PDF file formats - Which format did I save that PDF in?

Trev,
An earlier thread may be of help.
[url]http://www.acrobatusers.com/forums/aucbb/viewtopic.php?id=2009[/url]

Be well...

An alternative to using javascript.
Use a Batch Sequence that runs a Preflight profile.
Create the Preflight profile and include the "PDF version is newer than..." custom checks.
While the default for each custom check is to issue an "Error" indication, you can change this
to "Warning" or "Info".

Create a new Batch Sequence that uses this Preflight profile.

Run the Batch Sequence on one or more PDF files that are in a folder.
A "Problems (m_dd_yyyy).pdf file is made. Save it to a convenient location.
Interesting difference between Acrobat 8 / 3D ver.8 & Acrobat 9 Pro Extended is the the latter
produces the report as a Portfolio file. As the report links entries to the applicable PDF file,
having the report as a Portfolio file keeps everything nicely bundled.
Note that the Batch Sequence's output report "Result" line uses "Notification(s)" vice "Info"; however, they are the same.



Error|Warning|Info count File Version
PDF version is newer than 1.2 .......... 1 => 1.3 (Acrobat 4.x)
PDF version is newer than 1.3 .......... 2 => 1.4 (Acrobat 5.x)
PDF version is newer than 1.4 .......... 3 => 1.5 (Acrobat 6.x)
PDF version is newer than 1.5 .......... 4 => 1.6 (Acrobat 7.x)
PDF version is newer than 1.6 .......... 5 => 1.7 (Acrobat 8.x)
PDF version is newer than 1.7 .......... 6 => -- (Acrobat 9.x)Be well...

I use Total Commander instead of Window's Explorer, and it has Lister that lets you look at files easily, and it will show the version for pdf-s right in the top line (eg: for me looking at one pdf I see %PDF-1.6.%). I think there's a standalone version as well, and of course, other programs such as that out there. If you have one of these programs it's about a 2 second check.

Notepad will do it if you use it to open the file, but it takes a while to load the large files. WordPad will do it as well.

Thanks for your reply, however...

The versioning I'm after is whether the file was saved as a PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-3 or PDF/X-4 or Press Quality or Smallest File Size, etc etc. Make sense? These are the Presets for exporting to PDF from Adobe InDesign CS3 and from what I can see, there's no way of knowing what the resulting PDFs were exported as. Any clues?

Trev ]:~)>

If you are using Adobe Acrobat or Reader 9, it will automatically identify any PDF/X compliant file via the new Standards panel - http://acrobatusers.com/blogs/leonardr/acrobat-9-knows-standards.

However, there is no way to know what actual Preset (or JobOption) was used unless the author decided to embed that setting inside the file.

Leonard

Thanks Leonard,

That's (kind of) what I thought. I guess it's really up to InDesign to embed the JobOption Preset data into the PDF File Info to make it easy to find (in the Get Info dialog box would be nice). I would certainly find it handy as I use quite a few of the presets and when I revisit a job from the past, it would be handy to know what preset I used (can't always rely on the memory bank between my ears).

Trev ]:~)>