Question

Upload & Convert documents to PDF/A

Laserfiche Capture Integrations

Updated December 3, 2013

asked on November 25, 2013

I have a client that needs to store archival copies of Office documents in PDF/A format. Is there a way in Laserfiche to convert office docs to PDF/A in a batch? We suggested that they convert the documents prior to upload using the Adobe Acrobat Pro batch conversion tool and then uploading to Laserfiche, but they prefer a more automated method.

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Answer

APPROVED ANSWER

replied on December 2, 2013

There's no way to do this in Laserfiche, but it's possible to write a program using Office Automation to have Word convert the document to a PDF/A file. MS Word itself generally does the best job of converting Word files to PDF and PDF/A.

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replied on December 3, 2013

Michael,

We've come to the same conclusion and we're currently using the MS Office API to write a program to accomplish this task. Word and PowerPoint are fairly straightforward, its Excel that is the problem child. I'll update this thread with our results once we have completed development.

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replied on November 25, 2013 • Show version history

This may be a bit messy but if you use Snapshot to print the Word documents to Laserfiche as tiff, you can use Workflow to export the document as PDF then import and overwrite tiff rendition. With the SDK and the "PdfConformance" option, the process could work something like this:

User open Word Document
User prints to Snapshot, creating a new TIFF document in the "Convert to PDF/A" folder.
Workflow pick up the TIFF, converts it to PDF/A then overwrites the TIFF with the new PDF/A

Another option:

User open Word Document
User prints to Snapshot, creating a new TIFF document in the "Convert to PDF/A" folder.
User then selects a batch of TIFF documents and runs the "Convert to PDF/A" business process
Workflow processes each TIFF, converts them to PDF/A then overwrites the TIFFs with the new PDF/As

-Ben

(slight edit for clarity made after Zaheer's reply)

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replied on November 25, 2013

Ben,

Thanks for the suggestion. Since the client specified PDF/A (ISO Archival format) I'm reluctant to convert to regular PDF first. Also, creating TIFF images from these documents in some cases will be much larger than a PDF/A file.

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replied on November 25, 2013

Hi Zaheer,

I didn't explain myself very well. In the above processes, PDF/A is used, there is no conversion to standard PDF along the way.

Regarding the TIFF-->PDF/A size issue. That's a fair comment but it might be worth testing if the requirement is strong enough.

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replied on November 26, 2013 • Show version history

Miruna, Laserfiche 9.0.3 export options and SDK claim that PDF/A conversion is an option. I confirmed by Acrobat Reader. However, I've never seen you get anything wrong before, so perhaps we're using the word "conversion" differently...

At any rate, here is the SDK to convert a TIFF to PDF/A:

oDocInfo.Lock(Laserfiche.RepositoryAccess.LockType.Exclusive)
oPageSet = oDocInfo.AllPages
oPDFExportOpts = Laserfiche.DocumentServices.PdfExportOptions.PdfAConformance
oPDFA_MemStream.Seek(0, 0)
oDocExporter.ExportPdf(oDocInfo, oPageSet, oPDFExportOpts, oPDFA_MemStream)
oPDFA_MemStream.Flush()
oPDFA_MemStream.Seek(0, 0)
oDocImporter.Document = oDocInfo
oDocImporter.ImportEdoc("application/pdf", oPDFA_MemStream)
oDocImporter.Document.Extension = "pdf"
oDocInfo.DeletePages(oPageSet) '(optional step)
oDocImporter.Document.Save()
oDocInfo.Unlock()

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replied on November 25, 2013

There is no conversion to PDF/A in Laserfiche.

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replied on November 25, 2013

Miruna,

The PDFExport.PdfOptions.PdfConformance option for PDF/A doesn't work any more then? It did under 8.3.

(I'll confirm the code when back on my work computer and test again)

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replied on November 26, 2013

Sorry about that, Ben, I was looking at the file types list in the Client and missed the checkbox labeled "When generating PDFs from pages, create PDF/A-1b".

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replied on November 25, 2013

Dear Zaheer

This option is available in MS-Office to convert word document to PDF/A option .

follow the following steps.

1. Open Document to MS-Word (2007,2010,..)

2. Save as PDF or XPS

3. Save as window click on Option

4.option window go to PDF option and select "ISO 19005-1 compliant(PDF/A)"

5. word document will convert to PDF/A format.

Best Regards

Mazahir Naya

pdf-a.png (111.96 KB)

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replied on November 26, 2013

Mazahir,

Thank you for the reply, however we need an automated process to batch convert the documents, as there may be hundreds of files that need to be converted.

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