Hi,

I want to find out the best way for an end user to identify syntax errors in a PDF, such as "expected a dict object", which might occur when a user opens the PDF. I usually find these when using the Acrobat SDK to parse a PDF in some way. However, for an end-user, a tool would be necessary.

Using the Acrobat preflight tool enables you to browse the structure of a PDF and potentially see errors but that is not suitable for anyone other than an expert. What I am looking for is a way to check a load of files for these sorts of errors in a batch process so that a non-expert can identify the problem files that need fixing. Is there a good way of doing that?

Thanks

David

Hi Leonard (since you answer most of the questions anyway )

i have a question regarding the use of a stronger hash or encryption strength in a PDF/A document. In one of your previous posts you stated:

"For example, for true PDF/A-1 compatibility you should not use SHA256  since it didn't exist in PDF 1.4 (on which PDF/A-1 is based) even though  it would be a perfectly valid PDF file."

Now i read another document of yours called 'ISO 19005-1 (PDF/A-1) Application Notes'. There on page 30 'Digital Signatures' you write:

"Revocation: As with Timestamping, since the presence of certificate revocation information does not effect the visual display of the PDF, it is permitted by PDF/A-1, even though it is a PDF 1.5 feature."

Now one could say that using a stronger hash or encryption algorithm falls into the same category:

So for instance even if RSA 2048 and SHA256 were not supported in 1.4 (but in 1.5) - shouldn't they be permitted in PDF/A also?

Isn't that, although not explicitly mentioned, well within the stated goals of PDF/A-1?

Thanks

ToM

Hello

Extended Font Pack, available for download contains MyriadPro-Regular.otf font that has cyrillic glyphs.

I want to generate PDF document with cyrillic unicode data  that can refer to the MyriadPro-Regular font resource without embedding font.

Are Extended Font Pack resources CID keyed fonts or not?

Looks like such example of PDF structure allowed me to use it only in ANSI encoding

           'Type':'/Font',
            'Subtype':'/Type1',
             'Name': '/MyriadPro-Regular' ,
            'BaseFont':  '/MyriadPro-Regular',
             'Encoding': '/WinAnsiEncoding',

What values should be for `Subtype` and `Encoding` to render cyrillic unicode (UTF-8 encoded) data and use MyriadPro-Regular Open Type downloaded from adobe and installed into local system without embedding it?

Thanks

I'm trying to parse certain pdf document on Mac OS X. The pages have embeded CID () fonts with Identity-H encoding. The font itself is Type0 font with CIDFontType2 descendant font. I'm able to extract text from any page by using 2-byte CIDs and mapping them to characters defined in ToUnicode stream. However there are a few character mismatches which (IMHO) are the cause of wrongly chosen encoding (MacRomanEncoding instead of PDFDocEncoding).

One of mismatched characters in document is Ø (latin capital o with stroke, empty set symbol) character, the character I'm extracting is ÿ (latin small character y with diaeresis). According to pdf 1.7 specification characters Ø and ÿ have same octal code, but in different encodings (330 in PDFDocStanrdardEncoding and MacRomanEncoding accordingly).

My question is how can I be sure to select correct encoding for the text? Is it PDFDocEncoding by default unless specified otherwise?

I am "experimenting" a little with colors in a PDF file.

In the file I create two squares. The first square is colored using DeviceCMYK.

The second square has the same color as the first one, but using DeviceRGB as the colorspace.

When converting from CMYK to RGB I use the conversion formulas from section 10.3.5 in the PDF-specification.

But the two squares have quite different colors. Can somebody explain whats going on?

The Pdf is give below. In the file DeviceRGB

R: 0.29

G: 0.97

B: 0.14    

should be the same as DeviceCMYK 

C: 0.68 

M: 0   

Y: 0.83  

K: 0.03

(The file:)

%PDF-1.5

1 0 obj

<<

/Length 330

>>

stream

q

1 0 0 1 57.47015494031 84.170688341377 cm

1 0 0 1 0 0 cm

1 0 0 1 0 0 cm

1 0 0 1 0 0 cm

1 0 0 1 -57.47015494031 -84.170688341377 cm

/DeviceCMYK CS

1 1 1 1 SCN

/DeviceRGB  cs

0.29 0.97 0.14  scn

0.2743205486411 w

2.743205486411 M

0 J

0 j

40.873761747523 68.397256794514 33.192786385573 31.546863093726 re

h

B

Q

endstream

endobj

2 0 obj

<<

/Length 329

>>

stream

q

1 0 0 1 97.658115316231 68.260096520193 cm

1 0 0 1 0 0 cm

1 0 0 1 0 0 cm

1 0 0 1 0 0 cm

1 0 0 1 -97.658115316231 -68.260096520193 cm

/DeviceCMYK CS

1 1 1 1 SCN

/DeviceCMYK cs

0.68 0 0.83 0.03 scn

0.2743205486411 w

2.743205486411 M

0 J

0 j

80.1016002032 56.327152654305 35.11303022606 23.865887731775 re

h

B

Q

endstream

endobj

3 0 obj

<<

/Type /Page

/Parent 4 0 R

/Resources <<

/Font <<>>

/XObject <<>>

>>

/MediaBox [0 0 255.11811023622 141.73228346457]

/Contents [1 0 R 2 0 R]

>>

endobj

4 0 obj

<<

/Type /Pages

/Kids [3 0 R]

/Count 1

>>

5 0 obj

<<

/Type /Catalog

/Pages 4 0 R

>>

endobj

xref

0 6

0000000000 65535 f

0000000010 00000 n

0000000397 00000 n

0000000783 00000 n

0000000956 00000 n

0000001012 00000 n

trailer

<<

/Size 6

/Root 5 0 R

>>

startxref

1067

%%EOF

Hi, here is my problem.
I'm working in my own annotation app. It incrementally updates pdfs. Works fine with most of the pdfs.
But i've found couple of pdfs, that was being corrupted after updating.

Here goes more details:
Single page-linearized pdf: when i've looked into pdf source, i found that page object has /Parent key which referencing to non-existing object. Normally, as i understand /Parent for page object is /Type /Pages objects with /Kids /Count etc.

12 0 obj

<</ArtBox[26 0 585.999 792]/BleedBox[26 0 586 792]/Contents[14 0 R 15 0 R 16 0 R 17 0 R 18 0 R 19 0 R 20 0 R 21 0 R]/CropBox[0 0 612 792]/MediaBox[0 0 612 792]/Parent 8 0 R/Resources 37 0 R/Rotate 0/TrimBox[26 0 586 792]/Type/Page>>

endobj

Parent 8 0 R - Is missing

But all pdf viewers are ok with that.
So, this pdf has two Xref tables:

36 0 obj

<</DecodeParms<</Columns 4/Predictor 12>>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[<2C9B406A12A771465F8FE0D6A4DC67ED><9B829DD8BDB09849A00CA5D75E7 5CDF4>]/Index[10 54]/Info 9 0 R/Length 114/Prev 66739/Root 11 0 R/Size 64/Type/XRef/W[1 2 1]>>stream....

and Second one at the end of file.

5 0 obj

<</DecodeParms<</Columns 5/Predictor 12>>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[<2C9B406A12A771465F8FE0D6A4DC67ED><9B829DD8BDB09849A00CA5D75E7 5CDF4>]/Info 9 0 R/Length 51/Root 11 0 R/Size 10/Type/XRef/W[1 3 1]>>stream

Linearized dict:

10 0 obj

<</Linearized 1/L 67043/O 12/E 48239/N 1/T 66738/H [ 534 185]>>

endobj

/T 66738 points to Xref table in 5 0 obj's stream

Now, when my annotation is stored: i'm adding the following object to the end of file:

8 0 obj <</Type /Pages/Count 1/Kids [ 12 0 R ]>>

endobj

I've create the missing 8 0 obj with Kids and /Count 1

12 0 obj<</Type /Page/Annots [ 65 0 R ]/ArtBox [ 26 0 585.999 792 ]/BleedBox [ 26 0 586 792 ]/Contents [ 14 0 R 15 0 R 16 0 R 17 0 R 18 0 R 19 0 R 20 0 R 21 0 R ]

/CropBox [ 0 0 612 792 ]/MediaBox [ 0 0 612 792 ]/Parent 8 0 R/Resources 37 0 R/Rotate 0/TrimBox [ 26 0 586 792 ]>>

endobj

it's page objects with new Reference to Annotation object which is:

65 0 obj<</Type /Annot/Contents (Test 2)/M (D:20120507172231+03'00')/Open true/P 12 0 R/Rect [ 0 0 100.000 100.000 ]/Subtype /Text/T(Test 1)>>

endobj

then goes my xref table

xref

8 1

0000067045 00000 n

0000067189 00000 n

0000067591 00000 n

trailer

<<

/ID [ <FE1185EC7443D19473E8A4A1569A1CB2> <FE1185EC7443D19473E8A4A1569A1CB2> ]

/Info 64 0 R

/Prev 66739

/Root 11 0 R

/Size 69

>>

startxref

67760

%%EOF

And this totally broks my PDF.
Questing: /Prev in my trailer should point ot 5 0 obj or 36 0 obj?

Dear All,

I want to create a SINGLE page pdf file from two or more page size images that are combined to make a single page pdf. Again, this question is on pdfs that are made out of several, atleast  two color images and a black-and-white mask for one of them.

I have such pdf files from an unknown source (the producer is edited out) whereby there are three tiff images, obtained using the well known pdfimages extractor.

When I want to make a pdf out of tiff or png or other image formats, I right click and tell Adobe Acrobat to make a pdf.

However, I dont know how I can give a command to select say,  three tif images and specify which is the mask for which and then join  them in a way that I get the pdf from the composite of the two color images and a mask for one of them.

Please help me out.

I am a little familiar with the pdf structure skeleton and when necessary, fixed xref tables in one of my favorite editors. A few years ago, I also wrote a bunch of javascripts to make some annotations and needed some automation and used some itext type libraries. However, I need your help in this problem as I am now rusty and forgot some of what I studied to solve my earlier problems. This is a new problem for me. Gentle hints from you would be very nice to help me in this problem. Please specify if necessary what manual and pages to read. in the pdfspec.

Best Regards

Disabled Veteran [physically handicapped]

I am generating some PDFs from scratch. One of the files opens fine in Acroba but it still clearly has a structural problem because if I check the file with the preflight in Acrobat it says thet the file is damaged and needs repair, and if I close the file without eding anything Acrobat asks if I want to save the file. Acrobat does not say what the problem is, and I am unable to find the problem by inspecting it. It is quite a basic file and is easily inspectible using a text editor.

I have tried validating the pdf using different validators, but I have found no validators which will report on "structural" problems in the file, so I have tried to inspect the file using a text editor and also a binary-editor to check that offsets of the objects are at the correct place and that the stream lengths are right.

I am unable to find any problems by inspecting it manually so I don't understand what I am missing. And I don't know of any tools which can do this.

(I have got Acrobat Pro 8, but I am not an expert in using it so I don't know if it can be used to "debug" the file)

Anyway, if anyonecan give me any hints on how to solve this, it would be much appreciated.

And, if anyone wants to take a look at my testfile, it can be downloaded from here: https://www.box.com/files/0/f/0/1/f_3946274006

Again, the file is easily readable in a text editor since none of the streams are compressed...

Thanks in advance for any help!!

Hi here

I went through PDF 1.7 reference and Pitstop Pro to understand  the difference between OPM 0 and OPM 1.

I have clearly understanding on none-zero overprint mode now.

However,I got questions on OPM 0.

1)If the default OPM from Illustrator is OPM 1,and there is also "knockout" definition when the overprint checkbox is not selected ,how could I generate OPM 0 definition from Illustrator or other creative application? So far I could just change the definition in PitStop Pro.

2)What's the result difference between the definition of OPM 0 and knockout?

Looks like they are  the same, when viewing the different objects as OPM 0 and knockout in Acrobat Pro and also in creative application,with overprint viewing is selected.

Many thanks

Kevin

Hello everyone.

I'm trying to interpret exacty what is and isn't included in a PDF stream and to date am still confused. I'll paste a section of the ISO3200 - 1 PDF reference below.

I'm not sure, but these statements appear to contradict each other. 

So I have a stream which specifies a lenghth of 2215 bytes in its compressed form.

There is a carriage return and a line feed at the start and end of the stream data falling between the 'stream' and 'endstream' keywords.

So my data looks like this :  stream  CR LF Data Data Data CR LF endstream  Keep in mind that CR = Carriage Return and LF = Line feed

Before I remove the CR and LF from each end of the data the total size of the stream is 2217 bytes (between the 'stream' and 'endstream' keywords.  From the first paragraph below it appears that I am reading the data between the Carriage return and line feed characters at each end which brings the compressed size down to 2213 bytes (not 2215 as the stream 'Lenght' specifies.

If I follow the second paragraph from Table 5 in relation to Stream Lenghth, it appears that only the carriage return and line feed at the end of the stream are removed.  So the stream to be decompressed would look like this:  CR LF Data Data Data .  This in fact adheres to the Stream Lenght specification for that stream which is 2215 bytes?

When decompressing a stream, what should and shouldn't be included?  Cut the CR and LF from the start or the end ,,, or both?     Note the red bolded section below: "lie between the end-of-line marker (I assume this means not inclusive).  Like saying, stand between those two people (this doesn't mean stand on these two people and centre yourself).   Yet... the green bolded area in the second section doesn't mention the initial white space?

Perhaps this is what it means.  The first whitespace character after the 'stream' keyword and the whitespace character preceding the 'endstream' keyword are ignored so the stream looks like this:

Original Stream Data before removing whitespace:    CR LF Data Data Data CR LF

Actual Stream data to be decompressed (whitespace removed):   LF Data Data Data CR

That last option produces a stream of 2215 bytes as well.

Thanks

Under 'Stream Objects - General'

The keyword stream that follows the stream dictionary shall be followed by an end-of-line marker

consisting of either a CARRIAGE RETURN and a LINE FEED or just a LINE FEED, and not by a CARRIAGE RETURN alone. The sequence of bytes that make up a stream lie between the end-of-line marker following the stream keyword and the endstream keyword; the stream dictionary specifies the exact number of bytes. There should be an end-of-line marker after the data and before endstream; this marker shall not be included in the stream length.

AND

From table 5 in relation to the stream Length.

(Required) The number of bytes from the beginning of the line

following the keyword stream to the last byte just before the

keyword endstream. (There may be an additional EOL

marker, preceding endstream, that is not included in the count

and is not logically part of the stream data.) See 7.3.8.2,

"Stream Extent", for further discussion.

I want to bring up my browser - put the URL of a PDF on a server that has fillable fields - and have the PDF automatically bring in the contents of an FDF file to populate the fields defined in the FDF file.

There is ADOBE documentation of doing something like this:
http://www.mydomain.com/abc.pdf#fdf=datafile.fdf

That's all I want to do.  Simple.

In detail - in a PHP program I want to create the FDF file just using fopen and fwrites - no additional packages - then my JavaScript calls an already created PDF file on the web with the PDF when brought up on the server side automatically imports the FDF my program created a few seconds ago.

I do know about fdf_create in PHP but unfortunately the server I'm on is cpanel based and the hosting company cannot load a library for fdf_create related calls.

I cannot seem to get this working.  I've called Adobe tech support.  A few months ago I reached someone who actually said "You've reached the right person.  Yes that is doable." and they confirmed what I wanted to do.   But since then the Adobe people I call don't seem to understand what an FDF file is even though that is what Adobe uses to communicate and has it in their documentation as     http://......abc.pdf#fdf=xxx.fdf

Now I've even eliminated the step/chance that I've not created my FDF file properly.  I've gone into Acrobat Pro and done an extract to an .FDF file.   Then I've tried  http://www.myweb.com/abc.pdf#fdf=theAcrobatExtractedFile.fdf  and it still ignores the contents of the FDF file.

I've also tried http://www.myweb.com/abc.pdf#fdf=http://www.myweb.com/extractedfile.fdf   fully qualifying the location of the FDF file.

Help!  This is important.   Thank you.

Jay

I am fairly green in terms of representing text in PDF documents and need some assistance. My main question is how do I represent Cyrillic characters in PDF files.

I know the basics of how to represent text in PDF files and the PostScript commands to use. I know that bytes written to the file in the range of 0 to 255 will print correctly when using the correct encoding (we are using the WinAnsiEncoding). What I cannot seem to figure out is how to represent extended character sets and different glyphs (such as those used in the Cyrillic alphabet) in a PDF file. Do I need to use CID fonts and CMaps?

Here is an example of the text I understand how to print:

stream

0.00000000 0.00000000 0.00000000 RG

0.00000000 0.00000000 0.00000000 rg

BT

/Helvetica 14 Tf

7.2 768.96 Td

(Hello World!) Tj

ET

endstream

I'm really not clear on how to represent any of the Chinese or Japanese fonts either, so really any help here is appreciated. Any examples are appreciated as well.

Thanks!

ExcelのVBAでPDFのプロパティの「その他のメタデータ」、「フォーマット」の内容を取得したい。

以下では取得できませんでした。@

Dim objAcroPDDoc as New Acrobat.AcroPDDoc

IRet = objAcroPDDoc.Open("ファイル")

strGetFormat = objAcroPDDoc.GetInfo("Format")

I have tried to open several .pdf files online at a state government website with my main PC at work, and all of the .pdf files open in a foreign language, not in English, except fpr one .pdf file which opens correctly in English.  As far as troubleshooting, I tried opening the same .pdf files with my laptop at work, and they all open correctly with English.  I'm not sure if my default programs on my main PC at work are set right, although the file extensions look correct with the correct programs being Adobe Reader and/or Adobe Acrobat Reader.  I have Adobe Acrobat XI Pro.

Could someone assist me with this matter, as the state government website staff state that they can open them fine in English?  I suspicious that there is a problem with my default program settings with extensions or version of adobe reader and/or adobe acrobat XI pro, as I haven't changed anything.

Thank you,

Lisa

I am reading the "ToUnicode CMaps" section in the ISO standard. It says:

The CMap file shall contain begincodespacerange and endcodespacerange operators that are consistent with the encoding that the font uses. In particular, for a simple font, the codespace shall be one byte long.

It refers to Tech note #5411 for details. However, tech note #5411 indicates

Because a “ToUnicode” mapping file is used to convert from CIDs (which begin at decimal 0,

which is expressed as 0x0000 in hexadecimal notation) to Unicode code points, the following

“codespacerange” definition, without exception, shall always be used:

1 begincodespacerange

<0000> <FFFF>

endcodespacerange

My understanding is that this only applies when CID is 2 bytes. If it is 1-byte font, the range should be defined as <00><ff>. I wonder why Adobe did not bother to correct it.

Now I have another question. CID could be larger than 2 bytes. In theory I can create use UTF8 as CID which can be 4 bytes long. If this is the case, how do I define the codespace? Is it the same as CMap file, or I still use <0000><fffff>?

I would appreciate if someone from Adobe clarifies this.

Hi,

Silly question perhaps, but which part of ISO 15930-1:2001 (PDF/X-1a) precisely tells me that new PDF-features like Live Transparency (PDF 1.4), Optional content (PDF1.5) are not allowed. Not that I doubt that it is prohibited. But I need to pinpoint the exact chapter / paragraph in the PDF/X-1a spec telling me that.

Thanks

Hello,

I'm attempting to extract JBIG2 images only from a PDF. The only problem is that the JBIG2 images are raw data streams without a header, and so I can't just save it into a .jb2 file, as no application will recognize it.

It looks like this:

<</Subtype/Image/Width 1740/Height 3002/ColorSpace/DeviceGray/BitsPerComponent 1/Decode[1 0]/Length 12268/Filter/JBIG2Decode>>

stream

(DATA)

endstream

etc.

I can easily extract the data, but how can I repair the header?

Thank you.

Hello.

When I write the following text, adobe reader displays a red rectangle with a black border.

10 w

100 100 200 150 re

1 0 0 rg   %red fill

0 0 0 RG   %black stroke

B 

but when i use operators f and S the red rectangle is displayed without the border.

10 w

100 100 200 150 re

1 0 0 rg  %red fill

f

0 0 0 RG  %black stroke

S

From a pdf reader perspective why in the second example the border is not displayed?

Isn't  f+S=B ?

Thank You.