On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 5:56 PM, Steve Litt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> What a nightmare!
Indeed.
> What does the university say about validators -- any validator, all
> validators, Adobe's validator?
They use Acrobat's. It seems that Adobe's Distiller has its own
validator which is different than Acrobat's, since Distiller says the
generated file is compliant, but Acrobat says it is not.
> The PDF/A Wikipedia page makes it look pretty straightforward -- all fonts
> embedded, all fonts legal everywhere, no video, audio or javascript, device
> independent color.
As far as I know, the generated PDF includes all fonts, and since it's
that minimal latex file I mentioned, it does not have anything fancy,
no audio, no video, no javascript, not event hyperrefs.
> Makes sense when thought about from a portability as opposed to a long term
> archival viewpoint. And it seems straightforward, except for proving it :-)
>
> SteveT
>
> On Tuesday 09 September 2008 02:00:54 pm Ernesto Posse wrote:
>> Hi. I do not have a particular preference for PDF/A, but unfortunately
>> my university requires electronic thesis submissions to be in PDF/A.
>> After seeing that even a minimalistic latex document seems to be
>> impossible to convert to PDF/A, and realizing that there is no
>> consistency among PDF/A "validators", I'm not becoming a fan of the
>> format. Nevertheless, I need to convert my thesis to this format...
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 1:29 PM, Steve Litt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>> > On Tuesday 09 September 2008 12:54:38 pm Ernesto Posse wrote:
>> >> This question is not a LyX-only question, but I thought maybe someone
>> >> here could have an idea on this issue.
>> >>
>> >> Has anyone succeeded in producing a PDF/A file (PDF for archival) from
>> >> LyX/LaTeX? I've tried tools that claim to generate PDF/A from
>> >> PostScript files or PDF files (both for Windows and Linux) but I
>> >> haven't been successful in generating a file which is considered PDF/A
>> >> compliant by at least two different validators, even with the
>> >> following minimal file (in LaTeX) via dvips:
>> >>
>> >> === file a.tex ===
>> >> \documentclass{article}
>> >> \begin{document}
>> >> Just this line...
>> >> \end{document}
>> >> === end of file ===
>> >>
>> >> I've tried generating through dvips:
>> >>
>> >> dvips -o a.ps a.dvi
>> >>
>> >> or
>> >>
>> >> dvips -Ppdf -o a.ps a.dvi
>> >>
>> >> then through ghostscript/ps2pdf as described in
>> >> http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/cvs/Ps2pdf.htm (I tried it on both
>> >> Windows Vista and Ubuntu)
>> >>
>> >> I also tried generating with dvipdf and pdflatex, and then using a PDF
>> >> to PDF/A converter.
>> >>
>> >> I've tried Acrobat 9 Pro (Distiller on Windows Vista), as well as
>> >> PDF2PDF from pdf-tools.com (On Windows Vista, XP and Ubuntu), PDF
>> >> Quick Master (On Windows XP), and PDF Appraiser (On Windows Vista and
>> >> XP)
>> >>
>> >> Acrobat Distiller produces a PDF file and claims it is PDF/A
>> >> compliant, but when I run the compliance test within Acrobat, it
>> >> fails! (An Acrobat generated PDF/A file fails the Acrobat PDF/A test!)
>> >>
>> >> Any ideas on how to generate PDF/A from LaTeX would be welcome...
>> >>
>> >> Thanks
>> >
>> > Hi Ernesto,
>> >
>> > This isn't responsive to your question, but maybe, just maybe, it's
>> > responsive to your situation.
>> >
>> > I see nothing but heartache in PDF/A. PDF/A test notwithstanding, I
>> > contend you don't REALLY know it it will render accurately (or at all)
>> > years from now. Things happen.
>> >
>> > Of all the ways to define data, PDF is one of the most complex. I've
>> > modified PDFs with pdftk, and (ugh) with Vim. It's ugly, unless you know
>> > the whole standard by heart. It's not human readable.
>> >
>> > More to the point, over years and decades, "standards" come and go. Those
>> > QIC tapes I so joyously used in 1994 are unreadable today unless I go out
>> > and buy a QIC tape drive and somehow get the matching software. Do you
>> > really think the ISO9660 standard so ubiquitous today will exist in 2050?
>> > Me neither. My prediction -- .tgz and .zip will be the stuff of old-timer
>> > reminiscences by then, the way Kaypro computers are today. And PDF, I
>> > doubt it will exist.
>> >
>> > If something's really important to have throughout the ages, print it to
>> > nice, acid free paper, and store it appropriately. That will last at
>> > least 200 years.
>> >
>> > I called the US trademark office and asked whether I could submit my
>> > Ebooks' copyright specimens on paper in addition to electronically on CD.
>> > They said yes, they prefer it that way, because paper stands the test of
>> > time, and digital representations don't necessarily.
>> >
>> > I have handwritten journal pages from the mid 1970's, written in
>> > ballpoint pen on cheap notebook paper, that are perfectly readable over
>> > 30 years later. I dare you to read a magtape from 1975.
>> >
>> > If you have a lot of docs that must be archived, and space is a concern,
>> > perhaps microfiche is the way to go. I'd guess that will last at least 30
>> > years, always assuming they keep making microfiche readers.
>> >
>> > If you MUST go digital, I recommend plain text. In 1987, when I first
>> > started making invoices for customers, I made a very savvy choice. All my
>> > invoices, from 1987 through the present, have been plain text. Formatting
>> > was done by inserting space characters. No tabs, which of course can be
>> > redefined by the rendering software. If you absolutely must go digital
>> > with data meant to survive a century, plain text is the way to do it. As
>> > long as ASCII exists (or a codepage that maps to old ASCII), and as long
>> > as I keep copying those invoices to media that can be read by newly
>> > current technologies, my invoices will be readable.
>> >
>> > Personally, when I hear the words "PDF" and "archive" in the same
>> > sentence, I become very skeptical.
>> >
>> > SteveT
>> >
>> > Steve Litt
>> > Recession Relief Package
>> > http://www.recession-relief.US
>
>
>
--
Ernesto Posse
Applied Formal Methods Group - Software Technology Lab
School of Computing
Queen's University - Kingston, Ontario, Canada
