Generating PDF/A Output

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.

Requirements and Limitations

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.

Additional Resources

For more information about the PDF/A standard, refer to the Adobe website. Refer also to the iso.org website for articles 'Use of PDF 1.4 (PDF/A-1)' and 'Addendum Cor 1:2007'.