PDFProcessor Components and Deployment

This article applies to the Windows version of Datalogics Adobe PDF Library (APDFL) 21. Feature availability, component filenames, file sizes, and deployment requirements may differ on other platforms or in other APDFL versions.

Description

PDFProcessor converts PDF documents to supported PDF/A and PDF/X formats. PDF/A supports long-term document preservation, while PDF/X supports document exchange for print production.

This feature is useful for applications that prepare documents for archival repositories or printing workflows with specific PDF format requirements. It provides a way to incorporate those conversions into document processing.

Samples

The installed samples are:
- CPlusPlus\Sample_Source\DocumentConversion\ConvertToPDFA\ConvertToPDFA.cpp
- CPlusPlus\Sample_Source\DocumentConversion\ConvertToPDFX\ConvertToPDFX.cpp

Public samples (github):
ConvertToPDFA
ConvertToPDFX

The installed ConvertToFactur-X and ConvertToZUGFeRD samples also call PDFProcessor for their PDF/A-3 conversion stage. These workflows must be considered before omission, even if the application has no separately named PDF/A feature.

Files

Paths are relative to the SDK root. Sizes are uncompressed file lengths, rounded to two decimal places. Sizes and savings may vary by SDK build.

DL210PDFProcessor.ppi provides the conversion plug-in. DL210pdfsettings.dll is shared with XPS2PDF. The combined total includes both files and applies only when the shared DLL can also be omitted.

Omitting the Feature When Unused

If PDFProcessor conversion is unused, omit DL210PDFProcessor.ppi to save 0.92 MB.

Retain DL210pdfsettings.dll if XPS2PDF remains installed. When both plug-ins are omitted and no other retained component uses the settings DLL, it can also be omitted, bringing the combined saving to 1.23 MB. Count the shared DLL's saving once across the two features.

Tested PDF opening, text extraction, rendering, saving, reopening, and library shutdown succeeded without PDFProcessor. Existing PDF/A and PDF/X outputs also remained usable without the plug-in, with matching rendering and text counts.

Positive tests converted the supplied Word.pdf input to PDF/A-2b RGB and PDF/X-4:2010. Successful conversion and reopening do not establish independent standards conformance for every possible input.

Application considerations

Remove unconditional PDFProcessor initialization and conversion calls when the plug-in is omitted. For optional installation, check gPDFProcessorHFT after InitPDFProcessorHFT before invoking PDFProcessorInitialize or conversion APIs, and guard termination. The installed conversion samples assume the plug-in is available.

The tested parameter-based PDF/A and PDF/X conversions did not require Standard.joboptions. Retain that file if XPS conversion or another workflow reads it. Retain APDFL core dependencies and required font, CMap, Unicode, and color-profile resources. Validate the final product's retained workflows in an isolated deployment.

How to Get Additional Help

Contact Datalogics Tech Support 

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