Archive copy (PDF/A)

About Archive copy (PDF/A)

Makes a PDF/A-2b copy for keeping: a colour profile and archive details go inside, and scripts, attached files and any password come out, as the standard asks. The pages stay exactly as they are. If the file uses fonts that are not inside it, the result says so instead of claiming it passes.

How to use it

1. Add the PDFs to archive, unlocking any locked one with its password.
2. Press Make the archive copy.
3. Read the result line: it lists what was taken out and warns about any font missing from the file.
4. Save the copy, and check it with the portal’s own validator if it offers one.

Good to know

PDF/A is meant to look the same when it is opened years from now, in whatever program exists then. To keep that promise, the copy carries a colour profile and its details in the standard’s own form, and drops anything that depends on the world outside the file: scripts, attached files and a password.

Fonts are the one thing that cannot be mended afterwards. If the file uses a font it does not carry inside it, the copy cannot include it either, so the result says how many are missing rather than pretending the copy passes. Save the document again from the program that made it, with fonts embedded, and make the archive copy from that.

Make the archive copy after every other change and before any signature, because signing afterwards keeps the signature intact. If the copy is too big for the upload, compress the original first and then make the archive copy, rather than the other way round.

Questions people ask

Guides

• How to convert a PDF to PDF/A
• How to digitally sign a PDF with a .pfx certificate