PDF 2.0 – Page 2 – Global Graphics Software blog

January 6, 2017November 21, 2019

Getting to know PDF 2.0: not only but also!

In the middle of 2017 ISO 32000-2 will be published, defining PDF 2.0. It’s eight years since there’s been a revision to the standard. We’ve already covered the main changes affecting print in previous blog posts and here Martin Bailey, the primary UK expert to the ISO committee developing PDF 2.0, gives a roundup of a few other changes to expect.

Security
The encryption algorithms included in previous versions of PDF have fallen behind current best practices in security, so PDF adds AES-256-bit and states that all passwords used for AES-256 encryption must be encoded in Unicode.
A PDF 1.7 reader will almost certainly error and refuse to process any PDF files using the new AES-256 encryption.
Note that Adobe’s ExtensionLevel 3 to ISO 32000-1 defines a different AES-256 encryption algorithm, as used in Acrobat 9 (R=5). That implementation is now regarded as dangerously insecure and Adobe has deprecated it completely, to the extent that use of it is forbidden in PDF 2.0.
Deprecation and what this means in PDF!
PDF 2.0 has deprecated a number of implementation details and features that were defined in previous versions. In this context ‘deprecation’ means that tools writing PDF 2.0 are recommended not to include those features in a file; and that tools reading PDF 2.0 files are recommended to ignore those features if they find them.
Global Graphics has taken the deliberate decision not to ignore relevant deprecated items in PDF files that are submitted and happen to be identified as PDF 2.0. This is because it is quite likely that some files will be created using an older version of PDF and using those features. If those files are then pre-processed in some way before submitting to Harlequin (e.g. to impose or trap the files) the pre-processor may well tag them as now being PDF 2.0. It would not be appropriate in such cases to ignore anything in the PDF file simply because it is now tagged as PDF 2.0.
We expect most other PDF readers to take the same course, at least for the next few years.
And the rest…
PDF 2.0 header: It’s only a small thing, but a PDF reader must be prepared to encounter a value of 2.0 in the file header and as the value of the Version key in the Catalog.
PDF 1.7 readers will probably vary significantly in their handling of files marked as PDF 2.0. Some may error, others may warn that a future version of that product is required, while others may simply ignore the version completely.
Harlequin 11 reports “PDF Warning: Unexpected PDF version – 2.0” and then continues to process the job. Obviously that warning will disappear when we ship a new version that fully supports PDF 2.0.
UFT-8 text strings: Previous versions of PDF allowed certain strings in the file to be encoded in PDFDocEncoding or in 16-bit Unicode. PDF 2.0 adds support for UTF-8. Many PDF 1.7 readers may not recognise the UTF-8 string as UTF-8 and will therefore treat it as using PDFDocEncoding, resulting in those strings being treated as what looks like a random sequence of mainly accented characters.
Print scaling: PDF 1.6 added a viewer preferences key that allowed a PDF file to specify the preferred scaling for use when printing it. This was primarily in support of engineering drawings. PDF 2.0 adds the ability to say that the nominated scaling should be enforced.
Document parts: The PDF/VT standard defines a structure of Document parts (common called DPart) that can be used to associate hierarchical metadata with ranges of pages within the document. In PDF/VT the purpose is to enable embedding of data to guide the application of different processing to each page range.
PDF 2.0 has added the Document parts structure into baseline PDF, although no associated semantics or required processing for that data have been defined.
It is anticipated that the new ISO standard on workflow control (ISO 21812, expected to be published around the end of 2017) will make use of the DPart structure, as will the next version of PDF/VT. The specification in PDF 2.0 is largely meaningless until such time as products are written to work with those new standards.

The background
The last few years have been pretty stable for PDF; PDF 1.7 was published in 2006, and the first ISO PDF standard (ISO 32000-1), published in 2008, was very similar to PDF 1.7. In the same way, PDF/X‑4 and PDF/X‑5, the most recent PDF/X standards, were both published in 2010, six years ago.
In the middle of 2017 ISO 32000-2 will be published, defining PDF 2.0. Much of the new work in this version is related to tagging for content re-use and accessibility, but there are also several areas that affect print production. Among them are some changes to the rendering of PDF transparency, ways to include additional data about spot colors and about how color management should be applied.

December 20, 2016November 21, 2019

Getting to know PDF 2.0: halftones

Martin Bailey, CTO, Global Graphics Software

In the middle of 2017 ISO 32000-2 will be published, defining PDF 2.0. It’s eight years since there’s been a revision to the standard. In his next blog post about the changes afoot, Martin Bailey, the primary UK expert to the ISO committee developing PDF 2.0, looks at halftones, an area where the new specification will offer significant benefits for flexo jobs.

Lists of spot functions in halftones
PDF allows a PDF file to specify the halftone to be used for screening output in a variety of ways. The simplest is to identify a spot function by name, but that method was constrained in versions of the PDF standard up to PDF 1.7 to use only names that were explicitly listed in the specification itself. This has been a significant limitation in print sectors where custom halftones are common, such as flexography, gravure … and pretty much everywhere apart from offset plate-making!

PDF 2.0 allows the PDF file to specify the halftone dot shape as a list of spot function names, and those names no longer need to be picked from the ones specified in the standard. The renderer should use the first named spot function in the list that it supports. This allows a single file to be created that can be used in a variety of RIPs that support different sets of proprietary halftones and to select the best one available in each RIP for that specific object.

This functionality is expected to be used mainly for high-quality flexo press work, where it’s a key part of the workflow to specify which halftone should be used for each graphical element.

A PDF 1.7 reader will probably either error or completely ignore the screening information embedded in the PDF if a file using the new list form is encountered. In the flexo space that could easily cause problems on-press, so take care that you’ve upgraded your RIPs before you start to try rendering PDF files using this new capability.

Halftone Origin (HTO)
Very old versions of PDF (up to PDF 1.3) included a partial definition of an entry named HTP, which was intended to allow the location of the origin or phase of a halftone to be specified. That entry was unfortunately useless because it did not specify the coordinate system to apply and it was removed many years ago.

PDF 2.0 adds a new entry called HTO to achieve the same goal, but this time fully specified. The use case is anywhere where precise specification of the halftone phase is valuable. Examples include pre-imposed sheets for VLF plate-setters, where specifying the halftone phase for each imposed page can reduce the misalignment of halftones that can occur over very long distances, or setting the halftone phase of each of a set of step-and-repeat labels to ensure that the halftone dots are placed in exactly the same position relative to the design in each instance.

A PDF 1.7 reader will simply ignore the new key, so there’s no danger of new files causing problems in an older workflow. On the other hand, those older RIPs will render as they always have, which would be a missed opportunity for the target use cases.

Halftone selection in transparent areas
Up to PDF 1.7 there has been a requirement to apply the “default halftone” in all areas where transparency compositing has been applied. This was problematic for those print technologies where different halftones must be used for different object types to achieve maximum quality, e.g. for flexo. Transparency is used in these jobs most commonly for drop shadows, so that’s where you’re most likely to have encountered problems.

PDF 2.0 effectively gives complete freedom to renderers to apply the supplied screening parameters in whatever way they see fit, but two example implementations are provided to encourage similarity between implementations. One of those matches the requirements from PDF 1.7, while the other applies the screen defined for the top-most graphical element in areas where transparency was applied. The second one means that the screening selected for the drop shadow will now be used, matching requirements for the flexo market.

In the middle of 2017 ISO 32000-2 will be published, defining PDF 2.0. Much of the new work in this version is related to tagging for content re-use and accessibility, but there are also several areas that affect print production. Among them are some changes to the rendering of PDF transparency, ways to include additional data about spot colors and about how color management should be applied.

November 30, 2016November 21, 2019

Getting to know PDF 2.0 – update from Down Under

I’ve been in the ISO PDF committee meeting in Sydney, Australia for a couple of days this week to review the comments submitted to the most recent ballot on PDF 2.0. Over 100 comments were received, including some complex issues around digital signatures, structure tagging (especially lists), optional content, document parts and soft masks. In all cases the committee was able to reach a consensus on what should be done for PDF 2.0.

The plan is now for one more ballot, the responses to which will be reviewed in Q2 next year, with an expectation that final text for PDF 2.0 will be delivered to ISO for publication shortly thereafter.

So we’re still on track for publication next year.

All of which means that it’s past time that a couple of PDF’s unsung heroes were acknowledged. The project leaders for PDF 2.0 have invested very substantial amounts of time and mental energy updating text in response to comments and ballots over the last several years. When somebody like me requests a change it’s the project leaders who help to double-check that every last implication of that change is explored to ensure that we don’t have any inconsistency.

So a big thank you to Duff Johnson of the PDF Association and Peter Wyatt of CISRA (Canon)!

It’s also worth noting that one of the significant improvements in PDF 2.0 that probably won’t get highlighted elsewhere is that the text now is much more consistent. When you’re writing a detailed technical document 1000 pages long it’s inevitable that some disconnections between different sections will creep in. PDF 2.0 illustrates the value of a broad group of people from many countries and many industries reviewing text in the ISO process: we’ve managed to stamp on many of those cases in this new version.

November 17, 2016November 21, 2019

Getting to know PDF 2.0: rendering PDF transparency

In the middle of 2017 ISO 32000-2 will be published, defining PDF 2.0. It’s eight years since there’s been a revision to the standard. In the second of a series of blog posts Martin Bailey, the primary UK expert to the ISO committee developing PDF 2.0, looks at the changes to rendering PDF transparency for print.
These changes are all driven by what we’ve learned in the last few years about where the previous PDF standards could trip people up in real-world jobs.
Inheritance of transparency color spaces
Under certain circumstances a RIP will now automatically apply a color-managed (CIEBased) color space when a device color space (such as DeviceCMYK) is used in a transparent object. It will do that by inheriting it from a containing Form XObject or the current page.
That sounds very technical, but the bottom line is that it will now be much easier to get the correct color when imposing multiple PDF files from different sources together. That’s especially the case when you’re imposing PDF/X files that use different profiles in their output intents, even though they may all be intended for the same target printing condition. The obvious examples of this kind of use case is placing display advertising for publications, or gang-printing.
We’ve tried hard to minimize impact on existing workflows in making these improvements, but there will inevitably be some cases where a PDF 2.0 workflow will produce different results from at least some existing solutions, and this is one case where that could happen. But we believe that the kinds of construct where PDF 2.0 will produce different output are very uncommon in PDF files apart from in the cases where it will provide a benefit by allowing a much closer color match to the designer/advertiser’s goal than could be achieved easily before.
Clarifications on when object colors must be transformed to the blend color space
The ISO PDF 1.7 standard, and all previous PDF specifications were somewhat vague about exactly when the color space of a graphical object involved with PDF transparency needed to be transformed into the blending color space. The uncertainty meant that implementations from different vendors could (and sometimes did) produce very different results.
Those statements have been greatly clarified in PDF 2.0.
This is another area where an upgrade to a PDF 2.0 workflow may mean that your jobs render slightly differently … but the up-side is that if you run pre-press systems or digital presses from multiple vendors they should now all be more similar to each other.
As a note to Harlequin RIP users, the new rules are in line with the way that Harlequin has always behaved; in other words, you won’t see any changes in this area when you upgrade.
ColorDodge & Burn
It tends to be taken for granted that the older PDF specifications must match what Adobe® Acrobat® does, but that’s not always correct. As an example, the formulae for the ColorDodge and ColorBurn transparency blending modes in the PDF specification have never matched the implementation in Acrobat. In pursuit of compatibility Harlequin was changed to match Acrobat rather than the specification many years ago. In PDF 2.0 the standard is finally catching up with reality and now both Acrobat and Harlequin will be formally ‘correct’!
The background
The last few years have been pretty stable for PDF; PDF 1.7 was published in 2006, and the first ISO PDF standard (ISO 32000-1), published in 2008, was very similar to PDF 1.7. In the same way, PDF/X 4 and PDF/X 5, the most recent PDF/X standards, were both published in 2010, six years ago.
In the middle of 2017 ISO 32000-2 will be published, defining PDF 2.0. Much of the new work in this version is related to tagging for content re-use and accessibility, but there are also several areas that affect print production. Among them are some changes to the rendering of PDF transparency, ways to include additional data about spot colors and about how color management should be applied.

November 1, 2016November 21, 2019

Getting to know PDF 2.0

Just when you’ve all cozied down with PDF 1.7 what happens? Yes, that’s right. A new standard rears its head.

Around the middle of 2017 the ISO committee will publish PDF 2.0 (ISO 32000-2). So by the end of 2017 you’ll probably need to be considering how to ensure that your workflow can handle PDF 2.0 files correctly.

As the primary UK expert to this committee I thought I’d give you a heads up now on what to expect. And over the coming months via this blog and our newsletter I’ll endeavor to keep you posted on what to look out for as far as print is concerned. Because, of course, there are many aspects to the standard that do not concern print at all. For instance there are lots of changes in areas such as structure tagging for accessibility and digital signatures that might be important for business and consumer applications.

As you probably already know, in 2008 Adobe handed over ownership and development of the PDF standard to the International Standards Organization. Since that time I’ve been working alongside other experts to ensure that standards have real-world applicability.

And here’s one example relating to color.

The printing condition for which a job was created can be encapsulated in professional print production jobs by specifying an “output intent” in the PDF file. The output intent structure was invented for the PDF/X standards, at first in support of pre-flight, and later to enable color management at the print site to match that used in proofing at the design stage.

But the PDF/X standards only allow a single output intent to be specified for all pages in a job.

PDF 2.0 allows separate output intents to be included for every page individually. The goal is to support jobs where different media are used for various pages, e.g. for the first sheet for each recipient of a transactional print job, or for the cover of a saddle-stitched book. The output intents in PDF 2.0 are an extension of those described in PDF/X, and the support for multiple output intents will probably be adopted back into PDF/X-6 and into the next PDF/VT standard.

But of course, like many improvements, this one does demand a little bit of care. A PDF 1.7 or existing PDF/X reader will ignore the new page level output intents and could therefore produce the wrong colors for a job that contains them.
In my next post I’ll be covering changes around live transparency in PDF 2.0. Bet you can’t wait!
You can sign up to the Global Graphics newsletter here.

The background
The last few years have been pretty stable for PDF; PDF 1.7 was published in 2006, and the first ISO PDF standard (ISO 32000-1), published in 2010, was very similar to PDF 1.7. In the same way, PDF/X 4 and PDF/X 5, the most recent PDF/X standards, were both published in 2010, six years ago.