Most companies who process PDF files on a regular basis (publishers, printers, trade shops,…) obviously expect these PDF files to be print-ready. A lot of companies publish specifications that supplied PDFs should adhere to. Others rely on industry standards such as GWG, a policy that seems to make more sense to me.

Even if designers or advertising agencies claim to follow those recommendations, how can you be sure that this is the case? How can you be certain that they did not preflight the file and then made a modification in Acrobat which causes a new problem?

Certified PDF tries to solve these concerns. A Certified PDF is a regular PDF, with a few bits of extra information:

• It contains information about the preflight profile that was used to check the file.
• It contains logging information that tells you if the preflight was successful and if any errors or notifications were generated.
• If a user attempts to modify the PDF, a warning is displayed. If the file is modified, this breaks the certification. All the changes in the PDF are logged and there is a possibility to undo changes.

Products that support Certified PDF

Certified PDF was developed by Enfocus Software (now a part of Artwork Systems/Esko). Enfocus have integrated Certified PDF technology in their own products such as PitStop, a PDF preflighting and editing tool.

They have also licensed the technology to some other companies such as Quite and Callas Software.

Workflow systems or other applications such as web portals that use one of the above products can also support Certified PDF. In the ApogeeX workflow which I use, it is possible to define that for a job all pages have to be Certified PDF files that match a certain preflight profile. If files are supplied that do not meet this standard, the workflow automatically flags them with a red icon and stops processing those files until an operator either accepts or rejects the data.

How to create Certified PDF files

Use one of the above mentioned products to preflight and certify a PDF.

How to check certification

Use of the above products or the free plug-in that Enfocus offer. It can be used with both Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader.

Links & stuff

A large collection of Certified PDF profiles can be found at www.certifiedpdf.net.