me that I wasn’t aware of anything similar for PDF that demonstrated its long history of openness. After a bit of web searching - I only found a few outdated things - so I felt that this was an excellent task for me as the Evangelist for PDF Standards.

So I created a new page for this blog with all the details about PDF. Not only from Adobe, but also standards bodies such as AIIM, DDAP and ISO. In addition, I incorporated some key open source project dates.

A History of PDF Openness

Enjoy!

Well, I’ve returned to the “mothership”…

Starting last week at the Adobe Max conference, I am now a Technical Standards Evangelist for Adobe Systems - focusing on PDF-related standards such as PDF/X, PDF/A, PDF/E, etc. as well as the new Mars project that I mentioned in my last blog entry.

This means that I can continue to do my work to move the standardization of PDF technologies forward with all the resources of Adobe behind me. In addition, I get to help the engineers here at Adobe create the most standards-compliant PDF on the planet! It’s a lot of work - but I am already in the thick of things and loving every minute of it.

It should also mean that I’ve got more time to write about the various standards, since it’s now part of my job description .

Oh, and if you’re in the Omaha area next week - come see me speak about PDF Standards and Mars at the new PDF Central Conference.

This post is for all those people who have avoided PDF because “if it’s not in XML, then it’s not good”, for those that think that Microsoft’s XPS is the “future of electronic paper”, and for those who won’t use anything not based on 100% OPEN STANDARDS…

Adobe announced today MARS - the Portable XML-based Document Format. The format that will give techno-geeks what they’ve been looking for in an electronic document format - based entirely on open standards.
Living inside of a ZIP archive is a collection of both custom and standard XML grammars (including a slightly extended SVG for page contents), standard image formats (JPEG, JP2K & PNG), font (Type 1, TrueType & OpenType), and other binary formats (ICC profiles, etc.).

BUT unlike some of the other options out there, it’s not just “electronic paper”! It has all of the interactive features that users of PDF have come to expect - forms, hyperlinks, annotations/markup, multimedia, etc.

Oh, and every copy of Acrobat AND Reader 8 will support it natively - just like they do with PDF today. No explict conversions necessary (unless that’s what you want to do).

Why would you use anything else?!?!

Hopefully this wets your appetite for MARS…and I plan to write more about it in the coming weeks.

NOTE: MARS is NOT a replacement for PDF - it is simply an alternative representation/serialization of the features and capabilities of PDF based on XML.

I got into a discussion/argument today in an online forum about the process of conversion of PDF->PS->PDF to help “clean up” PDF files. This process, called refrying is one that used to be quite popular - but since Acrobat 5.0 has been frowned upon by Adobe and others.The reason for this process being avoided is due to the wide variety of PDF features that can NOT be represented in Postscript.  Remember that the last update to Postscript (Level 3) was in 1997, while PDF has undergone 3 revisions (1.4, 1.5 & 1.6) since then - with 1.7 coming shortly with the release of Acrobat 8.
Here are a list of things that you might use in the content of a PDF that don’t translate well to PostScript

• Transparency
• ICC-based colors
• 16bit color
• JBIG2 compression
• JPEG2000 compression
• Layers (Optional Content Groups)

Also consider that any additional information added to PDFs during a PDF-based workflow (such as from Creo, Agfa, Quite, etc.) will be removed during the PDF->PS downgrading…

Of course, there is also the myriad of non-content elements that can be found in a PDF that don’t translate to Postscript/print, such as

• Hyperlinks
• Annotations, Commenting and Markup
• Forms
• Multimedia (movies, sounds, etc.)
• Bookmarks
• Metadata
• and more….

There are also concerns regarding fonts & text “searchability” that can be introduced into the refrying process DEPENDING on how the operation proceeds.  Differenet PDF->PS conversion tools, different OS platforms and even simply ‘printing to PS’ will produce wildly different Postscript output for the same PDF - thus producing wildly different output PDFs.

So in conclusion…

JUST SAY NO TO REFRYING

Since the announcement of Acrobat 8, many people have been taking this opportunity to blast Adobe for their “poor treatment of the Mac OS” Acrobat user - none more vehemently than my friend John Welsh.

As a long time Mac user (bought my 128K Mac in the first 100 days they were available!) as well as a heavy Windows user (since most of my clients are), I wanted to take the opportunity to bring some facts to the table.

I’d like to start by breaking the Acrobat Professional package into 3 parts.

1. Acrobat Professional
2. 3rd party application integration (aka PDFMakers)
3. LiveCycle Designer

Taking these in reverse order, LCDesigner continues to be a Windows-only application with Acrobat 8. Some have suggested “hacks” that would enable Designer to run on Mac - I agree with John that this is NOT a real solution. I also am of the belief that Designer will NEVER show up on the Mac…but for good reasons! If you consider that the Mac users who want Designer aren’t (mostly) in “IT”, they are instead “Creative Professionals” - then I would prefer to see Adobe integrated form creation support into their CS application (esp. Illustrator & InDesign). This would address the end-goal of the user - making Acrobat forms - but in an environment that is more to their liking (since Designer is NOT “graphic designer friendly”). I say this only as my suggestion/recommendation to Adobe - I know nothing!

Next, let’s look at the situation with PDFMakers…It sucks to be a Mac user . I’ve heard all the arguments - both technical and marketing - for why their are fewer and less-functional Makers for the Mac. But I think this is a case where, while Adobe is certainly not giving Mac users a fair shake, it just doesn’t matter! The right solution for this, IMHO, is for Apple to continue to improve the built-in PDF support and for developers to start leveraging it to provide better PDFs from their own applications. Also, I think this is an excellent opportunity for 3rd party Mac developers - just as it is on Windows.

Last but certainly not least - the main application, Acrobat Professional. While the majority of the application is written in a cross-platform manner (Acrobat SDK), sitting on top of that is a native application. In the case of Acrobat 8, this is a COMPLETELY NEW Cocoa-based Universal Binary! You can’t get more “drinking the Apple Kool-Aid” then that . (FYI: Distiller 7 was also a complete rewrite as a Cocoa-based application). Within the application, there is 100% feature parity - except where the feature integrates with a specific OS platform or 3rd party application. For example, on Windows, there are commands for integrating comments into Office or communicating with MSCAPI that simply aren’t available on the Mac. HOWEVER, Mac users aren’t left out as we have Keychain integration and (limited) Services support. In addition, printing from Acrobat Mac is BETTER (faster & higher quality) than on Windows due to close integration with the CUPS printing system on Mac OS X.

Bottom line - yes, there are some things that come in the Acrobat package where Windows users are getting “more for their money”. But Mac users are NOT second class - we are getting a top notch, Mac-savvy, core application from Adobe.

Although I don’t use this feature of Acrobat 8 as much as some of the others, and since no one else has commented on it - I will!

While the average IT-type user tends to use tools such as Adobe Designer as their form design tool, most of the “Creative Pros” who are taske to create forms will instead favor the tools they know - such as Adobe InDesign. Unfortunately, there are no “form tools” in InDesign - so what to do??
Enter Acrobat 8 & the new Form Field Recognition feature!

I just open up my existing “flat” PDF, such as this printable version of the FedEx form:

I could sit there and manually add all the fields - but I have better things to do (and it wouldn’t really be a good demo!). Instead, I will go to the Forms menu of Acrobat 8 & choose “Run Form Field Recognition”.

Acrobat will process for a little (it’s VERY fast!) and when it’s done it will hilight all of the newly created fields while presenting me with a detailed report on all created fields and suggestions for what to do next.

Now, it’s not 100% perfect (at least on this form) - but it certainly is saving me a LOT of work!

Oh, and if the graphic changes, I don’t need to re-run the recognition (esp. since I’ll have already added more fields, added logic, etc.) - I just use the Replace Pages command to replace the content out from under the fields.

What would a blog entry about a new product be without a Top X list?? Well, I don’t know if these are my “Top 8″, but they are most certainly some interesting new things in Acrobat 8…and in no particular order.

1. PDF Packages. Others have written about them, but I think they are a nice solution for gathering up multiple PDFs into a single container with added “metadata” for grouping/collating.
2. Improved PDF/A support. In addition to improved compliance testing, you can also have Acrobat correct some of the simpler errors that it finds. Also, Acrobat is now the first product to support PDF/A-1a - the Section 508 version. Most important, perhaps, is that Acrobat can now function as a PDF/A compliant viewer!!!
3. Reader Enabling of Forms to SAVE! No more “If it could save, they’d call it Saver!” comments on forums. Acrobat Pro 8 users can now add the ability to Save to forms that they create - provided no more than 500 people will SUBMIT the form back to you (via paper, fax, or electronic). Thanks Adobe - this is GREAT!
4. Acrobat Connect - screen sharing & conferencing for the masses!! My only complaint - no “per-use pricing”.
5. Better organized menus & toolbars - the new task bar combined with cleaned up menus means that users can find what they are looking for, usually where they expect it! Also technical terms have been removed (where possible) in favor of common language.
6. Shared Review - multi-user review and commenting WITHOUT the complexities of a special server. My favorite part - works with Apple’s iDisk!
7. Integrated Redaction - it’s not the comprehensive tool that Appligent’s Redax is, but it will give users (in the box!) enough to make sure they don’t end up on the front page of the NYTimes.
8. Performance, Performance and Performance! Both Mac & Windows versions not only load faster, but they also work faster. Rendering/drawing, tool selection, etc. Cross the board - the app flies.

So that’s some of my favorites…Feel free to tell me yours…

So Adobe has announced Acrobat 8!

With a new Acrobat, of course, always comes the latest revisions to PDF itself. For the first time in a while, Adobe hasn’t really made too many change to the file format. Let’s take a look at the changes…

• MAJOR improvements to 3D!
• Support for 3D (via a new 3D Annot) was added in PDF 1.6 and since Adobe has gotten lots of real-world feedback about what was still missing - so PDF 1.7 addresses many of those limitations.
• Ability to annotate the 3D model
• Control of visual appearance w/o resorting to JavaScript
• Control over animated playback
• Printer Controls!
• Users have been begging Adobe for this feature for as long as I can remember…
• A PDF can now include default print characteristics including paper selection and handling, page range, copies, and scaling
• Portable Collections
• Known in the Acrobat UI as “Packages” and detailed by my colleagues.
• It expands on the existing embedded file mechanism (/Names/EmbeddedFiles) to support a variety of interesting new solutions - while maintaining backwards compatibility with Acrobat 6 & 7.
• Improvement to dimensioning of annotations
• Polyline & Polygon annotations can now have scale & measurement-aware dimensions attached to them
• More Tags for Tagging
• Interactive elements
• Table improvements
• Pagination objects such as headers & footers
• Document Constraints
• These enable a document author to specify certain criteria that must be met in order for the document to be usable in parts of a workflow.
• Signature Constraints - is the signature valid, does it contain certain DN keys, etc.
• Viewer Constraints - does the PDF viewer support and/or have enabled certain features?
• this will help authors of complex document prevent it being loaded by older (or non-compliant) viewers!

And that’s it for PDF 1.7….for now…

There is a long standing bubbe meise among publishers & printers that Adobe Illustrator can be used to edit PDF documents. Guess what folks - that is simply NOT TRUE! And I’d like to look at two aspects of this.

Aspect 1 - PDF as AI’s native format
The bubbe meise may have come about due to a common misunderstanding about the “native file format” for Illustrator (since version 9). Even though the file extension is .ai, the file is, in reality, a 100% valid PDF document. Just change the extension and open in Reader - no problems!

However, even though this is true, Illustrator doesn’t actually use the “PDF parts” - it just uses PDF as a very nice envelope for it’s own private data. This is accomplished through the use of the /PieceInfo key on the /Page dictionary as documented in Section 10.4 of the PDF Reference. The actual Illustrator internal data is organized into the /Private key of /PieceInfo. Illustrator just reads this - ignoring the rest of the PDF. Photoshop also does the same thing with its “Photoshop PDF” format. This is why programs like PitStop, when you attempt to edit Illustrator or Photoshop documents, present a warning.

Aspect 2 - Illustrator’s ability to read/process & write PDFs
For many years, Illustrator has had the ability to open up PDFs and let you work with each “object” using the native AI toolbox - thus propogating the bubbe meise.

Although Illustrator CS2 supports most features of PDF, there are a variety of things that it is simply unable to handle correctly when opening. Fortunately, Illustrator will warn you about them - but most folks tend to ignore such warnings. Some (but not all) of the features not supported include:

• Multiple colorspaces (AI only supports a single colorspace on its canvas)
• All features of PDF transparency (groups & blending spaces, esp.)
• Certain complex smooth shadings
• Subset fonts using custom encodings
• Embedded fonts not installed on the editing computer (including Type 3 & TeX fonts)

In addition, any non-content elements such as bookmarks, hyperlinks, metadata, annotations, etc. will all be “thrown on the floor” by Illustrator. So keep that in mind as well.

BUT WAIT - there is some light at the end of the tunnel…
Adobe Acrobat (both Standard and Professional) include a tool called the Touchup Object Tool, that enables you to take an entire “object” and have it edited with an external editor. By default, the editors are Photoshop for raster data and Illustrator for vector & text. To use, just select the Touchup Object Tool (it’s connected to the Touchup Text Tools on the Advanced Editing Palette), hilite the object you wish to edit, right/control-click your mouse and choose “Edit Object…”. Off you go to your editor, make your corrections, then save - and the updates will appear back in Acrobat. Cool huh??
[This tip courtesy of Ted Padova]

When Adobe introduced Optional Content (aka “Layers”) into PDF 1.5, they specified a very unusual (and quite unexpected) implementation detail (Section 4.10.2):

Graphics state operations, such as setting the color, transformation matrix, and clipping, are still applied. In addition, graphics state side effects that arise from drawing operators are applied; in particular, the current text position is updated even for text wrapped in optional content. In other words, graphics state parameters that persist past the end of a marked-content section must be the same whether the optional content is visible or not. For example, hiding a section of optional content does not change the color of objects that do not belong to the same optional content group.

This enables a PDF viewer to more easily consume content and process OCGs - since it would do everything it would normally does, except actually draw/render.

However, it makes writing tools that manipulate PDF content (even via Acrobat plugins or the Adobe PDFLibrary) quite difficult since such state attributes need to be maintained along with related objects.

In addition, it also gives PDF creation tools a bit too much freedom in their PDF coding. Take the following piece of content stream that was generated by Adobe InDesign CS (3.0):

/OC /MC0 BDC
q
1 0 0 -1 135 81 cm 0 1 0 0 k 0 i
/GS0 gs
-52.18269 -5.19231 m -88.00961 -5.19231 l
-105.92308 26.48077 l -88.00961 58.15384 l
-52.18269 58.15384 l -34.26923 26.48077 l -52.18269 -5.19231 l
h f
EMC
/OC /MC1 BDC
1 0 0 1 143.65384 1.01373 cm
-52.18269 -5.19231 m -88.00961 -5.19231 l
-105.92308 26.48077 l -88.00961 58.15384 l
-52.18269 58.15384 l -34.26923 26.48077 l -52.18269 -5.19231 l
h f
EMC
Q

Although 100% valid, the poor “scoping” of the q/Q with respect to the BDC/EMC could potentially cause PDF processing solutions no end of trouble. So PLEASE don’t do it!

Just another wonderful “gotcha” in PDF…

Introduced with PDF 1.2, the External Stream feature, broke the “all content in a PDF had to be contained inside the single .pdf file” metaphor.  It was now possible to specify an external file (or in PDF 1.3, a URI) containing the data for any stream (most useful for image data, but technically supported for any stream).

The PDF reference documents (Table 3.4) the /F key for a stream’s attributes dictionary as follows:

file specification
(Optional; PDF 1.2) The file containing the stream data. If this entry is present, the bytes between stream and endstream are ignored, the filters are specified by FFilter rather than Filter, and the filter parame-
ters are specified by FDecodeParms rather than DecodeParms. However, the Length entry should still specify the number of those bytes. (Usually, there are no bytes and Length is 0.)

An example of this, for an externally referenced .jpg, would look like:

14 0 obj
<< /Type /XObject /Subtype /Image /Name /Im1 /Width 2835 /Height 2400 /BitsPerComponent 8 /ColorSpace 8 0 R /FFilter [ /DCTDecode ] /Length 0 /F << /DOS <image.jpg> >> >>
stream
endstream
endobj

NOTE: this can ONLY work for JPEG (.,jpg) files because the JFIF/JPEG format matches that expected by the DCTDecode filter - it won’t work for other types.

Sounds like a great feature - doesn’t it?  Especially if you could use an URL/URI instead of an embedded image and get dynamic updates from a server - right?   Well, it would, except for two things.

1. NO VERSION of Adobe Reader supports it!   That means that if your users only have Reader, they won’t see anything for your image.  In addition, none of the 3rd party PDF viewers support the feature either.

2. Acrobat 7.0.x (not sure which x) now has this feature OFF by default - with a preference on the Trust Manager panel to enable it either for all domains or for those you choose.

In addition, it should be noted that neither of the current ISO PDF standards (PDF/X and PDF/A) support external streams.

My collegue, Kurt Foss, just wrote an excellent “How To” about using Acrobat 7.0.7 to create and validate PDF/A compliant document.  I highly recommend it as a good starting point to working with PDF/A.

That said, I need to make users of these features aware that the files produced by Distiller 7.0.7 or those approved by Acrobat’s own preflight feature are actually NOT PDF/A-1b compliant.   They will be flagged by other PDF validators (such as my own company’s PDF Appraiser product) as non-compliant - though PDF Appraiser will be glad to fix the problems that it finds.

The common problem(s) that will be encountered from Distiller-produced PDFs are in the areas of metadata and fonts.   First, some of the metadata in the document is not correct according to the PDF/A-1b specification nor it’s corrigendum.  Second, Distiller can create a font in the PDF that doesn’t meet all of the low level PDF/A requirements.

These are just two examples of things that PDF Appraiser checks that the Acrobat Preflight tool does not.  It is but a very small sample of such items, as there are numerous areas of validation not covered by the Adobe Preflight check. 

Bottom line - if you want to start using PDF/A - that’s great - go for it!!  Start with what Adobe Acrobat offers.  But don’t stop there…you WILL need other tools if you want to be REALLY SURE your documents are PDF/A compliant.

Back from the LONG weekend holidays here in the US (and in Canada, which I was visiting)…I thought I’d write a bit about some of the standards related to PDF from ISO (International Standards Organization).

PDF/X - this is the first of the standards the ISO built around PDF. The X is for “eXchange”, specficially blind-exchange among prepress providers (such as advertisers to magazines). There is current PDF/X-1a (for CMYK & Spot colors), PDF/X-3 (for color managed data) and PDF/X-2 (which no one has ever actually implemented!). PDF/X-4 and PDF/X-5, which introduce newer PDF features such as transparency and layers/optional content are on the way!

PDF/A - this is the recently finalized (Oct 2005) standard for “long term archival storage of electronic documents as PDF”. Where it took PDF/X a number of years to gain traction, PDF/A is getting adopted (or in the process of adoption) by both vendors and users VERY quickly! Currently, the version is PDF/A-1a (for tagged & highly metadata-aware documents) and PDF/A-1b (for the average document). PDF/A-2 is currently in discussion to match the advances of PDF/X-4.

PDF/E - focusing on the needs of the Engineering community, PDF/E is currently in late stages of standardization and coming together nicely. It leverages the latest and greatest features of PDF that are targetted for engineering, such as 3D and object-level metadata.

PDF/UA - still very early in discussion, this standard is focused on providing Universal Accessibility to PDF documents by building on the work already present in PDF for Section 508 compliance.

And there are even more that are just starting up…So keep your eyes peeled for more versions of PDF focused on specific market segments and needs.

I thought I’d start things off with something useful to all comers…

Using the “Pages” feature of this software, I’ve added a new permanent place where I’ll be keeping a list of my favorite PDF programs/tools.

The first six tools to make the list are:

• PDF CanOpener
• PitStop Professional
• FTMaster
• Redax
• Enfocus Browser
• PDFlib Font Reporter

Go here for more details about each of the listed programs.

It’s hard to imagine this - but some of you reading this blog might not know who I am…

First and foremost, I am the Chief Innovation Officer for Apago.  I am responsible for the design and development of our cross-platform PDF tools such as the award winning PDF Enhancer and our recently announced PDF/A tool, PDF Appraiser.

In addition, I continue to provide the ONLY Adobe-authorized Acrobat & PDF developer training as the Chief Technology Officer of PDF Sages.

I also do a lot of work with the Open Source community as a maintainer or contributor for a variety of projects related to PDF and graphics.

If you want to read more about me - you can check out my bio here.

As the expression goes - “Enter at your own risk”…

This blog will be a place for me to comment on issues related to PDF and related standards such as PDF/A, PDF/X, etc. They will be usually, though not always, be of a technical nature. I will also try to drop in the occasion user tidbit or tip about using Acrobat or maybe some comments about other 3rd party software.

Hopefully you’ll find some things of value.

Leonard