Knowledgebase: PDF/A and PDF/X Supports

PDF/A and PDF/X Supports

BCL easyPDF SDK supports PDF generation of PDF/A-1b, PDF/X-1a and PDF/X-3 for long term archiving and reliable prepress data interchange. BCL easyPDF SDK APIs enable developers to easily create 100% PDF/A/X compliant documents.

BCL easyPDF SDK also supports printing PDF documents to PDF/A/X in 32-bit applications (this currently is not supported in the 64-bit version). Note that once you convert a PDF document to PDF/A/X, PDF/A/X will lose elements such as hyperlinks, bookmarks, metadata, etc.

You can only create PDF/A/X compliant files from BCL easyPDF SDK's Printer API. The Processor and Document APIs do not have this guarantee. In other words, if you merge PDF/A files or stamp an existing PDF/A file using the Processor API, it no longer remains PDF/A compliant. Therefore if stamps, watermarks, and signatures are required for PDF/A/X, all of that needs to be done from the Printer API at the time of conversion, and not from the Processor API.

PDF/A-1b

ISO 19005-1 Level B conformance (PDF/A-1b) ensures that the rendered visual appearance of the file is reproducible over the long-term.

BCL easyPDF SDK supports the following standards:

ISO 19005-1:2005(E) Level B conformance (Compatible with Acrobat 7)

TC1:2007 or PDF/A-1:2005/TC1:2007 Level B conformance (Compatible with Acrobat 8, but not backward compatible. Therefore it does not validate in Acrobat 7’s Preflight)

PDF/X

PDF/X is an ISO standard for digital document exchange. Its aim is to provide confidence that the content will print predictably, irrespective of the type of the document and the printing service provider. The standard is a subset of the Adobe PDF Specification 1.3.

We support the two most widely used PDF/X standards:

PDF/X-1a:2001 (ISO 15930-1:2001) and

PDF/X-3:2002 (ISO 15930-3:2002).

PDF/X-1a is a CMYK-based document format compatible with PDF-1.3. It requires that all font files used be embedded, and the document shall not be encrypted.

PDF/X-3 adds color management features to the PDF/X-1a standard.

If you are unsure about which PDF/X standard to use, you should ask your printing service provider. Generally speaking, currently PDF/X-1a is the most common format in North America. In Europe PDF/X-3 is the preferred choice on digital presses, but PDF/X-1a is commonly accepted as well.