Duff Johnson’s PDF Perspective

Adobe posts new accessibility resources

October 15th, 2008

Adobe today posted a new set of content designed to enhance end-user understanding of accessibility in PDF.

These documents are edited by Adobe PDF accessibility specialist Greg Pisocky, and they pull together know-how from many sources. Anyone interested in Section 508 compliance and accessibility in PDF files should download and check them out!

…and from the “I heard it from a little bird” department: InDesign in CS4 (released today!) is supposed to make MAJOR improvements in generating accessible PDF… more on that soon!

Posted in Accessibility, Adobe-Watching, Acrobat 9 | No Comments »

Scripting ain’t just for Hollywood

October 13th, 2008

The vast majority of Acrobat users have no interest in scripting. For most, they get their money’s worth (they think) if PDFs are easy to make, work reliably, are of small file-size, are reasonably secure, and so on.

Little do most users suspect what scripting can do for their PDFs, and (thereby), their electronic document workflows. JavaScript support has been included in Acrobat and Reader for over a decade, such that few are surprised when they encounter “active” content in a PDF. Even so, distressingly (to my mind) few people ask themselves the simple question: “How can I get my PDFs to do that!”.

Well, the best-kept secret in electronic document technology may not be so secret any more. Thom Parker, one of the grandmasters of PDF scripting, has launched pdfscripting.com with the express purpose of raising awareness of the potential for scripting in Reader and Acrobat.

While I’m a vendor of scripting services, I nonetheless applaud Thom’s initiative. Far from taking business away from consultants and others who script for a living, pdfscripting.com will lead more companies to consider how many of their business objectives might well be met with Acrobat JavaScript and the Acrobat JavaScript API Reference.

In the scripting world, as in many other places, an educated customer is a better customer.

Posted in Little-known tricks | No Comments »

PDF Central Conference presentations

September 26th, 2008

I’ve returned to Boston following the conclusion of this year’s PDF Central Conference in Minneapolis, MN. Easel Solutions did a great job hosting the show, and I strongly recommend next year’s conference to anyone considering two days of intensive PDF education.

I gave two presentations which I’ll provide here. The first was Making your PDFs comply with Section 508 and the second (an all-new presentation for me) was entitled “PDF is a RAD (Rapid Application Development) platform“.

I’m now in suspense waiting for my session reviews to come in.

Posted in Accessibility, Resources | 1 Comment »

Appligent Document Solutions

September 25th, 2008

Readers of this blog will (I hope) forgive me if I take a moment to mention that I’m changing jobs! In the twelve and a half years since I founded Document Solutions, Inc., a company dedicated to adding value to PDF files, I’ve seen the technology grow from a way to reduce the size of PostScript data to become the predominant electronic document file-format on earth.

I’ve run DSI as a PDF document service-bureau for a long time. Now, my path is changing, because DSI has announced our merger with Appligent. I start a new chapter as CEO of a software firm whose PDF manipulation applications are familiar (in a good way) to every serious player in the PDF space.

The combined company, Appligent Document Solutions, will offer both services-informed software and software-informed services with unprecedented expertise in PDF technology.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled Blog. Thank you for this brief indulgence, and once again, for taking the time to read this blog in the first place.

Posted in 3rd Party Software, Personal Notes, In the News | No Comments »

Google’s Chrome: Initial Reflections

September 2nd, 2008

Google's Chrome I’m always intrigued by new browsers, and Google is always intriguing anyway due to the company’s strategic heft. Of course I had to look at their just-announced browser, Chrome.

I’m going to try to live with this browser for a while and will report my views in greater detail, but I’m still getting used to the new Firefox, so don’t expect it soon. I do have, however, some immediate impressions about how Chrome works with PDF.

I had wondered if Google was going to (try to) write their own PDF viewer for Chrome. Not this time; the installer seems to find and use the Acrobat/Reader plugin, assuming it’s already installed into Firefox or (presumably) IE. That’s a good start.

Then I hit the skids.

My first stop in testing Chrome with PDFs was to check out performance with a large PDF file. In Microsoft’s Explorer or Mozilla’s Firefox, properly-configured PDF files are “Fast Web View” enabled, and display the first-requested page while continuing to download the rest of the file in the background.

This single feature makes even very large PDF files readily workable on the web, even in low-bandwidth settings, and is one of the key factors in the success of the PDF format.

Under IE and FireFox, the Acrobat/Reader browser plugin works as intended, and Fast Web View PDFs appear quickly. Chrome, however, seems to block Fast Web View in the same browser plugin. I could find no way to turn this block off in Chrome’s options - please let me know if I’m missing something!

Google’s going to have to rectify this situation before Chrome has a prayer of becoming a mainstream browser.

Posted in 3rd Party Software, In the News, Resources | 1 Comment »

PDF Central Conference coming in September

August 18th, 2008

Want a PDF education? Join the PDF gurus in Minneapolis for the Adobe Acrobat and PDF Central Conference, September 23-25, 2008. Speakers at the event include industry luminaries such as Ted Padova (author of the PDF Bible) and Thom Parker, Acrobat JavaScript guru to the gurus. Adobe Systems is sponsoring the event and several knowledgeable Adobe personnel will be on hand as well.

I’ll be presenting two sessions:

In addition to the numerous sessions covering all aspects of PDF, users can also sign up for pre-conference sessions with targeted information on developing PDF forms.

Those looking to fill a week with PDF and forms training should consider the BFMA’s 2008 Fall Forms Institute, held September 22 and 23 at the Mayo Clinic in nearby Rochester, MN.

When you sign up, use the code “DOCSOL” to get $100 off your registration fee!

Posted in In the News, Resources | No Comments »

Why I love Adobe’s new ClearScan

August 14th, 2008

ClearScan output Back in 1996 when I started Document Solutions, Inc., most of our services revolved around scanning to PDF. This background may help explain why I’m so fascinated with Adobe’s new ClearScan technology introduced with Acrobat 9.

The ClearScan concept is disarmingly simple. Starting from a scanned page, the software analyzes the image to determine which areas contain text, background or foreground images, and combinations thereof. Each type of area gets specific treatment.

The text areas are OCRed to generate searchable text. As the software proceeds through the pages it develops a library of similar characters. After the OCR is complete, this library is consolidated and converted to real, scalable fonts that are based on the characters actually found in the document.

ClearScan, in my opinion, is one of the best new features in Acrobat 9. This technology finally renders our long-standing MultiResolution service obsolete, because it delivers simply the highest-quality image-to-document conversion available today, with the best-looking output from a scan that you’ve ever seen, and the file-size is incredibly small.

Did I mention that ClearScan output is BEAUTIFUL? Would you like to see ClearScan PDF for yourself? Take a look at this example, an article originally published in 1975 by Scientific American, and processed into ClearScan PDF by DSI earlier this year.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Document Solutions, Inc. worked extensively with Adobe Engineering, assisting (ok, kibitzing) in the development of ClearScan. I’ll post details of the exciting conversion project we performed after that project is announced to the public

Posted in Little-known tricks, Acrobat 9 | 4 Comments »

The Content that Endures

August 14th, 2008

PDF/A (’A’ is for ‘archive’), otherwise known as ISO 19005, is the subject of my latest feature article, The Content that Endures: What to know about PDF/A, now available at Planet PDF.

Opening with the question “What happens in the year 2023, when someone has to open an Outlook PST file from 2003 to settle a lawsuit?” the article draws on numerous interviews with industry experts, including members of the PDF/A Competence Center.

In this piece, I focus on the relevance of PDF/A to current document-management and retention practices, attempting to address key questions such as:

Why is PDF better than TIFF?

Is PDF/A really an archive standard?

What challenges await PDF/A implementers?

Why is Europe ahead of the US in adopting PDF/A?

PDF/A is already being adopted by some government agencies and other “heavyweight” organizations, but many others have barely begun to grapple with the issues PDF/A addresses, let alone consider their options.

The fact that Adobe’s PDF Reference, a document on which PDF/A depends, is now ISO 32000 should set to rest lingering concerns about the “proprietary” nature of PDF and spur interest in PDF/A.

Posted in Articles by the Author, In the News, Resources | 1 Comment »

Kindle: Putting the match to paper books?

November 20th, 2007

Amazon's Kindle

Amazon’s study of book-buying habits appears to have convinced founder Jeff Bezos that The Time is Now.

Time, that is, for an update in the fundamentals of how people read. The dead tree is under attack as never before. Trees that live are coming back into style.
There have been other ebook readers, but none combining e-ink and wireless technology, and none with the market-awareness of Amazon.

I’ve heralded e-ink as the savior of designers who might otherwise be relegated to nothing but graphics and animations, the art of heterogeneous page layout gone forever in a sea of templates.

Amazon’s Kindle may be a key step away from our paper addiction. Sure, I already read the New York Times on a Treo, but this gadget is for normal people.

It’s potent enough as a serious play for a historically hard-to-sell form-factor even without the works-everywhere (in the US) connectivity. This device generates and bundles services and opportunities together in a new way… a “doh!” way. I’m thinking it’s going to fly.

But - and I’m far from the first to say this - perhaps THE major failing in this iteration of Kindle is (drumroll please), the lack of support for PDF. What’s up with that!

3rd party software developers (Adobe included) will likely watch the reaction to this device for a month or three before finalizing their own plans. If the love-fest continues much past the initial splash, I suspect we’d see Kindle supporting PDF one way or another sometime in the not too-distant future.

In reading the user comments (no, I certainly haven’t seen one in the flesh), I’m noticing that many of those with positive comments either are or anticipate spending a lot for their content.

Hmm. What’s all this I hear about consumers expecting content for free? Turn the page, people!

Amazon may have come up with a license to print money (using e-ink). This bears watching.

Posted in 3rd Party Software, In the News | 3 Comments »

8.1.1, a missed opportunity?

August 11th, 2007

Immediately following the release of Reader 8.1, I informed readers that:

The down-side [of the Kinko’s button] is that taking unnecessary partisan positions in affiliated industries and the effective denial of equivalent functionality to all users of the software can undermine the sense of ubiquity, and ubiquity is the essence of the Reader value proposition.

Adobe has now seen the light. It turned out to be an oncoming freight-train belonging to the print industry, who credit themselves as Adobe’s oldest and best customers. Result: Reader 8.1.1, sans Kinko’ button, is due in October.

Like Ted, I was hoping that Adobe would take real advantage of the hubbub and create a new, more platform-oriented feature. The timely burial of “The Kinko’s Edition” could be converted to a significant opportunity. Adobe could make a simple api available to registered printers such that PDF creators could have their own programmable buttons appear on their Certified PDFs.

The Certification mechanism could be of real help here, because Certificates could be used to unlock simple JavaScript calls for “Creator button control”. (More on the promise - and reality - of Certified PDF some other time). Kinko’s (or any other printer) could then offer a service wherein they return a PDF of every print-job with their button added to the toolbar for triggering easy reprints, account modifications or other purposes. There are all sorts of possibilities for getting more mileage out of Trusted documents in this case - as long as it isn’t hardwired to a single vendor.

For the print industry (and indeed, for the rest of us), Reader appears close to a public trust, a notion which Adobe has certainly fostered, if not directly. Such beliefs are nonetheless our own misfortune, and Adobe is entirely within its rights to do what it will with Reader. Adobe Systems is a business, and businesses get to develop and market their products as they see fit, right or wrong. Nonetheless, my hope is that Adobe takes away the following lessons from the “Kinko’s Edition” debacle:

Reader is a precious software franchise not only because it is free, but because it is fundamentally nonpartisan where it counts. For example, Reader will open almost any old, malformed PDF from any source (including non-Adobe sources) without drawing attention to the fact. Likewise, Reader should appear completely agnostic about print vendors unless the creator explicitly chooses otherwise.
If Reader itself is to be sullied with advertising, the responsibility for that glory should be placed squarely on the creator (with the help of Adobe server products, of course). We can safely say that if PDF creators had a new opportunity to add features to the Reader toolbar, they wouldn’t complain about it.
Reader is SO valuable that it should not be used, by itself, to generate revenue, unless that method is author-driven. The Yahoo, Google and Kinko’s deals all “sullied” the brand. There’s greater value to be found in finding ways to serve everyone equally. The toolbar should remain in the service of the platform, not the next business quarter.
For platform software, ubiquity and customer enablement remain the true keys of success. All “improvements” that could impact these essentials should draw suspicion, rigorous scrutiny and deep consultation with affected industries prior to implementation, far more (clearly) than has gone before. This is the price of owning such a deep and wide franchise as Reader.