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How do I convert a file into PDF/A format?

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15 replies

by n00bst4r23

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Hi,

we use Adobe Acrobat 8.0 standard at our office. I am wondering how can we convert a particular file into PDF/A format using Adobe Acrobat? What's the best software to do this

15 replies

by oldbaritone

"how can we convert a particular file into PDF/A format using Adobe Acrobat? What's the best software to do this"

uhhh... Adobe Acrobat

There are other programs that could do it, but if you have Acrobat, why use anything else?

by n00bst4r23

But that doesn't still answer the question - how do you use Adobe Acrobat to convert an ordinary Word document into PDF/A file?

by pshiflet-24

Adobe Acrobat should install a PDF printer driver so you can open the Word document, go to file -> print and select the PDF printer/converter. It will then ask for a file location/name to save the output file as. That, in a nut shell, is one way you can convert a file to a pdf. I hope that helps.

by oldbaritone

Open Acrobat

File ... Create PDF ... From File ...
and choose the Word document.

(Acrobat does its thing)

File ... Save As ... PDF
and give it a name.

by tobif

At least in earlier editions, I believe the virtual printer with Adobe Acrobat was named Distiller.

I'm a happy user of PDF redirect, but if you do have Acrobat, then you don't need to look further.

by n00bst4r23

Thanks!

I saw that Print2PDF also does the same thing where when you save a file as PDF, it will ask you what profile you want to save it as, and then you can select PDF/A from that profile list. My main questions are:

1) When we convert a file into PDF using Adobe Acrobat (following the instructions posted above), does it save the file in PDF/A format or is it simple PDF?

2) How would I know if a file is in PDF/A format?

3) Whether Adobe Acrobat 8 has the same feature or functionality where it saves file into PDF/A format (or profile).

by oldbaritone

Acrobat 8 will save in PDF 1.7 by default.

Change the option in the Distiller to save in v5 format.

by tobif

I just did some reading about pdf/a.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/A)
Must admit, I wasn't aware of the archiving format.
Now, since I don't have Acrobat handy, I can't check the details, but it should be able to do this, starting with Acrobat 8.

Do "Save As", and find the format you need.
One particular detail of the pdf archiving format is that it always should include the fonts used in the document.

Earlier Acrobat versions can save documents in a format which more or less resemble pdf/a, but they will lack some required metadata.

EditAdd: By the way, the linked page above contains a list of software, capable of converting different files into pdf/a.

by pshiflet-24

Just checked a machine w/ Acrobat 8 to verify a few things. The printer/converter/Distiller is labeled (at least on our machines) as AdobePDF. To convert to a PDF/A instead of a simple PDF when printing to it, select Printing Preferences and modify the output format to PDF/A-1b. I hope that helps.

by kapil.ahuja

you can use cute pdf writer, just download and install

Thanks
Kapil Ahuja

by oldbaritone

"using Adobe Acrobat."

Yes, there are many free 3rd-party products. But the original question was specific about using Adobe.

by n00bst4r23

Thanks everyone for the helpful posts. I now can save a document into PDF/A format.

But one last q. - I saved a word document into PDF/A format and it looks exactly like any ordinary PDF document. Is there a way to tell the difference between standard PDF from PDF/A file?

by pshiflet-24

If you open the file in Adobe reader you can go to File, Document Properties and on the description tab it will show as PDF version 1.4 (Acrobat 5.x). That pdf version (1.4) is (essentially) PDF/A. That is one way to identify them.

by peterpatrickgo

Actually the Acrobat is a little bit complicated for us to manage, if just for creating pdf files, why not just copy the contents in the word 2007 or above to save as PDF format.
And other PDF converters could also help us on such issue, for example, the nitro pdf, nemo pdf.

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