PDF/A is a variation of PDF file format designed for the long-term archiving of electronic documents. Some governments and standards organizations require PDF/A to ensure preservation of documents. A PDF/A file is a PDF file viewable by PDF viewers such as Adobe Reader, but the PDF/A file must follow additional requirements specified in the ISO standard. These requirements specify both required objects and features not supported for long-term archiving. BI Publisher generates the PDF/A-1b variation of the PDF/A standard.
PDF/A output has specified requirements and limitations
The following lists limitations of and requirements for generating PDF/A output:
Supported template types: The following template types support the generation of PDF/A: RTF, FO, XPT, and XSL. There are no additional template requirements to generate PDF/A.
Font requirements: By default, all fonts in the template are replaced with Albany fonts in the output. To use a different font in the output, specify the font mappings in the report configuration. If Albany fonts are not available in the JVM font directory and you have not specified a font mapping, the output will not become a valid PDF/A file. In this case, Helvetica font is used.
PDF features not supported in PDF/A documents:
All audio and video content, including Flash embedding
Transparency (transparent colors render as opaque)
Encryption
Reprocessing by BI Publisher utilities is not supported: Reprocessing of the PDF/A file using the BI Publisher utilities PDFBookBinder, PDFDocMerger, or PDFSignature (digital signature) is not supported. The reprocessed PDF file may lose conformance to the PDF/A standard.
Required report configuration properties: The report run-time properties must be set as shown in the following table.
Property | Required Setting |
---|---|
pdf-version |
Must be no higher than 1.4 |
Enable PDF Security (pdf-security) |
Must be set to false |
Encryption Level (pdf-encryption-level) |
Must be set to 0 |
pdf-font-embedding |
Must be se to true |
Formatting properties specific to PDF/A output can be set in the Report Properties dialog. For more information, see PDF/A Output Properties.