Management System
Pdf Test Help
with the conference and publisher's requirements
Contents
Viewing and understanding the test results
File size
Page count
Pdf version compatibility
Page margins
Searchability
Sampled image resolution
Font embedding
Font subsetting
Type 3 fonts
Oriental fonts
Encryption
Annotations
Bookmarks
Other issues
FAQ: Failed overlays
To test your pdf file, follow these steps:
- Choose the conference for which you are preparing the file and click on "Next."
- Click on "Back" if you wish to return to modify your choice.
Otherwise,
- Choose the type of submission that you are preparing from the dropdown list
- Select whether you are preparing the file for first submission or if this is a final submission of a paper that has been accepted for presentation at the conference
- Click on "Next"
- Click on "Back" if you wish to return to modify your selections.
Otherwise,
- Use the "Browse" button to locate the pdf file that you wish to have tested on your computer
- Choose if you wish to run the basic pdf compliance test, or the full test. The full test includes the margin and sampled image resolution test, and takes much longer than the basic test.
- Click on "Upload." Wait until the test is completed. This may take a little time, especially if you run the full test
- Click on the "Back" button if you want to modify your choice or to upload a different file. Otherwise, inspect the test results.
At the top of the test results page you will see this information
- The local file path on your computer of the file that you uploaded
- The conference and sort of submission for which the file was tested
- A statement whether or not the file is ready to be submitted
- A reference to critical issues that prevent the file from being
ready to be submitted, if any. These critical issues are marked
in the rightmost column of the overview that occupies most of the
page. Critical issues must be resolved before the file may be
submitted. - A reference to other issues that require attention, if any.
These issues are marked
in
the overview. It is highly recommended to resolve this issues as
well. If these other issues are not resolved then your file may be returned to you with
the request to attend to them. This especially applies to
final submissions where the files need to meet high standards to be
included in the proceedings of the conference.
The various pdf issues are described below
The pdf test determines the margins on each page as best as it can and checks them against the conference requirements. Owing to the nature of pdf this test is relatively time consuming. The page margins are only determined if you run the full test.
If the test detects margin impositions (that is, instances where text or graphics extend into the prescribed margins) then these are reported. By default the margins and impositions are displayed in pt (PostScript point). A PostScript point is 1/72 inch which is approximately 0.14 mm. Click on the button marked "in" or "mm" to change the units to inch or mm.
If there are margin impositions you will see a report such as
Margin impositions:
Page 1 Top 42 Bottom 7 pt
Consult the support section
Download your file overlaid
with border templates for inspection
According to this report on page 1 text or graphics extend into the required top margin by 42 pt and into the bottom margin by 7 pt.
Upon completion of the test you may download a copy of your file where on each page a gray rectangle has been overlaid that marks the required text area. Left click the download link to open the file in a separate window. On many platforms and with many browsers you may right-click the link to choose from various download options.
After opening the file in Acrobat or Acrobat Reader the file is displayed with the bookmarks opened:
The margin impositions are reported for each page. Click on any of the bookmarks to open the page and inspect the impositions:
Pages whose paper size was not recognized are not overlaid.
Unfortunately the margin determination is not totally reliable. The algorithm may detect pdf objects that extend into the margin but are not optically visible. This occurs with certain pdf producer applications and certain types of graphics.
If the test complains about impositions that cannot be confirmed visually then they may be ignored. If you have access to Adobe Acrobat version 6 Professional then you may use its TouchUp Object Tool to determine the cause of the report. This tool is found in the Tools/Advanced Editing menu.
In a sample document the pdf tool reported an imposition of 13 pt for the right margin. Visual inspection of the page (Fig. A below) revealed nothing. Upon opening the TouchUp Object Tool and using the option Select All in the Edit menu, the tool displayed the bounding boxes of all pdf objects on the page (Fig. B below). Inspection shows that the frame of the graphic extends into the right margin.
Fig. A |
Fig. B |
Some pdf documents cannot be searched. An obvious example is a pdf document that has been scanned from a paper document. Some other pdf documents are not searchable because of nonstandard encoding of the document text.
The pdf test of the conference system checks for searchability by extracting the document text from the file and testing it for the occurrence of the common English words 'the', 'of', 'and', 'to', 'in', 'that' and 'is'. If there are a sufficient number of occurrences then the document is assumed to be searchable. If there are few or no occurrences then the document is marked as possibly being nonsearchable. It nevertheless may be searchable by Adobe Acrobat, Acrobat Reader and other pdf reader applications even though encoding is nonstandard.
If your file is reported as "This document may not be searchable" then please open it in Acrobat, Acrobat Reader or another pdf reader that supports searching, and check manually if the file is searchable. If it is, accept our apologies for the false alarm and upload the file.
If you find your file to be nonsearchable then if you upload the file and searchability is a conference requirement it is likely that the file will be returned to you for reformatting. In this case we recommend using a recent version of up-to-date software to convert your source document to pdf as described in the support section.
An exception is sometimes made for the "Base 14" fonts of Adobe because they are considered to be widely available. These are the fonts Times-Roman, Times-Italic, Times-Bold, Times-BoldItalic, Helvetica, Helvetica-Oblique, Helvetica-Bold, Helvetica-BoldOblique, Courier, Courier-Oblique, Courier-Bold, Courier-BoldOblique, Symbol and ZapfDingbats. Even if these fonts are not available then they can often safely be substituted by similar other fonts.
The pdf test detects all fonts used by the document. Non-embedded fonts that need to be embedded are reported. The report includes the pages on which the fonts are used and also any graphics that use the font. Graphics are identified in the format Graphics4.2, that is, the second graphics on page 4. The ordering on the page is as the test finds the graphics. Note that not all graphics are identified as separate objects. Some graphics are embedded within the text.
Consult the support section on how to make sure that the required fonts are embedded.
The pdf test detects all fonts that are non-subset embedded. Consult the Support section on how to make sure that embedded fonts are subset.
The pdf test detects all fonts used by the document. If Type 3 fonts are not allowed and any are detected then they are reported. The report includes the pages on which the fonts are used and also any graphics that use the font. Graphics are identified in the format Graphics4.2, that is, the second graphics on page 4. The ordering on the page is as the test finds the graphics. Note that not all graphics are identified as separate objects. Some graphics are embedded within the text.
Consult the support section on how to avoid the use of Type 3 fonts.
Consult the support section on how to avoid the use of oriental fonts in an English language document.
If the pdf test encounters a fatal error then this is reported in this section. Warning messages also appear here. The Fatal error messages and Warning messages that may be encountered are shown in the two tables below
| Fatal errors | |
| Error message | Explanation |
| No file | No file found |
| This document is encrypted | This document is encrypted and was not processed |
| This is not a pdf file | This is not a pdf file. The file was not processed |
| Cross reference streams (pdf 1.5) are not supported | The document has pdf format 1.5. It cannot be opened with viewers earlier than Acrobat 6. The file was not processed. Please comply with an earlier pdf version. |
| Cannot find the Root object Cannot find startxref No xref table found Cannot find cross reference table No trailer could be found Page count error |
Most likely the file is corrupted. It was not processed. If the file opens correctly in Acrobat or other viewers then please send us the file. |
| Parser error: Final search position x for page n does not agree with content stream length y | The file was not processed. Please send us your pdf file if you encounter this message. |
| Warnings | |
| Warning | Explanation |
| LZW decoding with early change is not supported | "LZW encoding with early change" is a broken version of LZW encoding. It was used in Acrobat/Distiller version 3 and earlier and related products. Please use a more recent version of Acrobat/Distiller to compile your pdf file. You may also use Acrobat 6 Professional to convert LZW encoding to Flate encoding. |
| Page n has not been
processed XObject on page n has not been processed |
One of these two messages follows the preceding warning |
| Warning: The right-hand margin may be reported inaccurately on page n because of a missing font widths table for the font Font | Usually margin detection is not affected by this situation |
| Cannot find Info | The file has no Info section |
| XObject of nonsupported type
Type on page n Font entry FontEntry in Graphics State dictionary on page n is not supported at this time The Rotate parameter Rotate of page n is invalid |
Please send us your pdf file if you encounter any of these messages |
| On page n the report of x sampled images is omitted because the smallest dimension of the image is less than 10 points | This message may safely be ignored |
Frequently asked questions
This problem is due to an incompatibility of the original pdf file. It looks as if especially pdf files prepared with dvipdfm suffer from this difficulty. Please consult the bookmarks of the file for information about the margin impositions. You may be able to repair the overlaid file by re-distilling it.