PDF/A edit banner

Forum for the PDF-XChange Editor - Free and Licensed Versions

Moderators: TrackerSupp-Daniel, Tracker Support, Paul - Tracker Supp, Vasyl-Tracker Dev Team, Chris - Tracker Supp, Sean - Tracker, Ivan - Tracker Software, Tracker Supp-Stefan

Post Reply
sutekh137
User
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2017 3:21 pm

PDF/A edit banner

Post by sutekh137 »

Hey all,

When some of our users edit a PDF/A document (docs pulling down from DocuWare and shelling out to PDF-XChange for editing), they get a red banner across the top where they have to explicitly click a button to edit.

Oddly, I do NOT get the red banner.

Is there a setting somewhere to just turn that off and allow PDF/A editing? I am not sure why some documents in our imaging system come down that way, nor do I know why some see the banner while I do not. But if I can know where any related settings are, it would help me figure out the best way to configure some of our users.

Thanks!

Joe Kaufman
Willy Van Nuffel
User
Posts: 2349
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2006 12:10 pm

Re: PDF/A edit banner

Post by Willy Van Nuffel »

It goes about additional document information that is shown in form of a bar/banner in PDF-XChange Editor.
In this particular case, it seems to go about a document that conforms the PDF/A specification.

If you like to change the behavior PDF-XChange Editor for showing this additional document information:
- click the Edit menu > Preferences...
- click "Document Info Bar" (at Categories, in the column at the left side)
- at the top of the "Document Info Bar"-dialog box, you can enable or disable the display of these kind of bars
- in case if you select "enable", you can activate/deactivate a check box for each individual bar that you would like to show up in case of something in the document is related to it (like the one for PDF/A Document).
User avatar
Patrick-Tracker Supp
Site Admin
Posts: 1645
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2014 6:14 pm
Location: Vancouver Island
Contact:

Re: PDF/A edit banner

Post by Patrick-Tracker Supp »

Thanks for the advice Willy - You are correct that the settings are found there. Another explanation as to why Joe is not getting the warning may be that he is using an older build. The Document info bar is relatively new and has been modified a few times since it was originally implemented.

Joe, Please make sure you are running the latest build (Help> About). If you are running 322.6 or older please update to 322.7 here: https://www.pdf-xchange.com/PDFXVE6.zip

Cheers!
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
Thank you.

Cheers,

Patrick Charest
Tracker Support North America
sutekh137
User
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2017 3:21 pm

Re: PDF/A edit banner

Post by sutekh137 »

Thanks for the great help, guys! I see where those settings are (love the color coding) and will play with those if the user still has issues tomorrow.

We are all on the same version because I installed the tool for everyone last week from a common installation MSI (and auto-updates are turned off, I installed this bare bones).

Thanks again!

Joe Kaufman
User avatar
Patrick-Tracker Supp
Site Admin
Posts: 1645
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2014 6:14 pm
Location: Vancouver Island
Contact:

Re: PDF/A edit banner

Post by Patrick-Tracker Supp »

Thanks, Joe,

Looking forward to knowing the outcome.

Good luck!
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
Thank you.

Cheers,

Patrick Charest
Tracker Support North America
sutekh137
User
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2017 3:21 pm

Re: PDF/A edit banner

Post by sutekh137 »

Glad you wanted to hear about the outcome, because I need more help. *smile*

Turning off the banner made the banner go away, but that also meant the "edit" button that the PDF/A banner displayed went away, too. So my user was left with an uneditable file.

What we really want is for the banner to go away AND for PDF/A files to always be editable. Is there a way to make that happen? I still do not know why this user is the only one being asked to verify editing of PDF/A files, as it does not happen to me (and they are editable). (EDIT: I take that back -- I DO see the same banner. Yesterday's files must have not been showing me the banner because the user already had edited all the files and saved them, and that must turn off the PDF/A warning (since the files have already been modified).

So, sorry to bother you further, but is there some way to always make PDF/A files editable when they open in PDF-XChange Editor?

Thanks,
Joe Kaufman
Willy Van Nuffel
User
Posts: 2349
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2006 12:10 pm

Re: PDF/A edit banner

Post by Willy Van Nuffel »

I am afraid that it will not be possible to NOT see the banner and still be able to edit PDF/A documents.

It is just the goal of PDF/A documents to NOT edit them anymore (= prevent them from editing) and to keep them as a final (archive) version.

If you like to enable editing for such a documents in the future, than just click the "Enable Editing"-button in the warning banner of PDF-XChange Editor and confirm the removal of the "PDF/A conformance".

After this, save the PDF once again (as a normal PDF what means: NOT in PDF/A format).

I guess that you do not have a particular reason to save the PDF again into PDF/A format ...
sutekh137
User
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2017 3:21 pm

Re: PDF/A edit banner

Post by sutekh137 »

That's what I was afraid of. I just got word from DocuWare (our imaging vendor) that confirmed when a document is scanned into their system they store it as PDF/A -- no way around it.

And now it seems like there is no way to auto-edit PDF/A documents in PDF-XCHange. So I'm stuck.

Yes, turning off PDF/A means that document is editable from then on, but that doesn't help much. We are talking about editing newly scanned documents (adding pages, fixing problems, etc.) so every single document has that banner popped up. And they probably will never even be edited ever again, because once they are in and verified they are archival, mostly

I'll just add this to the list of inconveniences our users are having to put up with as we migrate from Fortis to DocuWare (Fortis made all of this easy because it allowed basic editing right from inside it's own interface).

Thanks for the help, I'll just tell me users they need to keep clicking.

Thanks,
Joe Kaufman
Willy Van Nuffel
User
Posts: 2349
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2006 12:10 pm

Re: PDF/A edit banner

Post by Willy Van Nuffel »

I have just shared my thoughts, but your request is still open for Tracker Software.

So, there is still some hope ...
sutekh137
User
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2017 3:21 pm

Re: PDF/A edit banner

Post by sutekh137 »

Thanks, Willy, but I am OK if there is no solution here -- I am getting used to it (and not from Tracker's side...I think they have a great product). I have more frustration with our imaging vendor which, of course, was a forced migration that has taken hundreds of hours of my time over the past year. All of these little issues now that we have gone fully live are just lemon juice and salt in my war wounds...

I really do appreciate you taking the time to help out!

Thanks,
JoeK
sutekh137
User
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2017 3:21 pm

Re: PDF/A edit banner

Post by sutekh137 »

Just to be more explicit with what I am looking for... In Acrobat you set a certain setting to "Never", and that turns off the prompting and un-editability of PDF/A:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_6GP ... k9JTERXQ0U

I am also told something called PhantomPDF by Foxit has such a setting. That's why I was hoping PDF-XChange had it as well (even if we had to go to Pro to get it, it would be worth it...)

PDF-XChange still has everything else we want (mainly the ability to add pages from scanner), so that is why I didn't think to assess the PDF/A issue before we went ahead with it...

Thanks,
Joe Kaufman
User avatar
Patrick-Tracker Supp
Site Admin
Posts: 1645
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2014 6:14 pm
Location: Vancouver Island
Contact:

Re: PDF/A edit banner

Post by Patrick-Tracker Supp »

Hello, Joe,

Thank you for your understanding. Sorry to hear about your IT wars...

I suspect a setting can be added in the Editor to automatically convert PDF/A documents to regular PDF when opened. This would be the only method to ensure the documents are editable. Willy is correct when he said PDF/A is designed to not be editable. Think of it as PDF/Archive. I have put in a feature formal request.

Cheers!
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
Thank you.

Cheers,

Patrick Charest
Tracker Support North America
sutekh137
User
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2017 3:21 pm

Re: PDF/A edit banner

Post by sutekh137 »

Patrick,

Thanks for the confirmation and for adding this as a feature request. I tested the functionality of that "Never" flag in Adobe Acrobat and it does indeed appear to be an auto-convert to an editable PDF. If I don't set that setting to "Never", Acrobat shows a banner to prompt for editing in much the same way as PDF-XChange. If I set it to "Never", there is no prompt, and the PDF is editable. So it must be doing a conversion behind the scenes.

I find Adobe's wording for the setting somewhat cryptic... If you guys do implement a setting to auto-allow editing of PDF/A (thereby removing the PDF/A attribute), I hope you describe it in more straightforward fashion, such as, "Auto-convert PDF/A documents to non-PDF/A to allow editing."

Again, all your help is appreciated, and I'll definitely be waiting to see if that new feature gets implemented!

Thanks,
Joe Kaufman
User avatar
Tracker Supp-Stefan
Site Admin
Posts: 17824
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:07 am
Location: London
Contact:

Re: PDF/A edit banner

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Joe,

Thanks for the follow up and testing with Adobe.
Indeed - some things might not be as intuitive as you'd expect :)

As for the feature request - it is already in the pipeline and will be acted on in due time!

Regards,
Stefan
AcroMatt
User
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Sep 15, 2019 1:56 am

Re: PDF/A edit banner

Post by AcroMatt »

Hi, the last comment was in 2017. Has this "Edit pdf/a" feature been added as an option yet, or do we still need to manually click the [Enable Editing] button each time?
User avatar
Tracker Supp-Stefan
Site Admin
Posts: 17824
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:07 am
Location: London
Contact:

Re: PDF/A edit banner

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello AcroMatt,

No I am afraid that you still need to explicitly allow editing for each PDF/A file you open in the Editor.

Regards,
Stefan
Post Reply