English Newsletter

Disastrous PDF/X-4 compatibility
with new Affinity Publisher

The final version 1.7.1 of Affinity Publisher has recently been released. In the media, this program has already been considered an InDesign killer. The feature overview is indeed very promising. Regarding PDF/X support, the following statement is made on the website:

«You can also open, edit and output PDF/X files.»

Two years ago this claim was already made for the vector graphics program Affinity Designer 1.4. Then I tested Affinity Designer 1.4 using the Ghent PDF Output Suite 5.0, the internationally recognized standard test for PDF/X compatibility. The result with Affinity Designer 1.4 was disappointing. I was curious to see if the new Affinity Publisher – a multi-page layout program where secure PDF import and export is even more important than for a vector graphics program – would now have better compatibility with PDF/X-4 files.

Read more…Disastrous PDF/X-4 compatibility
with new Affinity Publisher

PDF Association publishes
«Tagged PDF Best Practice Guide»

The PDF Association has published a new guideline for the technically correct creation of accessible documents. The manual, entitled Tagged PDF Best Practice Guide: Syntax, is intended primarily for developers. It is intended to help developers understand the syntactic properties tagged PDFs need to meet accessibility requirements.

The guide is intended for interested parties who want to prepare accessible PDF documents in detail. On 70 pages, aspects such as PDF/UA as the standard for accessible PDF documents and general regulations are explained. In addition, developers and experienced users are provided with examples of the standard structure types and important information about attributes as well as properties, text features and other properties of PDF.

Read more…PDF Association publishes
«Tagged PDF Best Practice Guide»

Version 3.0 of text comparison tool
PDiff released

The text-based PDF comparison PDiff is available in the new version 3.0. The software from CSci is a modern solution for professional document comparison. The new release makes PDF comparison even more powerful thanks to an improved GUI.

PDiff shows all text differences between two PDF documents – as a comparison of the two PDFs and with markings of the deviations. So you can check intended revisions quickly and find unintended changes at first glance:

Read more…Version 3.0 of text comparison tool
PDiff released

How long will it take to preflight a PDF?

My colleagues at AgileStreams in France have been working on the question How long will it take to preflight a PDF file?

They compared three different methods of spot color checking a 600-page PDF file with Callas pdfToolbox. In addition to the traditional preflight check, the new Quickcheck was also tested in a process plan and with a CLI call. The results were documented in a short video.

What does a RIP do?

Ever wondered what a Raster Image Prozessor (RIP) does? What does RIPing a page mean?

Martin Bailey, CTO of Global Graphics (most important provider of RIP technology beside Adobe), explains the tasks of a RIP (Interpreting, Compositing, Rendering, Output) involved in outputting (PDF) pages using the Harlequin RIP as an example.

There is also a  comprehensive white paper available.