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YinChan
Participant
January 8, 2021
Answered

Need to convert PDF 1.2 to PDF 2.0

  • January 8, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 4687 views

Working at a university. We have hundred of thousands of pages of multipdfs- version 1.2s- that need to be upgraded to I assume PDF 2.0 (the bosses say the old version can't be OCR'ed in Pro).

 

Any idea what I can do at the Action Wizard batch processing level to convert to the new PDF version to do this in the fastest way possible?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Test Screen Name

There really is no wizard or task to do this, because it isn't a thing. You MIGHT be able to find a number of things - such as "optimize PDF" which incidentally edit the PDF and update the version, probably to PDF 1.6. PDF 1.7 is set only if new features are used, and they won't be.

 

Try a few, and see if it solves their problem, before doing any work on automating. 

2 replies

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Test Screen Name
Legend
January 9, 2021

This is nonsense solution. There is no "conversion to latest version" that changes a file; a PDF 1.2 file is also automatically a PDF 1.7 file. You need to look at the specifics of why the files do not OCR, which I think you say is Acrobat Pro. Ppossibly, there is a quality issue with these scanned PDF files. Maybe you can find a file to share with us?

Y
YinChanAuthor
Participant
January 9, 2021

Thank you for your response. They said the quality is fine, they just cannot use older versions in their OCR program. They want me to batch convert the files using Acrobat Pro to prep for their OCR program. I agree the entire premise is nonsensical but there is no way to get through to them. They will not give me permission to share files.

T
Test Screen NameCorrect answer
Legend
January 9, 2021

There really is no wizard or task to do this, because it isn't a thing. You MIGHT be able to find a number of things - such as "optimize PDF" which incidentally edit the PDF and update the version, probably to PDF 1.6. PDF 1.7 is set only if new features are used, and they won't be.

 

Try a few, and see if it solves their problem, before doing any work on automating. 

    Dov Isaacs
    Dov Isaacs
    Legend
    January 9, 2021

    The latest version of PDF supported by Acrobat is PDF 1.7.

     

    There is no way to convert PDF files to PDF 2.0. You can use custom settings in the Save as => Optimized PDF to create a higher level of PDF that 1.2.

     

    But please advise exactly what problem your “bosses” think will be solved by a higher PDF version level. Simply slapping on a higher PDF version number won't solve any underlying problem. Have your “bosses” advise as to exactly what problem they are encountering with the PDF 1.2 files and then maybe we can be of assistance!

     

    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
    Y
    YinChanAuthor
    Participant
    January 9, 2021

    Thank you for the information, Dov.

     

    They claim they could not OCR v 1.2 PDFs using an OCR batch processing program, and asked me to convert the files using Adobe Pro to the latest PDF version. They said they expect the same type of automation to convert the 1.2 versions to the latest version to import into their OCR software.

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