This is a collection of resources started as part of the PVLDB Vol 16 Publication Process. It outlines various resources and how-tos regarding achieving PDF/A compliance. This is a live document, so please come back for updated content and feel free to contribute as well.
- Ensure that the options
pdftexDownloadBase14anddvipsDownloadBase35are set to true in yourupdmap.cfgfile. In order to ensure that that you are editing the correct file run firstupdmap -systo see which files are used.
- Modify the documentclass to include pdfa, for example:
\documentclass[sigconf, nonacm, pdfa]{acmart}
- In you latex source code use the package
pdfx. The full documentation of the package is here: https://texdoc.org/serve/pdfx.pdf/0
\usepackage[a-2b]{pdfx})
- A recently published guide with more details: https://webpages.tuni.fi/latex/pdfa-guide.pdf
- A (slightly older) very detailed how-to guide: https://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~selinger/pdfa/. Note that this guide contains several steps that are not currently required, but they can help establish good practices.
Adobe Acrobat can also save as PDF/A, however, note that this does not always mean that the file is compliant. Rather, it means that the file claims to be compliant. More checking is typically necessary.
- If you use
File > Save as Other > Archival PDF (PDF/A)this will not ensure PDF/A compliance. In fact most of the time this will not be sufficient.
- If you use Adobe Preflight to run a "Convert to PDF/A" profile and the process succeeds this will be sufficient.
- In the Creative Cloud Suite, this can be found in Adobe Acrobat under
Edit > Preflightwhere you can select the profile "Convert to PDF/A-2b" and click on "Analyze and fix". This will open a new dialogue box that will ask you to give the desired output filename.
- In the Creative Cloud Suite, this can be found in Adobe Acrobat under
OK, so you have followed all the above guidelines to make your file compliant. Can you verify with the same tools as the PVLDB Publication Process? To do that, we add below a simple version of the testing suite used during publication.
- Before you start, follow the guidelines in _tools/INSTALL_TOOLS.md to install the necessary tools.
- Once the tools are installed, you can run the two scripts
check_fonts_pdfa.pyto check fonts and PDF/A compliance andcheck_format.pyto check other common formatting errors. - Note that these are not exhaustive!
- Give
python check_fonts_pdfa.py --dir <directory with pdf files to check>and all files in that folder will be checked for PDF/A and font compliance. - Give
python check_format.py --dir <directory with pdf files to check>and all files in that folder will be checked for common formatting errors.
- https://www.pdfen.com/pdf-a-validator
- https://pdf.online/validate-pdfa
- https://avepdf.com/pdfa-validation
Note that typically, if you ensure PDF/A compliance there should be no Type 3 fonts. Just in case, below we have a collection of links solely about removing Type 3 fonts in a more ad hoc manner.