PDF PDF Which is right and which is ... Was Re: PDP-11/24 CPU later version

[Paul Birkel]

-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis
Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2017 4:04 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: PDF PDF Which is right and which is ... Was Re: PDP-11/24 CPU
later version

On 02/18/2017 11:24 AM, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote:
> 
> Adobe claims " PDF/A - the ISO standard  for long-term archiving"
>  
> -I  am confused about all the  versions  etc..
> -which are  good  which are   bad? 
> -are there good  programs  for  opening hesitant to open pdf  file?
> - what is a good    freeware   PDF  generator?  / modifier?
> - are older  versions of the reader  better than the newer ones?
> -my HP scanner software makes PDF files  eiher as graphics or as  graphics
with OCR
> -is my  HP scanner making "good"   pdf  files that can be read into the
future?
>  
> Sorry if  I seem  confused on  this... but I  am!

When scanning documents and converting to PDF, I've found that
ghostscript works fine (under Linux).  There's also a separate tiff to
pdf converter available as a package.   Some people use ImageMagick

There are also a number of free online conversion websites; I've used a
couple and they seem to be pretty decent.

--Chuck

-----
http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/software-technology/difference-b
etween-pdf-and-pdf-a/ is a concise description

Summary:

  - PDF/A is a special type of PDF meant for archiving documents
  - PDF/A does not allow audio, video, and executable content while PDF does
  - PDF/A requires that graphics and fonts be embedded into the file while
PDF does not
  - PDF/A does not allow external references while PDF does
  - PDF/A does not allow encryption while PDF does

Those are all good archival properties!  However, it's also R/O.

For my purposes PDF/A is undesirable because I can't:  (1) OCR it.  (2)
Extract pages.  (3) Combine sectioned files into a single document.  (4)
Rotate pages permanently.

It's the R/O part that is "mighty unhelpful" since it precludes basic
document management.  Gotta hope that the archivist made good choices.  But
the choices of an archivist aren't necessarily those of a user with a
day-to-day need to fix stuff :-<.

I can see value for a processing stream that uses a PDF/A intermediary to
ensure the desirable properties listed above (e.g., font embedding) but then
a final save in standard "open" PDF that allow users to accomplish the types
of manipulations that I've listed.

-----
paul