PDF/A Explained
When preparing legal discovery, digital government archives, or historical documents, a standard PDF is often rejected by regulatory bodies. Why? Because a standard PDF relies on external resources (like fonts installed on your computer) to render correctly.
The Problem with Standard PDFs
If you open a document from 2005 today, and your computer no longer has the Times New Roman 2005 font file, your PDF viewer will substitute it. This can completely break formatting, page numbers, and table alignments.
How PDF/A Solves It
PDF/A (Portable Document Format for Archiving) is an ISO-standardized version of the PDF format. It guarantees future readability by enforcing strict rules:
- Embedded Fonts: Every single font used in the document MUST be embedded.
- No Audio/Video: Multimedia cannot be embedded, as the codecs to play them may not exist in 30 years.
- No JavaScript: Interactive scripts are banned.
- Color Management: Device-independent color spaces are required.
The Trade-off
Because all fonts and color profiles are embedded, a PDF/A file will naturally have a larger file size than a standard PDF. Be cautious when using a PDF Compressor on a PDF/A file, as aggressive lossy compression may strip required archival elements.