Preflight Audit Trails
As I mentioned in an earlier posting, Acrobat 9 introduces support for the Ghent PDF Workgroup’s recently published Proof of Preflight specification, the details of which can be downloaded from here.
In brief, this specification provides a way for any preflight vendor to identify PDFs that have already been processed, and the result of that processing - whether it be success, failure or only a warning. The preflight vendor also clearly details the information about their product (name, version, etc.) as well as the profile used in the processing. On the left is an example of the Preflight Audit Trail section of the Standards Panel that will appear when you open a file that has an Audit Trail added (in all versions of Acrobat and Reader). In addition to seeing the information about the preflighting that has been done, you can also verify that the profile used matches the one on your computer - so as to ensure that the user hasn’t tampered with your profile in any way!
Finally, the file is "locked down" (via a standard PDF Digital Signature) so that it is quite clear whether it has been modified since the preflight operation has taken place. This prevents the file from being modified and possibly breaking the Audit Trail. However, should you need to perform late stage editing, you can remove the Audit Trail via the link in the panel.
Acrobat 9 Pro and Pro Extended users, after completing the execution of a Preflight Profile or Quick Check just need to click the "Embed Audit Trail…" button at the bottom of the Preflight window in order to have the Audit Trail added to the document. Even if the file didn’t completely pass the profile - the Audit Trail can still be useful to convey that information as well.
