Generate PDF/A- and PDF/X-compliant PDFs

Report · Jul 14, 2020

PDF is one of the most common formats to share your technical and marketing content. There are various industry standards for creating PDF and these standards define the purpose and usage of PDF. Some of the most common PDF standards are:

PDF/X: is used for graphics exchange and printing-related requirements.
PDF/E: is used for interactive exchange of engineering documents.
PDF/A: is used for long-term archiving of electronic documents.

Depending on your organizational requirements, you can define a custom standard to create PDFs. These standards are created in the form of a .joboptions file.

The latest release of FrameMaker allows you to use your own custom standard or the predefined standards to create PDF/A or PDF/X-compliant PDFs. The whole process involves copying your .joboptions file to a specific location. Thereafter, FrameMaker does the job of publishing your document using the settings defined in the .joboptions file.

For more information, see PDF settings.

See a video on Generating PDF/A- and PDF/X-compliant PDFs

Report · Feb 17, 2023

Hello, I installed FM 2022 on 3 different Windows 10 machines. None of them is able to generate a highend PDF/X4 File. I copied the joboptions like described in the video Generating PDF/A- and PDF/X-compliant PDFs but that won´t work.
Maybe its important, that no other adobe application is on those 3 windows 10 machines.

For me it seemed like a error in the PDF Engine inside FM 2022; that I was told it´s working as good as the machine inside InDesign.

I was thinking, that FM 2022 don´t need any kind of "classic" PDF Machines like Adobe Acrobat Destiller anymore. Is this righth?

Thanks for your help.

Report · Feb 17, 2023

No Kuldip, FrameMaker does not generate compliant PDF/A files. This has been reported and replicated by Stefan:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/framemaker-discussions/pdf-a-1b-not-compliant/m-p/12584244

You had the bug in FM2020 and it is still here in FM2022.

Mats

(Edit: Noticed now it is a 2020 post. But my finding is still valid.)

Report · Feb 17, 2023

Thanks for your reply, but currently PDF/A is not my problem. For production and quality reason in the offset printing industry for me it´s important to generate PDF files in the PDF/X4 Standard (or the former PDF/X3) that are able to keep RGB/CMYK; Spot Colors and Transparancy as well as crop marks.

But this is NOT possible withe FM 2022 and the PDF Engine inside.
From Adobe InDesign native PDF Files are generated without any problem.

Report · Feb 19, 2023

If you have the full Acrobat product, the Print Production tool has a
⊗ Save as PDF/X
capability, with an option for PDF/X4

Report · Feb 19, 2023

Hi @jens.eilers:

Does this help?

https://www.rockymountaintraining.com/adobe-framemaker-missing-pdf-presets/

~Barb

Report · Feb 20, 2023

Thanks @Bob_Niland - I was expecting a PDF creation inside Framemaker; like its in InDesign. So the additonal Acrobat Licence is converting Postscript to PDF?
Thanks also @Barb Binder - the link from rockymountaintraining is not working. The joboptions will showup like described, but the generated PDF is missing fundamental PDF/X 4 Information.

Report · Feb 20, 2023

jens.eilers: I was expecting a PDF creation inside Framemaker; like its in InDesign.

My impression is that this is Adobe's intent. I used the go-dig-up joboptions to publish a PDF/A-2b work. That appeared to work.

re: So the additonal Acrobat Licence is converting Postscript to PDF?

No, that's just a work-around where some app doesn't generate suitable /X4 itself. Full Acrobat probably doesn't care if it's opening a .ps file or a PDF, and can then re-save it as /X4.

re: …but the generated PDF is missing fundamental PDF/X 4 Information.

You might enumerate the issues in case anyone has other work-arounds. For example, you seek spot color support. I've never fully understood how that is expected to appear in the workflow (other than as a yellow sticky note on the CDR). FM does not appear to preserve color names (library or user-assigned) in .ps output, so it seem to be a matter of: be sure to use 100% tint, and communicate the short list of primaries:matches to the print shop.

Report · Feb 20, 2023

Re: I used the go-dig-up joboptions to publish a PDF/A-2b work. That appeared to work.

Note that Acrobat claims that pdf/a files from FM are valid upon opening them, but when analyzing them in Acrobat's built-in Preflight tool, they are not valid (specifically with regard to XMP, which Stefan could confirm when I reported the bug). Just tested with the pdf/a-2b joboptions file and it is not valid in FM2022/17.0.1.305. See enclosed.

Mats

Report · Feb 21, 2023

Barb's link works for me no problem.

Report · Feb 21, 2023

Hey Jeff:

The RMT site sometimes undergoes targeted attacks (why?) and the ISP will shut down access from certain countries until it subsides, but that was not the case this week. I chatted further with Jens offline to check and learned that he could follow the instructions on the post, but that the job option file provided by Adobe did not meet the stated PDF/X-4 standard. Sorry, I should have come back to clarify.

~Barb