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Proximity check with Callas pdfToolbox

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In pdfToolbox v11, callas introduced a new preflight technology called “Context aware object detection”. It’s special because it doesn’t just examine individual objects (“Is the resolution of this image high enough”, “Is this black text set to overprint”) but it checks relationships between objects.

Because of that, it can answer questions such as: “Is this object hidden by any other objects?” or, “Does this text come too close to the cut line?”. Very powerful and ideal to weed out the majority of false positives (things reported as errors while they’re actually fine) preflight engines tend to find.

However pdfToolbox 11 could not tell you whether an object came to close to another object. Why not? Because it would take too long!

In pdfToolbox 12, callas does introduce a proximity test, but there is a precaution built-in…

You can read more about this in an article by David van Driessche in the Callas blog.

Why some tools are more
forgiving of bad PDFs?

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Martin Bailey gives some thoughts on the Global Graphics blog about compliance, compatibility, and why some tools are more forgiving of bad PDFs.

He reports on Global Graphics’ nearly 25 years of experience with native PDF RIPs (Harlequin). At that time, developers were faced with the question of whether to strictly implement the PDF specification and thus risk not being able to process many PDFs (even from well-known creators), or whether to pragmatically achieve the best possible result even with poorly built PDFs.