PDF Generation Guide

This section describes how to prepare PDF files for submission on PATS. Independent of the program you are using to write the document and create the PDF file, the PDF file must fulfil the following conditions:

• It must be compatible with Acrobat 5, PDF version 1.4.
• All typefaces used in your document must be embedded in the PDF file, except for the standard PDF fonts. Embedding the standard PDF fonts is optional. The 14 standard PDF fonts are Times–Roman, Times–Bold, Times–Italic, Times–oldItalic, Helvetica, Helvetica–Bold, Helvetica–Oblique, Helvetica–BoldOblique, Courier, Courier–Bold, Courier–Oblique, Courier–BoldOblique, Symbol, ZapfDingbats.
• The PDF file must not contain any malicious software. In general, there is no need to embed any scripts at all.
• Do not encrypt or password-protect the PDF file. PATS will not be able to process this and has its own functions to check, protect and create as close to an archival PDF/A version of the report file as possible.

We also recommend you turn off any additional image compression during the PDF generation to preserve the original image quality. Furthermore, the PDF file should be generated for 300dpi or higher (print or prepress settings are ok). Screen resolutions, etc., may be of insufficient quality to easily read or print your documents.

The method you choose to create your PDF file is up to you, of course. However, there are several methods that most people use, as described below. Following these methods will ensure your document fulfils the above conditions.

Once you created the PDF file, you are highly advised to carefully proofread the resulting PDF file using acroread, available at http://get.adobe.com/reader/ - other software may or may not provide a reliable check, even if quite often they do not cause any problems. In particular, check that the contents displayed by the PDF file do not differ from the contents of the original file in any significant way.

If you are using TeX or LaTeX, there are two basic options to create a PDF file: directly generate the PDF file with PDFTeX / PDFLaTeX or create the PDF file from a DVI file. For special TeX frontends and implementations for various platforms, commercial versions, etc., you should refer to the documentation of these programs.

We recommend using PDFTeX / PDFLaTeX directly by calling pdflatex or pdftex command to create a PDF file, which by now is mostly the standard for LaTex/TeX. Note that minor differences exist between these commands and the original LaTeX or TeX commands, which produce DVI files. To avoid problems, choose the version you use before writing the complete document.

The standard version of TeX and LaTeX produce DVI files. To generate acceptable PDF files from these, first convert the DVI file to PostScript with the following command:

dvips -Ppdf -G0 -t a4 -o FILE.ps FILE.dvi

Then you should run the ps2pdf program to create the PDF file from the PostScript file:

ps2pdf  -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress \
        -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 \
        -dAutoFilterColorImages=false \
        -dAutoFilterGrayImages=false \
        -dColorImageFilter=/FlateEncode \
        -dGrayImageFilter=/FlateEncode \
        -dMonoImageFilter=/FlateEncode \
        -dDownsampleColorImages=false \
        -dDownsampleGrayImages=false \
         FILE.ps FILE.pdf

This command also works for postscript files generated in different ways.

If you are using LibreOffice or any of its variants to write your report, export the file in PDF format using the File → Export As PDF menu. Under the options window, you do not need to select any special options. But make sure you turn off JPEG compression by selecting lossless compression to avoid image quality problems, and we also do not recommend reducing the image resolution.

Newer Word programs offer the option to save the file as a PDF under the save menu point. You may have to install a separate option for this to work. In general, this may be the best option to generate a PDF. Make sure you turn off image compression and select at least 300dpi resolution.

If this option does not work for you, there are various more or less free programs and services to convert word files to PDF. They should be easy to find, but we do not recommend any specific ones.