Are the PDF/A space requirements a show stopper for archiving?

A PDF/A document requires that all resources such as fonts, color profiles, etc. must be embedded in the file. The archiving of transactional documents can be nightmare because such documents are usually short by nature and contain huge number of copies of the same Frutiger font, sRGB color profile and company logo. Many archives therefore prefer TIFF over PDF/A when it comes to born-digital documents. But that is certainly not the idea of a uniform standard. How can this problem be solved?

What can I do about sliced images?

If I try to extract images from a PDF file it sometimes happens that I get a bunch of slices of the original image, mostly consisting of a few image rows per slice or, in extreme cases, just one row. Why is that and how can I get the entire image in one piece?

Automating the conversion of Microsoft Office Documents to PDF/A

A central service to convert Microsoft Office documents to PDF or PDF/A has obvious advantages. The conversion is done on an enterprise wide platform with well defined software versions and conversion process configurations. This guarantees a consistent quality and makes the deployment and operation of client based software obsolete. The price for this, however, is that the central service must automate the native applications, such as Microsoft Word, which are designed for interactive use not for server operation.

Can I trust PDF validation software?

If I use validation software from different manufacturers I sometimes get different results. Why can this happen? Does it mean that I can't trust the software? What can I do about it? I hear these and more questions very often and I can understand the user's concerns. In this article I try to shed some light on the mysteries of PDF validation.