Solid Documents Blog

Macworld reviews Solid PDF to Word for Mac

2011-10-13T17:09:00.000-07:00

Great little article about our Mac software product (Solid PDF to Word for Mac) on Macworld:

How to convert PDFs to Word (and other formats)

Thanks Kirk McElhearn for the review!

Securing your PDF Content

2011-07-13T17:43:00.000-07:00

PDF files can contain information with varying levels of sensitivity.

You may have posters, flyers, calendars, etc. that you wish everyone to open, print and use as needed. Or you may have documents that only a few key individuals should be able to open. You may also have files that you want people to be able to view, but not change using a PDF editor (invoices or banking statements come to mind, as you don't want people to remove a couple zeros from a bill you sent them).

PDF files can be secured easily, restricting the options of most users. Please note that no encryption technology [wikipedia.org] is perfect, and there is software available that people can use to illicitly crack PDF files. The steps below can make it much harder for people to open or alter your documents, but they will not make it impossible.

This guide assumes that you have Solid Converter PDF installed. If you have not purchased the program, you can download a free 15 day trial.

1. Open the document you wish to convert to PDF and go into File Print and select the Solid Converter PDF printer driver and click OK.

Below is an example window of what this looks like in Microsoft Word:

2. In the window that appears, select the name and location of your PDF file, check "Prompt for Document Properties" and click Create:

You can now setup Security, Document Information and View Preferences. We will only talk about security in this post.

3. First, determine if you need to prevent someone from opening your new PDF file without a password, or doing something with the PDF without a password (print, edit, extract contents, etc).

- If you need to do the former, check "Require user password to open the document" and enter a user password. Anyone who wants to open the PDF file in Adobe Reader will need this password.

- If you need to do the latter, check "Use owner password to restrict printing, editing and extraction". Next, enter an owner password and uncheck the items that you don't want people to do.

You can restrict:

Printing (printing the document to a paper printer, for example).

Editing of contents (changing the PDF file using a PDF editor).

Copying and extraction of contents (to prevent copy/pasting from the PDF file, or using a program to convert the PDF to DOC).

Adding or editing of comments.

4. Finally, you can set the encryption level at the top of the window. If you select either password option it will automatically default to "High (128-bit RC4)". Opening this kind of file requires Adobe Reader 5.0 or higher.

If you want to apply a stronger encryption method, select the drop down menu next to Encryption Level and select "High (128-bit AES) or High (256-bit AES)". This requires that viewers of the file have Adobe Reader 7.x or higher installed (you may download the latest Adobe Reader for free [adobe.com]).

Finally, you can select a weak encryption method (40-bit RC4), but we don't recommend this, unless you have to make the PDF file display in Adobe Acrobat 3 or 4.

5. Once you've setup how you want to secure the PDF file, click OK and the file will be created.

PDF: Electronic Recycling

2011-05-16T16:34:00.000-07:00

Did you know that PDF files are environmentally friendly? Not only do they save trees and time by being secure electronic documents rather than printed papers cluttering up the desk, but they can be recycled and reused!

With tools such as Solid Converter PDF and Solid PDF Tools, you can easily extract and reuse content from PDF files that you or others have created. This includes being able to extract tables to Microsoft Excel, convert the content to Microsoft Word or extract images to a separate file.

Don't need to recycle the whole PDF file? You can also extract single pages into a new PDF file or selectively extract images and/or text into Word or Excel.

Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI) can be used with 2010

2011-02-17T16:50:00.000-08:00

Did you upgrade your Microsoft Office ® software from 2007 to 2010 and find that our OCR didn't work like it used to?

Fact: Solid Documents uses the Microsoft Office ® MODI API to recover text from scanned documents. When Microsoft Office 2010 was released we found that Microsoft had removed MODI from their Office suite. We went looking for why they did this and found it is because MODI produces .tif files which violate the TIFF standard and are usable only by the Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI) products.

Tip: Since our software creates PDF and not TIF, and only uses the character recognition in MODI, you can still use MODI from Office 2007 with your Office 2010!

Here's how:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982760

How to use MODI in 2007 Office together with Office 2010

To use MODI in 2007 together with Office 2010, use one of the following methods:

If you do not have 2007 Office system installed on a computer that has Office 2010 installed, you can install only MODI from the 2007 Office system setup. To do this, follow these steps:

Start the 2007 Office setup process.
Click Customize.
On the Installation Options tab, select Not Available for all items except for the items under Microsoft Office Document Imaging, and then click Install Now.
Click Close.

If you perform a standard upgrade to Office 2010 from 2007 Office, MODI will be removed together with 2007 Office. Therefore, to keep MODI you have to keep the 2007 Office installation. To do this, follow these steps:

Start the Office 2010 setup process.
Click to select the I accept the terms of this agreement check box, and then click Continue.
Click Customize.
On the Upgrade tab, click the Keep all previous versions option, and then click Install Now.
Click Close.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_Document_Imaging

Alternatives to MODI for Office 2010 Users

If running Office 2010 which lacks MODI, there are these alternatives (among others):

Follow Microsoft's suggestions which includes an installation of only the MODI software from Microsoft Office 2007. (This installation process might also work with earlier versions of Office): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982760
Install the Alterna-TIFF viewer: either ActiveX control (for IE) or browser plug-in (for other browsers): http://www.alternatiff.com/
Install Black Ice's TIFF Viewer and plug-in: http://www.blackice.com/TIFFViewer.htm
Install Cartesian Product's CPC viewer: either CPC View ax (ActiveX for IE) or CPC Lite pi (plug-in for other browsers): http://www.cartesianinc.com/Products/CPCLite/

Conversion and Export to Office Open XML Formats

2011-02-09T11:17:00.000-08:00

Solid Converter® v7 and Solid PDF Tools Supports Office Open XML

With the support of Office Open XML your application choices for viewing and using your converted content just got richer! Not only is your output more flexible, you don’t need Microsoft ® Word to get it! The stated goal of the Office Open XML standard is to facilitate extensibility and interoperability by enabling implementations by multiple vendors and on multiple platforms.

The Office Open XML file formats were standardized between December 2006 and November 2008. Starting with Microsoft Office 2007, the Office Open XML file formats have become the default file format of Microsoft Office. The ability to read and write Office Open XML format however, is not limited to Microsoft Office; other office products are also able to read and write this format. Other office products that offer import support for the Office Open XML formats include TextEdit (included with Mac OS X), iWork, IBM Lotus Notes, WordPerfect, and Google Docs just to name a few.

An Office Open XML file is a ZIP-compatible OPC package containing XML documents and other resources. That is, one can see the contents of an OOXML file, for example by renaming it to a .zip file and opening it with any zip tool. The actual .xml files can then be viewed in a web browser or a plain text editor.

Sources for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_XML
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML

Solid Converter PDF v7 Released

2010-12-14T15:10:00.001-08:00

We have released version 7 of Solid Converter® PDF (for Windows). Lots of new features and improvements.

Solid Converter PDF helps you improve, create and convert PDFs into Word and Excel as well as other file formats, resulting in accurate, high quality documents that are easy to reuse. Enhanced features include the ability to: convert PDF files into .docx, .xlsx or .pptx formats without requiring Microsoft® Office®, table improvements, recover text markup, and extract data from PDF files to .CSV files. It includes 256 AES encryption, selective conversion and more.

Check out all the features of Solid Converter PDF here. Read the press release.

By the way, we have also updated Solid PDF Tools, Solid PDF Creator Plus and Solid PDF Creator to version 7.

Adobe Licenses Solid Documents Technology for Acrobat X

2010-11-15T08:22:00.000-08:00

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Adobe) has licensed Solid Framework SDK for Adobe® Acrobat® X. Adobe Acrobat X takes advantage of Solid Documents’ PDF to Word and Excel conversion capabilities, allowing Acrobat X users to easily reuse and repurpose PDF content.

Read the press release here.

Recent rave reviews for Solid Framework’s core conversion features in the new Adobe Acrobat X:

Ed Mendelson of PC Magazine:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370981,00.asp

Darryl K. Taft of eWeek:
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Adobe-Acrobat-X-10-Reasons-to-Move-to-It-Now-179555/

Alan Stafford of PC World:
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/707770/review/acrobat_x_pro.html

PDF for Lawyers:
http://www.pdfforlawyers.com/2010/10/improved-export-to-word-in-acrobat-x.html
http://www.pdfforlawyers.com/2010/10/adobe-announces-acrobat-10-my-quick-review.html

Steven Kovach of Business Insider:
http://www.businessinsider.com/hands-on-with-adobe-acrobat-x-pro-2010-11

Quick editing tips - Text from PDF into Word

2010-08-04T16:30:00.000-07:00

Adobe Reader and Microsoft Word have different methods for displaying text within their files. Font sizes have much finer granularity in Acrobat then in Word for example. Solid Converter PDF and Solid PDF Tools have to make choices when converting PDF text into Word text so that the document formatting and layout are maintained. This might mean adjusting the character spacing to help make it “fit” in Word.

If you are seeing unequal spacing in your document you can quickly do the following:

1. Select all text
2. Choose Format Font Character Spacing and select 100%.

New 7.0 of Solid Framework Released

2010-07-28T14:44:00.000-07:00

Newest version enhances conversion and reconstruction features; Gives developers power to build applications for the creation, modification and conversion of PDF files within 64-bit native environment.

See full press release here.

Best Practices for Converting PDF Files

2010-06-23T13:34:00.000-07:00

Question: I have content I need to repurpose that is held captive in a PDF file. What do I do?
Answer: Solid Converter® PDF and Solid PDF Tools offer different options for PDF to Word conversion because one size does not fit all. There are different options that can be used to convert. Here’s how to get the best conversion for what you need.

Conversion options available in Solid PDF Tools and Solid Converter PDF include:

Flowing - recovers page layout, columns, formatting, graphics and preserve text flow
Exact - recovers exact page presentation using text boxes in Microsoft Word
Continuous - detects layout and columns but only recovers formatting, graphics and text.

When should you use each? We get asked this question a lot and we usually followup with a question:

"What are you intending to do with the Word document (recovered PDF content) once you have converted it? Read on to see how to choose the best conversion method for your repurposing task at hand.

Flowing Mode:

Why are there page breaks in Flowing mode?

Word documents do not have pages in the same sense as PDF files. They are re-paginated by Word whenever the document is loaded and the page breaks can shift depending on all sorts of things (like local fonts, paper size, print margin changes, etc). Software has to balance customer first impression (they expect WYSIWYG) with edit-ability. It is exceptionally hard to get layout in Word that matches that in PDF perfectly. Word is limited in many ways: font sizes only to the nearest half point and less than ideal kerning/spacing. We use all sorts of techniques to make the layout match. Without "page breaks" a single minor layout error early in a document will cascade from page to page and mess up all subsequent pages in the document. This comes back to the question "what are you intending to do with the Word document?" Read on ...

Exact Mode:

Exact mode is more than just "converting the PDF into text boxes". We do great paragraph-level reconstruction so that we combine PDF text chunks into larger logical text units that are editable at a paragraph level, in text boxes. This mode is the layout engine behind our new PDF to PowerPoint converter. Here is a perfect case where hard page breaks (between slides) make a lot of sense and exact mode is more desirable than flowing or continuous. If you take a PDF presentation and convert to PowerPoint, we use exact mode behind the scenes and the results are fantastic. However, try taking a 200 page legal contract that's a PDF and convert it to PowerPoint: what would you expect the PowerPoint slideshow to look like? Exactly! A mess. "What are you intending to do with the Word document?"

Continuous Mode:

What about HTML? When converting from PDF to HTML we automatically use our continuous reconstruction mode and set the Header and Footer option to detect and remove headers and footers. This will take multi-column complex PDF documents and re-flow them into a single continuous HTML document. There are no page breaks in HTML and the format is intended to re-flow correctly when the width of the viewer varies. Breaking the content up with the headers and footers from the print (PDF) version would be messy and annoying. As far as we're concerned, this is the purest form of reconstruction for when the user is trying to re-purpose a large document with tons of text. In this use case, layout is very rarely important and will be re-applied in with a new style template at some point in the future once the text has been edited or re-purposed. SDL's translation software (Trados) uses Solid Framework in continuous reconstruction mode (for PDF to Word) when they are translating PDF files: there is no point in WYSIWYG layout since the German version will not be the same length sentences as the English anyway. Re-styling and layout comes after re-purposing.

Having said that, we need to remember that continuous is not plain text either: inline formatting, tables, images, etc. all need to be preserved. The software has two goals: close to perfect reading order of the text and preserve as much inline formatting and content as possible while removing page artifacts (like headers and footers).

This brings us back to flowing mode. We see this mode used most effectively for medium size documents where the re-purposing is light. In other words the user wants to do a lot more than simple text touch-up but not as much as translating the entire document. Editing will cause flow "ripples" when the new text is shorter or longer than the old. These layout issues can be mitigated manually in small documents (say, less than 20 pages) while retaining most of the layout as-is. Delete the odd page break for overflow. Shrink an image to make some space. However, for larger documents, there is no magic that allows you to heavily edit while retaining more complex layout. There usually is just not enough information in the PDF to get DTP-level structure in Word (which is not great for DTP anyway).

What is Non-Standard Encoding?

2010-06-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

Let's start by looking at what standard encoding is and how it works.

Each English alphabetical and numerical character A, B, C or 1, 2, 3 and so on has a corresponding ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) Decimal or Hexadecimal code associated with it. Microsoft Word, Notepad and plain text editors use ASCII to display the desired characters.

ASCII code is the numerical representation of a character such as 'a' 'A' or '@' and can also be an action as shown in the chart below. ASCII-formatted text contains no font formatting information or font decoration such as bold or italic.

Example:

The string 'Solid Documents' in ASCII is equivalent to:

Decimal Value - 83 111 108 105 100 NULL 68 111 99 117 109 101 110 116 115

Hexadecimal value - 53 6F 6C 69 64 1 44 6F 63 75 6D 65 6E 74 73

Using the chart below, you can find the referenced values in decimal and hexadecimal for the example strings above. This table maps the value to the character that will display when these values are used.

Does this mean that a PDF document uses the same codes? Actually a PDF document contains neither decoration denoting fonts, boldface, italics nor plain text. Rather a PDF document contains 'Glyphs' or a collection of glyphs that display as the text you see. Commonly, each Glyph will also contain its own custom type of encoding for the letter 'C' or 'b' for example different from an ASCII or Unicode value.

In most cases, when standard encoding is used, each Glyph or collection will also contain the associated values or ASCII code needed to map and display the correct character during a conversion to Microsoft Word as shown in an example below.

Glyph name;Unicode scalar value

Aring;00C5
Aringacute;01FA
Aringbelow;1E00
Aringsmall;F7E5
Asmall;F761
Atilde;00C3

Non-Standard Encoding

Unfortunately there are no rules for PDF creation utilities to require the use of standard encoding, like ASCII, standard glyph names or mapping of Glyph names to ASCII codes.

While the PDF may appear fine when viewed in Adobe Reader or Acrobat, the document actually lacks necessary encoding needed to convert successfully to Microsoft Word. For a better understanding please note the example below:

Notice the PDF looks great. How you can tell if a PDF has standard encoding or not, is to copy and paste the text from the PDF to Word - if Word can display the correct character then it is encoded, if not, it is non-standard encoding.

This is known as Non Standard Encoding (NSE).

While the created PDF document may render and look OK, the standard encoded associations to the Hexadecimal or Decimal values do not exist in the document making it impossible for Microsoft Word to map the values, associate and display the correct characters. You may have seen these results while working with a document created with low quality PDF creation tools or in a poorly scanned document.

So what happens when non standard encoding exists in a PDF document? It is then up to software such as Solid Converter PDF or Solid PDF Tools to determine and accurately recreate each character in Word. When NSE is detected the conversion engine of Solid Converter PDF and Solid PDF Tools work to study each character individually in a process of rebuilding the character or characters in order to supply Microsoft Word with the necessary encoding to display each character correctly. This process requires a high degree of recognition and reconstruction accuracy.

To continually study and improve our conversion engine, Solid Documents tests thousands of PDF files in a process using Solid Framework SDK to automate a rich set of conversion tests across a wide spectrum of PDF files in order to insure high quality and accurate conversion software.

With nearly decade of success in delivering best-in-class document reconstruction and archiving software, Solid Documents provides a technically sound and innovative document reconstruction software solution for standard as well as non-standard encoded PDF files.

The Initial Reviews are In...Solid PDF to Word for Mac is

2010-04-30T10:45:00.000-07:00

We’re so excited about the new release of Solid PDF to Word for Mac that we are giving the first 500 people a 25% discount to download and purchase Solid PDF to Word for Mac. Thanks for the overwhelming response! Note, as of May 3rd, this special offer has ended.

But don’t take our word for it. Listen to what others have to say…. and download your copy today!

Stephen Withers from ITWire: Solid PDF to Word - a better PDF converter?
Michael Dougherty from Bright Hub: Solid PDF to Word Review
David Chartier from Macworld: Solid PDF to Word converter debuts for Mac
Arafat Hossian Piyada from Worthy Tips: Solid PDF to Word converter (Mac)

Customer feedback:
"I read about this product at an online Mac news site. After downloading and trying the demo, I was amazed at the accuracy and speed of conversion. It took me just a moment to go back to your site and buy a license. The 25% early special was icing on the cake. It will no doubt be an application I use often and your software will become an important part of my workflow in graphic design. Great work!"

Ken Gee

- - -

"Wow! I took a PowerPoint file made on a Windows PC converted it to PowerPoint on the Mac then converted it to a PDF for my iPad and then took that PDF and converted it to a Word file for my Mac. Flawless conversion!!! This really helps with getting files on your iPad that you can edit. Bravo!"

Michael M. Cohen
Diablo Valley Macintosh User Group

Solid PDF to Word for Mac vs. Apple Automator App (Part 2)

2010-04-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

Should PDF converters respect PDF security? Solid Documents says yes. Adobe PDF Reference states that anyone is free to use the PDF standard as long as they abide by PDF security settings. Solid PDF to Word for Mac respects all PDF security settings as do all Solid Documents products.

We tried two simple tests with the Apple Automator application (PDFtoRTF). First we tried to push a user password protected file through our Automator PDF app. The tool looked like it created a RTF file from the PDF but then we could not open the file with EditText or Pages (error message: The document x could not be opened.)

We then tried a owner password protected file that did not restrict copying, but did have a password. The automator application created a RTF file but the data in the file is garbage. It looks like it could not un-encrypt the file.

PDF file with some text

RTF file created by Apple Automator app (PDFtoRTF)

Solid PDF to Word for Mac works with user and owner passwords in the following way:

1) if the PDF file has an user password then the program will prompt for you to enter the password before converting.
2) if the PDF file has an owner password but there are no restrictions for copying content then the program will convert the file without asking for a password.
3) if the PDF file has an owner password and copying is restricted then Solid PDF to Word will prompt for the password before converting the file.

This behavior is how PDF file security is meant to function. All PDF users should be happy with software that respects their PDF security settings. Bypassing security violates the PDF standard.

Solid PDF to Word for Mac vs. Apple Automator App

2010-04-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

Does Apple OS X provide a method for converting PDF files into other formats? Sort of. You can write an automator application to convert PDF files into RTF documents but you can only extract the text. No formatting is preserved, no tables and no images. If you just need text then the automator application can deliver text. Some of the time.

In our experience the automator application can only handle very simple PDF files. It closes with unexpected errors when offered PDF files with non-standard encoding (very common issue with PDF files), it creates 0 byte files for other PDFs that it cannot convert and generally didnʼt perform robustly to provide useful results.

The following pages show the original PDF and the conversion with Solid PDF to Word for Mac and Appleʼs extract text functionality.

This test file has great formatting elements to demonstrate why you want to use Solid PDF to Word for Mac. Graphics, columns, lines, bullet lists and footers are included.

You can easily see the difference in the conversion!

Tables are created as tables in Word ... not as a text!

Now Available! Solid PDF to Word for Mac

2010-04-27T15:16:00.000-07:00

It's here... Now re-purposing and reusing documents becomes quicker and easier for Mac users. Easily convert PDF to Microsoft Word, Excel, and more with Solid PDF to Word for Mac.

Windows users have been using our award-winning PDF to Word conversion utility for years. Now anyone, regardless of platform, can easily convert PDF files into other editable content.

Solid PDF to Word for Mac converts PDF files into Microsoft® Word (.docx), iWork Pages (.pages), Rich Text Format (.rtf), or plain text files (.txt). Extract data to Excel (.xlsx and .csv). Reflow documents into continuous HTML (.htm) format.

System requirements
Mac computer with Intel processor
Mac OS X v10.5 or later
150MB of available hard disk space
iWork Pages required to create .pages files from .docx documents

Pricing and Availability
For pricing information and to immediately download Solid PDF to Word for Mac, visit: http://www.mac-pdf-converter.com/

Save 25%! (Limited Time Offer)
Be one of the first to download and purchase Solid PDF to Word for Mac. We're offering the first 500 people a 25% discount (normally $79.95, limited number for $59.95). Thanks for the overwhelming response! Note, as of May 3rd, this special offer has ended.

Fonts and PDF

2010-03-29T17:59:00.000-07:00

Fonts come in many different shapes and sizes. Serif, san serif, decorative, minimalist – you want to ensure that the fonts you use in your document show up at the other end. So why does your customer not see the font that you used in the source document and that shows in the PDF file on your computer?

When you use these popular fonts - Times New Roman (Times), Courier New (Courier), Arial (Helvetica), Symbol and Zapf Dingbats - you are pretty much guaranteed that the computer that is viewing the PDF file will have the font to see the file just like you created it or one that is a very good substitute.

If you use fonts other than these standard built in PDF fonts then you need to make sure that you embed the font within the PDF file. An easy way to embed fonts is to convert from PDF to PDF/A. This ensures that your PDF will be rendered on different computers and future operating systems exactly as it looks on your computer today.

Note: the standard built-in fonts are only reliable for Western European languages.

Color and PDF

2010-03-29T16:55:00.000-07:00

Why don’t my colors always match from computer to computer or when they are printed? How can I choose colors to get the best match for the multiple purposes required?

Image by DesignWorks

There are a variety of color models that are used to show colors. No computer monitor or printer can create all the color variations that are visible to the human eye. Some color models are device-independent and some are device-dependent (RGB for monitors, CMYK for printing, etc). Artificial color has two other issues:

1) completeness (see gamut image above) and
2) transformation (color plane is infinite but colors are typically 24 bit integers so conversions are approximate).

Color matching problems occur when you try to display or print using a solution that is not compatible across different devices. For example, RGB (red, green, blue) color systems are for computer screens. This color system doesn’t always print with the same tones as what you see on the screen because RGB was not intended for printing.

To solve this problem, color management systems (CMS) have been created. A color management system translates colors using color profiles. Color profiles tell the CMS how a particular device sees color. Adobe uses ICC profiles (International Color Consortium) as the cross-platform standard. Your source documents should take these color profiles into consideration so that the PDF output will contain the device independent color you intend.

You may not have the tools to control exact color reproduction, but you can easily be certain that the people viewing your PDF see exactly the same colors that you see using a stricter standard than PDF. Solid PDF Tools can convert PDF files to PDF/A-1b and this format guarantees consistent color representation. Converting to PDF/A may change your colors due to the standard, so you should review the final result before distributing.

What makes it a PDF?

2010-03-10T15:25:00.000-08:00

Often people will ask "What is a PDF file?" or "How do you View a PDF File?". These lead to a couple of basic answers.

1. A PDF file is a "Portable Document Format (PDF), developed by Adobe Systems, Inc. PDF files maintain the original document formatting for both printing and viewing on a multiple computing platforms, including Windows, UNIX and Mac."

2. In order to view a PDF, you need a viewer , either created by Adobe, and available for free download or you can use a viewer created by someone else, such as Foxit , Sumatra, or eXpert.

You can create a PDF file using software designed for this purpose, such as Solid PDF Creator V6, Solid PDF Creator Plus V6, Solid Converter PDF V6 or Solid PDF Tools V6.

In order to be a "PDF" file, the file must be compliant with standards set by Adobe and the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) as set forth by ISO 32000. According to Adobe: "ISO 32000 will continue to be developed with the objective of protecting the integrity and longevity of PDF, providing an open standard for the more than one billion PDF files in existence today."

What does this mean for you?

This means that if you have a file stored on your computer or on a CD today in PDF format, you should be able to view it 10, 20, or more years down the road, exactly as it is. To further ensure this happens, the PDF/A format was also created.

Security

Not only are PDF files a universal format, but they can have security added so that they can be protected from viewing, printing, copying, editing, etc. There are several levels of encryption available for protecting files. Adobe Acrobat and all of the Solid Documents products allow you to apply custom security settings in your files.

But what about other options? Recently DRM (Digital Rights Management)has become a buzzword.

According to Adobe, DRM Feature(s)” means any control and/or restriction on a PDF document that may include, but not be limited to, access rights, viewing, cutting, copying, pasting, printing, screen capturing, modifying, editing, watermarking, and/or document auditing (anonymous or authenticated), as expressly set forth in the Application.

It is important to be aware that while Adobe continues working with some partners to implement and improve DRM to better assist creators and publishers in protecting their works and still meet the industry standards, there are other programs on the market that promise protection and DRM.

Programs such as CopySafe PDF and LockLizard safeguard offer DRM protection over and above the standard PDF Encryption, while promising to maintain the original format and encryption, but they both require a proprietary viewer and change the .pdf extension to a different format, therefore, they are not really PDF files as they these do not meet the PDF standard and cannot be opened in a standard Adobe PDF Viewer.

If you want quick added security for the short term, these may be good options, however what about longevity? Will these proprietary viewers still exist in 20 years from now on new computing platforms yet to be invented or will they become an obsolete file format such as EFax.Com's .efx files. They originally used this format, then switched to PDF as well, but if you had archived copies of your .efx faxes, you could not open them, and sharing them with anyone else who didn't have Efax installed was useless. Only recently, it appears, did they add a converter to make these into PDF files. Luckily, Efax is a profitable enterprise that is unlikely to disappear anytime soon, so if you have .efx files, you will probably still be able to access them or convert them later.

One of the features of PDF is the ability to make your files searchable. In testing the added DRM features of these products, I found that the searchability of the document was compromised.

Claims that these DRM methods are unbreakable is also a fallacy in that they do protect from basic computer hacking, however if the document is viewed on a screen and a photo can be taken of it, then OCR can be used and the document can still be copied or re-created.

A good rule of thumb: If it doesn't have a .PDF extention on the end, it isn't really a PDF file!

Settting PDF Permissions

2010-02-23T10:14:00.000-08:00

Solid Converter PDF v6, Solid PDF Tools v6, Solid PDF Creator Plus v6 and Solid PDF Creator v6 each provide options that allow you to set specific Document Properties that allow you to control who can view, edit and add comments to your PDF documents. You can also Optimize your PDFs, improving the output quality based on their intended use.

Document Information
On mouse-over of the PDF file icon specific document information will be displayed. You can look for this information using search utilities using keywords, allowing you to quickly find relevant documents.

Security
The documents you create are not always intended for the same audience. We make it easy for you to add security settings/password protection so that you can control who can view, print, edit, copy or add comments to your PDFs.

View Settings
Using "View" settings you can specify exactly how you would like your document to be displayed when opened. This feature allows you to give your readers the first impression you want, as well as make your documents easier to read.

Optimization
Optimizing your PDFs allows you to control the output quality of your document based on its intended use. You can reduce the file size of draft documents, or documents you'll display on the Web, or help to ensure professional quality results when printing.

Click for larger image...

Optimize Your PDF Documents

2010-02-10T11:02:00.001-08:00

Solid PDF Tools v6, Solid Converter PDF v6, Solid PDF Creator Plus v6 and Solid PDF Creator v6 each provide compression options that allow you to reduce the size of your PDF files. Optimize your file sizes for presentation on the Web or for print while preserving an appropriate level of quality.

Customize Your PDF Output
Select one of the default output settings, or select "Custom" and click the "Settings" button to customize your documents output settings.

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Image Optimization
PDFs containing multiple images can quickly balloon in size. Using Image Optimization you can control image quality (and file size) throughout your document by specifying DPI and Compression for both color and gray-scale images.

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Font Optimization
You can easily select specific fonts to embed in your document, or fonts that should not be embedded.

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Batch Conversion

2010-01-25T12:34:00.000-08:00

Solid PDF Tools v6 and Solid Converter PDF v6 include batch conversion and creation palettes that allow you to easily convert multiple PDF documents at the same time, or create a new PDF by combining multiple PDF documents. In addition, Solid PDF Tools v6 allows you to work with multiple PDF files, converting them to PDF/A (for long term archival) and validating their compliance with the ISO 19005-1 specification.

Options for batch creation of new PDFs include:
• Combining multiple PDFs into one new PDF
• Using the PDF/A-1b format
• Add Document Properties (Document Information, Page View, Optimization)

Options for batch conversion of PDFs to Word include:
• Layout and Formatting using Flowing, Continuous or Exact modes
• Converting PDF to .doc, .rtf or .xml
• Image Recovery
• Table Detection
• Managing Headers and Footers
• OCR (Optical Text Recognition)

Working with palettes is as simple as browsing your computer to locate the files you'd like to work with and clicking the "Create" or "Convert" button. It really is that easy!

Batch Conversion Using Scripting and the Command Line
You can automate your conversion and creation tasks via scripting. Please visit our developer blog for more details.

Watermarks

2010-01-20T13:08:00.000-08:00

Watermarks communicate context when applied to your PDF documents. Using them can help prevent unwanted distribution or miscommunication between you and your colleagues, or you and your clients.

Solid PDF Tools v6, Solid Converter PDF v6 and Solid PDF Creator Plus v6 each come with a set of pre-defined watermarks that can be modified to meet your needs.

If you don't see a watermark that meets your needs you can create and use your own. All three products allow you to easily create your own custom text stamps (text watermarks), or add image files or PDF images that can be modified and saved for future use.

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Editing Your Watermarks
To edit an existing watermark simply select it from the Watermark Palette and click the "Edit" button. Your selected watermark will appear in the "Edit Watermark" dialog where you can make the required changes.

Applying your watermarks is as simple as drag and drop. Simply select the desired mark and drag it from the palette to your PDF document. This method will apply the watermark to every page of the document. You can also apply watermarks to a select page or a range of pages via the Pages Pane using right-click functionality.

Is Bigger Always Better?

2010-01-07T09:59:00.000-08:00

When you are referring to the size of your hard drive or the dollar amount of your annual bonus, then bigger probably is better, but if you are trying to save space on that hard drive or e-mail a family newsletter with pictures of all the new toys you just bought with your gigantic pay-check, then you probably want to be able to keep the size of your electronic files on the small side.

There are some basic questions you should ask yourself regarding compression of your files.

1. What Am I going to use it for? Is it for the web or print, or just for archival purposes?

Files that you are going to used for print purposes should probably be left alone as you want the best quality , but for the web or just to store them away, you probably don’t need the bloat of extra embedded fonts and high image resolution to get in the way .

2. Do I need to keep my document in full color?

A fast way to reduce the file size is just to remove the color. In many cases, grayscale or monochrome can shrink a swollen file to a more reasonable size.

3. Fonts?

Embedded fonts are placed into PDF files in order to ensure that the file looks the same on all machines and they are carried with the file. These fonts can be heavy and load down your file, especially if you are the only one that will see it.

Scan it! Archive it! Love it!

Let’s say you have a document that you plan to keep indefinitely, but it is scanned and you need to make it smaller. You also want to make it a PDF/A file for archival and perhaps make the text searchable so that you can locate it easier at a later time.

My original file in this case was just 665 kb, but I still want to make it smaller in size for storage/archival purposes.

The first step to getting it ready for archival is converting the file with Solid PDF Tools.

Just converting it to PDF/A with a searchable text layer helped in reducing file size a bit, but the change was minimial.

Next, let’s optimize the document to make it even smaller.

The file size has gone from 664kb to 294KB. That is more than 50% smaller.

The document did lose some quality with the compression, but the information is still preserved and readable/searchable.

I was able to reduce this file even more by changing the grayscale to monochrome and removing the embedded fonts.

Weight reduction nearly 75%! (How is that for the biggest loser?) And I can still read my file!

A picture is worth 1000kb?

What if your document is something that you have created that is heavy in images and you just want to compress the size so that you can share it via email with little loss of quality or you want to store it on your machine as backup documentation for a report you have already completed?

Solid Converter PDF, Solid PDF Tools and Solid PDF Creator Plus make compression easy to do.

Again, just open your document and choose “Optimize PDF” from the file menu.

In this case, I want to send a brochure with text and images to someone who is using a slow internet connection and this 1394 kb file would take a long time to download.

After optimization, the file was reduced to 891 kb.

The file is now 36% smaller, but with barley a noticeable difference in quality, even viewing at 200%.

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But, now what if I want to just store it away for reference purposes? Since this file is one that I just want to store, the images do not need to be in color.

By converting the color images to grayscale, I was able to reduce the file size even more:

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The information does not change, so the images are not of major importance in this case.

File size is now down to 852kb.

Still need it smaller? I can remove the embedded fonts without changing the appearance on my own computer.

594 KB! Nearly a 60% reduction from the original file size with just a few clicks! How is that for efficient calorie burning?

OCR For Search

2010-01-05T10:26:00.000-08:00

Solid PDF Tools allows you to create and apply a searchable text layer to your scanned documents using OCR (Optical Character Recognition). This OCR layer makes your PDF documents easy to index and archive so that you can quickly find what you need, when you need it.

Automatically Apply OCR
When scanning documents to PDF using Solid PDF Tools you can automatically apply a searchable text layer. Scanners with automatic document feeders are supported by Solid PDF Tools and can handle anything from one page to multiple pages depending on your needs.

Apply OCR to Existing Scanned PDF documents
Existing scanned PDF documents can be converted in bulk to searchable PDF/A documents.

Searching the PDF
You can use Solid PDF Tools or applications such as Adobe Reader to search for text in PDF documents. Other applications can index the documents, allowing you to search for text among many archived PDF documents

(Search results as seen in Solid PDF Tools)

Easily Convert TIFF to PDF

2009-12-08T09:48:00.000-08:00

Using Solid PDF Tools v6 you can easily convert legacy scanned TIFF documents into standard PDF documents, or fully searchable and archivable PDF/A-1b documents.

Right-click or Drag and Drop functionality makes it easy to convert TIFF to PDF.