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Preparing a PDF for Document Builder

Preparing a PDF for Document Builder

Owned by Alom Hussain (Unlicensed)
Last updated: May 31, 2024 by Miles Ridley (Unlicensed)
4 min read

For PDFs which are going to system-populated, certain PDF features must not be used.

Note: this article does not apply to PDFs which are to be uploaded as Library Documents or to PDFs which are to be uploaded to the system through the end-user interface. There are no restrictions on those PDFs.

The PDF features not supported are:

  • Password protected PDFs and PDFs with security policies. The security features of a PDF document can be checked in Acrobat Reader: File Properties - Security.

  • PDF features introduced after version 1.3 (Acrobat 4.x). PL/PDF generates documents using version 1.3, therefore if the template has features that was introduced after this version, it cannot reproduce them even though it will not give an error. The version can be checked in Acrobat Reader: File - Document Properties - General.

  • Certain types of compression. The content of a PDF page is made up from several objects that may have different types of compression to achieve a smaller PDF file in the end. PL/PDF can only handle gzip compression (FlatDecode), with certain exceptions. More detailed information is available in the error messages section.

  • Interactive features in the templates will not cause an error but will not work in the resulting PDF.

  • If the template PDF contains rotation then the resulting PDF generated by PL/PDF will not be rotated.

  • All pages must be the same size and orientation.

If your PDF incorporates unsupported features you may see one of the following errors:

  • ERR-203: PARSER error: &1-&2-&3-&4.: general analysis error: either the PDF is corrupt, incomplete or includes features that are not supported by PL/PDF.  Solution: reduce the size of the PDF, so that it only includes the page that is needed for the template.

  • ERR-215: Invalid/Unsupported Template: &1.: similar to ERR-203.

  • ERR-216: Unsupported Compress in Template: &1.  Solution: uncompress the PDF.

  • ERR-217: Multiple Filter is not supported in Template.  Solution: uncompress the PDF.

  • ERR-218: Encryption unsupported in Template: as discussed earlier password protected and PDFs with security policies are not supported.  Solution: If the owner or user password is known, then the password protection or security policy can be removed.

Note: PDF's must use a standard PDF font and not custom fonts, the list of useable fonts are below:

 

  • Times-Roman

  • Times-Bold

  • Time-Italic

  • Time-BoldItalic

  • Courier

  • Courier

  • Courier-Bold

  • Courier-Oblique

  • Helvetica

  • Helvetica-Bold

  • Helvetica-Oblique

  • Helvetica-BoldOblique

  • Symbol

  • ZapfDingbats

 

At QV we use Adobe Acrobat Pro to prepare PDFs for use in the Document Builder. The workflow to do so in that program is as follows:

Note: Adobe Acrobat Reader does not have the necessary functionality - it must be Adobe Acrobat Pro.

Open the source PDF

File -> Save As Other -> Optimised PDF. This should bring up a window similar to this (macOS version shown):

This window gives you the ability to create and save a range of settings - so once you have this configured you should not need to do it again. The settings you need to select are shown in the above and following screenshots:

Once you have set all these and double-checked (ensure in particular your 'Make compatible with:' is set to Acrobat 4.0 and later), you can Save your settings - our suggested name is QV PLPDF Document, and then press OK to optimise the PDF.

Your PDF should now work within the Accelerate Document Builder. 

Note that in some very rare cases PDFs are still not compatible following this process. In that case, we recommend opening the PDF in Apple Safari or Google Chrome and then saving it from the browser.

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