topic Re: PDF/A format in Product Forum

PDF/A format

avpvdber — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 15:16:37 GMT

We have a robot process which handles PDF files and uploads them to a webapplication.
The application owner had asked us if it is possible to upload the PDF's in PDF/A format because the file size is smaller.

I've looked at the PDF Toolkit but couldn't find anything suitable for this situation.
I can always spy the Adobe Pro application Save As.. option but maybe there is a better solution available. Perhaps with the use of a codestage?

Re: PDF/A format

ewilson — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 19:59:04 GMT

Hello @Pim van den Berg,

What exactly are you trying to do with the PDFs? Do you know which specific release of the PDF/A standard (i.e. PDF/A-1, PDF/A-2, PDF/A-3, or PDF/A-4)? If it's PDF/A-1, you'll probably be fine using most of the PDF related connectors on the DX. If it's any of the later releases of PDF/A you may encounter issues with any of the connectors that use opensource PDF libraries like iTextSharp or PdfSharp. In that case, you're best bet is to probably work with the PDF Toolkit connector as it's based on Adobe's PDF SDK. The downside to it is that it uses Adobe's Document Cloud. They charge a small fee for the service (there is a developer trial available that includes something like 2,000 free pages I believe).

If all you need to do is have the Digital Worker upload the PDF file to a destination then the PDF specification doesn't matter. You can simply use the Utility - HTTP VBO's Http Request Multipart action to do that.

Cheers,
Eric

Re: PDF/A format

avpvdber — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 07:34:46 GMT

Thanks for your quick reply Eric.

I found another thread which was very helpful. Our goal is to reduce the size of the PDF. Our idea was to save it as PDF/A, but the Compress option could work.
https://community.blueprism.com/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?GroupId=145&MessageKey=157273f3-719b-457e-bef0-57cff1c9a26f&CommunityKey=3743dbaa-6766-4a4d-b7ed-9a98b6b1dd01&tab=digestviewer

We will investigate further.

Re: PDF/A format

kgupta — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 16:11:07 GMT

Hi, I’m facing a similar issue and was exploring possible solutions. Unfortunately, the link you shared doesn’t seem to be working. Could you please provide an updated link or share the implementation details directly? That would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!