Prepress

Adobe expands its reliance on PDF technology from callas software for Acrobat DC

Tuesday 19. May 2015 - Adobe's just released Acrobat DC software includes even more technology from callas software GmbH. Users mainly profit from this in prepress and document preparation. Adobe also plans to make future developments to callas' technology available to users on an ongoing basis; this is made possible through Acrobat DC's cloud-based approach, which makes it much easier to deliver regular updates. callas software has provided validation technology to Adobe since 2003.

This new version allows Acrobat users to use variables in their preflight profiles, permitting dynamic preflight checks. This increases flexibility and reduces the total number of profiles that needs to be maintained. Users can for example create a dynamic preflight profile to down-sample images or check the document’s page size. When this profile is executed on a PDF document, the user is asked to provide the desired image resolution or the intended page size.
AcrobatDC_callasFigure 1: dynamic preflight checks in Acrobat DC
Also important for pre-printing is the new ability to create bleed for objects that are placed too close to the edge of the page; to avoid cutting problems. These objects can now be extended beyond the page margin resolving the problem.
Integrating cutting-edge callas technology means that Acrobat DC can now also process larger files much faster. This is particularly useful for variable data printing (keyword: PDF/VT), as these PDF files can be very large, consisting of many thousands of pages. The software further contains many new checks and fixups, including for example the ability to remove entire layers, including the objects they contain.
Adobe DC comes with new possibilities in the document management and document archival field as well, specifically for files embedded in PDF/A-3 documents. Users can now define which file types are acceptable; Acrobat DC will then inform users during preflight of any embedded file that doesn’t follow these guidelines. Further improved functionality to convert files to PDF/A (for archival) and PDF/UA (for universal accessibility) rounds off the new functionality included in Acrobat DC.