Programmatically Determining PDF/A Compliancy

Summary of steps
Determine PDF/A compliancy using the Java API
Determine PDF/A compliancy using the web service API

You can use the DocConverter service to determine whether a PDF document is PDF/A-compliant. For information about a PDF/A document and how to convert a PDF document to a PDF/A document, see Converting Documents to PDF/A Documents.

Note: For more information about the DocConverter service, see Services Reference for LiveCycle.

Summary of steps

To determine PDF/A compliancy, perform the following steps:

Include project files.
Create a DocConvert client
Reference a PDF document used to determine PDF/A compliancy.
Set run-time options.
Retrieve information about the PDF document.

Include project files

Include the necessary files in your development project. If you are creating a client application by using Java, include the necessary JAR files. If you are using web services, make sure that you include the proxy files.

The following JAR files must be added to your project’s class path:

adobe-livecycle-client.jar
adobe-usermanager-client.jar
adobe-docconverter-client.jar
adobe-utilities.jar (required if LiveCycle is deployed on JBoss Application Server)
jbossall-client.jar (required if LiveCycle is deployed on JBoss Application Server)

For information about the location of these JAR files, see Including LiveCycle Java library files.

Create a DocConvert client

Before you can programmatically perform an DocConverter operation, you must create a DocConverter client. If you are using the Java API, create a DocConverterServiceClient object. If you are using the DocConverter web service API, create a DocConverterServiceService object.

Reference a PDF document used to determine PDF/A compliancy

A PDF document must be referenced and passed to the DocConverter service in order to determine whether the PDF document is PDF/A-compliant.

Set run-time options

You can set a run-time option that determines how much information is tracked during the conversion process. That is, you can set nine different level that specify how much information the DocConverter service tracks when it converts a PDF document to a PDF/A document.

Retrieve information about the PDF document

After you create the DocConverter service client, reference the PDF document, and set the run-time options, you can determine whether the PDF document is a PDF/A-compliant document.

Determine PDF/A compliancy using the Java API

Determine PDF/A compliancy by using the Java API:

Include project files

Include client JAR files, such as adobe-docconverter-client.jar, in your Java project’s class path.
Create a DocConvert client
- Create a ServiceClientFactory object that contains connection properties.
- Create a DocConverterServiceClient object by using its constructor and passing the ServiceClientFactory object.
Reference a PDF document used to determine PDF/A compliancy
- Create a java.io.FileInputStream object that represents the PDF document to convert by using its constructor and passing a string value that specifies the location of the PDF file.
- Create a com.adobe.idp.Document object by using its constructor and passing the java.io.FileInputStream object.
Set run-time options
- Create a PDFAValidationOptionSpec object by using its constructor.
- Set the compliance level by invoking the PDFAValidationOptionSpec object’s setCompliance method and passing PDFAValidationOptionSpec.Compliance.PDFA_1B.
- Set the information tracking level by invoking the PDFAValidationOptionSpec object’s setLogLevel method and passing a string value that specifies the tracking level. For example, pass the value FINE. For information about the different values, see the setLogLevel method in the LiveCycle API Reference.
Retrieve information about the PDF document

Determine PDF/A compliancy by invoking the DocConverterServiceClient object’s isPDFA method and passing the following values:
- The com.adobe.idp.Document object that contains the PDF document.
- The PDFAValidationOptionSpec object that specifies run-time options.
The isPDFA method returns a PDFAValidationResult object that contains the results of this operation.

Determine PDF/A compliancy using the web service API

Determine PDF/A compliancy by using the web service API:

Include project files
- Create a Microsoft .NET client assembly that consumes the DocConverter WSDL.
- Reference the Microsoft .NET client assembly.
Create a DocConvert client
- Using the Microsoft .NET client assembly, create a DocConverterServiceService object by invoking its default constructor.
- Set the DocConverterServiceService object’s Credentials data member with a System.Net.NetworkCredential value that specifies the user name and password value.
Reference a PDF document used to determine PDF/A compliancy
- Create a BLOB object by using its constructor. The BLOB object is used to store the PDF document that is converted to a PDF/A document.
- Create a System.IO.FileStream object by invoking its constructor and passing a string value that represents the file location of the PDF document and the mode to open the file in.
- Create a byte array that stores the content of the System.IO.FileStream object. You can determine the size of the byte array by getting the System.IO.FileStream object’s Length property.
- Populate the byte array with stream data by invoking the System.IO.FileStream object’s Read method and passing the byte array, the starting position, and the stream length to read.
- Populate the BLOB object by assigning its binaryData property with the contents of the byte array.
Set run-time options
- Create a PDFAValidationOptionSpec object by using its constructor.
- Set the compliance level by assigning the PDFAValidationOptionSpec object’s compliance data member with the value PDFAConversionOptionSpec_Compliance.PDFA_1B.
- Set the information tracking level by assigning the PDFAValidationOptionSpec object’s resultLevel data member with the value PDFAValidationOptionSpec_ResultLevel.DETAILED.
Retrieve information about the PDF document

Determine PDF/A compliancy by invoking the DocConverterServiceService object’s isPDFA method and passing the following values:
- The BLOB object that contains the PDF document.
- The PDFAValidationOptionSpec object that contains run-time options.
The isPDFA method returns a PDFAValidationResult object that contains the results of this operation.