-----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2017 4:04 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: PDF PDF Which is right and which is ... Was Re: PDP-11/24 CPU later version
On 02/18/2017 11:24 AM, couryho...@aol.com wrote: > > Adobe claims " PDF/A - the ISO standard for long-term archiving" > > -I am confused about all the versions etc.. > -which are good which are bad? > -are there good programs for opening hesitant to open pdf file? > - what is a good freeware PDF generator? / modifier? > - are older versions of the reader better than the newer ones? > -my HP scanner software makes PDF files eiher as graphics or as graphics with OCR > -is my HP scanner making "good" pdf files that can be read into the future? > > Sorry if I seem confused on this... but I am! When scanning documents and converting to PDF, I've found that ghostscript works fine (under Linux). There's also a separate tiff to pdf converter available as a package. Some people use ImageMagick There are also a number of free online conversion websites; I've used a couple and they seem to be pretty decent. --Chuck ----- http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/software-technology/difference-b etween-pdf-and-pdf-a/ is a concise description Summary: - PDF/A is a special type of PDF meant for archiving documents - PDF/A does not allow audio, video, and executable content while PDF does - PDF/A requires that graphics and fonts be embedded into the file while PDF does not - PDF/A does not allow external references while PDF does - PDF/A does not allow encryption while PDF does Those are all good archival properties! However, it's also R/O. For my purposes PDF/A is undesirable because I can't: (1) OCR it. (2) Extract pages. (3) Combine sectioned files into a single document. (4) Rotate pages permanently. It's the R/O part that is "mighty unhelpful" since it precludes basic document management. Gotta hope that the archivist made good choices. But the choices of an archivist aren't necessarily those of a user with a day-to-day need to fix stuff :-<. I can see value for a processing stream that uses a PDF/A intermediary to ensure the desirable properties listed above (e.g., font embedding) but then a final save in standard "open" PDF that allow users to accomplish the types of manipulations that I've listed. ----- paul