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What is the PDF/A format, and How to use the PDF/A format for your Digital Archive

Paul Ireland

  • March 23, 2022

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Many of us in business and IT set up and maintain digital archives. Banks, insurance, and healthcare industries carry a heavy backlog of archival information going back months or years for thousands of clients. 

The Bank of England has a public archive of their work, citing more than 96,000 records just on their work and history alone. A part of reconciling a hefty archive with incoming documents is deciding what format to use.

PDF/A is commonly used for storing electronic files for long-term use. Unlike regular PDFs, PDF/A is used by industry professionals to comply with ISO standards; such as ISO 19005.

The ISO best practice recommends the OAIS model for the proper storage and maintenance of digital archival files.

If you’re looking for a way to comply with these standards, PDF/A is a way to meet them. Not only that! It provides a means to discretely store data while enforcing good file preservation practices and more!

Typical Uses and Benefits of PDF/A and PDF/A Archiving

You can digitize and migrate physical documents into your archive with minimal storage space ( PDF/A takes up less storage than other archive formats such as TIFF).

You can comply with legal and international file archive standards (See below).

Quickly pull up and search through relevant documentation. For example, banks and insurance companies can efficiently relay contract details from an archive with searchable PDF/A files.

You can collaborate and share files for construction and pharmaceutical companies who need shared access to resources.

That’s why we’ll be exploring how you can utilize PDF/A to optimize your digital archive in this article. 

What Is Good Digital Format Preservation Practice?

The long term preservation of digital files can be hindered by several issues:

  • Storage materials degrade over time.
  • Backups don’t always preserve files over long periods.
  • Files can become incompatible with new software.
  • Data can become unintelligible when supporting files go missing.
  • Files can be altered or damaged when opened with new software.

In best preservation practices, the fundamental aspects of a file must still be operable. This includes:

  • Formatting
  • Structure
  • Word order and page numbering

That’s why it’s recommended you carefully manage and store documents kept for long periods.

What Is PDF/A Compliance?

PDF/A allows you to store your archive documents in an internationally recognized format. It’s considered software-agnostic because it can be displayed regardless of the type of software used.

In essence, a PDF/A file stores all its relevant data within the file itself, making it secure, easy to access, and searchable for long periods. Due to their compression features, they take up little space.

Even when opened after a long time, the document still allows you to quickly scan through its content using the search feature.

This makes it a good choice for businesses that quickly access information. It also allows companies to ensure they are GDPR-compliant. 

Becoming GDPR-compliant requires enterprises to digitize their paper documents to make their files searchable, anonymous and safe.

This is especially relevant for legal documentation, which requires a digital signature to ensure authenticity. With PDF/A, digital signatures are stored directly as metadata in the document, so they cannot be altered.

In short, PDF/A has become a necessary part of doing business. However, you still have to ensure you follow some rules to use PDF/A correctly.

Rules of PDF/A Compliance:

File media, i.e., audio and video, should be stored separately. The file should not be encrypted. The file should not contain references to external documents. Fonts should be embedded in the files.

Files should not contain XFA forms, and metadata must follow the proper syntax.

How Can I Convert My Files to PDF/A?

A PDF/A file is a version of the regular PDF format, and conversion follows similar principles. However, there are some key differences.

Firstly, there are several different PDF/A file types, each offering different levels of compliance:

  1. PDF/A-1a: This is fully compliant with ISO standards. Text is extractable and viewable on multiple devices.
  2. PDF/A-1b: This offers the minimum level of compliance. Files can be displayed and read by the computer, but the text may not be legible to humans.
  3. PDF/A-2b: This allows you to embed images and digital signatures within the document.
  4. PDF/A-2u: This stores the document in a Unicode format means you can extract, search, and copy the text from an archive.
  5. PDF/A-3: This is similar to PDF/A-2, but it also allows you to embed non-PDF file types or attach them to conforming documents.

You will need to use a PDF converter to change a file into a PDF/A. However, not all converters offer PDF/A options. Therefore, you need to be careful about selecting the right one for the type of archive and business you have.

The wrong converter can damage your files or make them inaccessible in the future. This increases the risk of non-compliance, and has a negative impact on digital sustainability within your organization. 

Are You Ready to Start Utilizing PDF/A for Your Digital Archiving Process?

If you’re looking to start utilizing PDF/A, you’ll need the right software to be able to convert content into compliant PDF/A files. DocShifter is an enterprise-grade document conversion software that allows you to perform high-quality digital conversions for your archives. 

The software enables you to produce PDF/A compliant files from any source formats, depending on your needs. You can extract files and store them directly within your archive system at lightning speed.

Convert your valuable content into long-term PDF/A and TIFF file formats for your digital archive. Ensure the authenticity and readability of your documents in PDF/A format. Have a compliant digital archive.

Since DocShifter can run anywhere, on premise or in your cloud, it makes it easy for businesses to scale and automate complex and stringent compliance demands.

DocShifter supports three levels of PDF/A compliance to provide searchable, high-quality, navigation-rich PDF/A files. You can choose where to deploy from without slowing down your digital archiving or content transformation operations.

So why not future-proof your archive today? Convert all your content into medium/future-proof digital formats; such as PDF/A, or TIFF. 

Let us know your requirements, and get a free estimate from DocShifter now!

What is PDF-A, and how to use PDFA for your digital archive - PDF/A and TIFF conversion for digital archiving - document conversion software

Many of us in business and IT set up and maintain digital archives. Banks, insurance, and healthcare industries carry a heavy backlog of archival information going back months or years for thousands of clients. 

The Bank of England has a public archive of their work, citing more than 96,000 records just on their work and history alone. A part of reconciling a hefty archive with incoming documents is deciding what format to use.

PDF/A is commonly used for storing electronic files for long-term use. Unlike regular PDFs, PDF/A is used by industry professionals to comply with ISO standards; such as ISO 19005.

The ISO best practice recommends the OAIS model for the proper storage and maintenance of digital archival files.

If you’re looking for a way to comply with these standards, PDF/A is a way to meet them. Not only that! It provides a means to discretely store data while enforcing good file preservation practices and more!

Typical Uses and Benefits of PDF/A and PDF/A Archiving

You can digitize and migrate physical documents into your archive with minimal storage space ( PDF/A takes up less storage than other archive formats such as TIFF).

You can comply with legal and international file archive standards (See below).

Quickly pull up and search through relevant documentation. For example, banks and insurance companies can efficiently relay contract details from an archive with searchable PDF/A files.

You can collaborate and share files for construction and pharmaceutical companies who need shared access to resources.

That’s why we’ll be exploring how you can utilize PDF/A to optimize your digital archive in this article. 

What Is Good Digital Format Preservation Practice?

The long term preservation of digital files can be hindered by several issues:

  • Storage materials degrade over time.
  • Backups don’t always preserve files over long periods.
  • Files can become incompatible with new software.
  • Data can become unintelligible when supporting files go missing.
  • Files can be altered or damaged when opened with new software.

In best preservation practices, the fundamental aspects of a file must still be operable. This includes:

  • Formatting
  • Structure
  • Word order and page numbering

That's why it's recommended you carefully manage and store documents kept for long periods.

What Is PDF/A Compliance?

PDF/A allows you to store your archive documents in an internationally recognized format. It's considered software-agnostic because it can be displayed regardless of the type of software used.

In essence, a PDF/A file stores all its relevant data within the file itself, making it secure, easy to access, and searchable for long periods. Due to their compression features, they take up little space.

Even when opened after a long time, the document still allows you to quickly scan through its content using the search feature.

This makes it a good choice for businesses that quickly access information. It also allows companies to ensure they are GDPR-compliant. 

Becoming GDPR-compliant requires enterprises to digitize their paper documents to make their files searchable, anonymous and safe.

This is especially relevant for legal documentation, which requires a digital signature to ensure authenticity. With PDF/A, digital signatures are stored directly as metadata in the document, so they cannot be altered.

In short, PDF/A has become a necessary part of doing business. However, you still have to ensure you follow some rules to use PDF/A correctly.

Rules of PDF/A Compliance:

File media, i.e., audio and video, should be stored separately. The file should not be encrypted. The file should not contain references to external documents. Fonts should be embedded in the files.

Files should not contain XFA forms, and metadata must follow the proper syntax.

How Can I Convert My Files to PDF/A?

A PDF/A file is a version of the regular PDF format, and conversion follows similar principles. However, there are some key differences.

Firstly, there are several different PDF/A file types, each offering different levels of compliance:

  1. PDF/A-1a: This is fully compliant with ISO standards. Text is extractable and viewable on multiple devices.
  2. PDF/A-1b: This offers the minimum level of compliance. Files can be displayed and read by the computer, but the text may not be legible to humans.
  3. PDF/A-2b: This allows you to embed images and digital signatures within the document.
  4. PDF/A-2u: This stores the document in a Unicode format means you can extract, search, and copy the text from an archive.
  5. PDF/A-3: This is similar to PDF/A-2, but it also allows you to embed non-PDF file types or attach them to conforming documents.

You will need to use a PDF converter to change a file into a PDF/A. However, not all converters offer PDF/A options. Therefore, you need to be careful about selecting the right one for the type of archive and business you have.

The wrong converter can damage your files or make them inaccessible in the future. This increases the risk of non-compliance, and has a negative impact on digital sustainability within your organization. 

Are You Ready to Start Utilizing PDF/A for Your Digital Archiving Process?

If you're looking to start utilizing PDF/A, you'll need the right software to be able to convert content into compliant PDF/A files. DocShifter is an enterprise-grade document conversion software that allows you to perform high-quality digital conversions for your archives. 

The software enables you to produce PDF/A compliant files from any source formats, depending on your needs. You can extract files and store them directly within your archive system at lightning speed.

Convert your valuable content into long-term PDF/A and TIFF file formats for your digital archive. Ensure the authenticity and readability of your documents in PDF/A format. Have a compliant digital archive.

Since DocShifter can run anywhere, on premise or in your cloud, it makes it easy for businesses to scale and automate complex and stringent compliance demands.

DocShifter supports three levels of PDF/A compliance to provide searchable, high-quality, navigation-rich PDF/A files. You can choose where to deploy from without slowing down your digital archiving or content transformation operations.

So why not future-proof your archive today? Convert all your content into medium/future-proof digital formats; such as PDF/A, or TIFF. 

Let us know your requirements, and get a free estimate from DocShifter now!

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Compliant, fast, automated and scalable
file format conversion for the regulated enterprise.

See what our beloved customers have to say about us:

"DocShifter is converting 36.000 documents per day, coming from all over our company (and external). We have no control over what is coming in. And still the failure rate is below 1%.

And what really sets it apart from what we were doing before, DocShifter tells us what went wrong, so we can act upon the documents that did not convert".
Operations Manager Large European Bank
"DocShifter will save us over 750 hours of manual work per year. And we expect the time savings to increase as we continue to expand our use of DocShifter.

This is significant for our clients who need the eCTD sequences to be published quickly, accurately and efficiently. "
Jennie MayDirector, Regulatory Operations - PharmaLex
"Very powerful tool for document conversion and generation. The DocShifter software goes further than our current needs, and from my point of view quite unique in the industry. Quick adaption due to user-friendly workflow creation functionalities. Possibility to create workflows in a user-friendly (non-IT) way. Possibilities for seamlessly integrations into existing solutions."
Kris V.ITS Business Partner, Clinical Development
"We are using DocShifter in conjunction with Documentum software. The rendition performance that is observed so far is more than 4000 documents per hour (on 1 single instance). The output provided is fully compliant to health authority specifications (FDA, EMA, PMDA, HC, SwissHealth, etc.) and is configurable for different countries. A true enterprise document conversion solution.”
Piyush J. Solution Manager
"We use DocShifter to prepare compliant, submission-ready PDF renditions for all regulatory content.

The product is reliable, extremely fast and produces output that is compliant with multiple Health Authorities."
Large US biotechnology companyRegulatory Information Systems Manager
"We implemented DocShifter into production and have converted over 35.000 documents. Our failure rate has dropped from over 10% to well under 0.1%. We have seen an astronomical improvement in our document conversion processes thanks to how easy DocShifter was to implement and to use. In the course of 12 months, we are going to convert more than 100.000 documents with DocShifter. Fantastic document conversion solution!”
Chris B. IT System Administrator - PeopleScout Technology
"We have documentation in different languages, but when converting everything to PDF for submissions, things got complicated really fast. Our rendition engine couldn't cope with all those fonts, and we lost a lot of time fixing problems that weren't supposed to be there in the first place. We decided to make a switch to DocShifter. Scalability during our peak times, ability to deal with multiple fonts, automation (conversion of source documents to simultaneous submission-ready PDFs for multiple health authorities) and performance. These are just some of the things that make DocShifter such a powerful rendering engine."
Jade O. Document Management Professional
"We selected DocShifter for the incredible ease-of-use, the simple configuration and implementation, the high-quality ICH compliant output, and the huge number of formats supported. Performance is excellent, and we reduced the number of rendition servers by a factor of 3. All of this, plus the company’s responsiveness made it an easy choice."
Regulatory Operations & Global Submissions SpecialistLarge pharmaceutical company
"DocShifter powers the document conversion solution in Generis’ new CARA cloud offering. “We already support many joint customers who have advanced document conversion requirements met by the integration of DocShifter with CARA. We are now happy to be able to offer this on a pre-built package with New CARA on our cloud for such customers.”
James KelleherCEO - Generis
"As we are in the middle of a paradigm shift from analogue to digital in Japan, I have been looking for the right solution to support this for many years. In DocShifter we have found a company with solutions that have been selected by organizations of all sizes because of their responsiveness, cost-effectiveness, class-leading performance and unique capabilities that rise above the competition.”
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"One of the things we love about DocShifter is the graphic interface to configure file transformation flows. The user interface is very simple to use and rare to find within other similar document conversion products. Wide selection of connectors to different solutions (EIM & DMS systems) make DocShifter a great choice for our company as well. We also are very happy with the customer support we receive: extremely friendly and prompt.”
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Istvan V.Solution Architect
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