The main benefit of PDF/A-1a is that content is tagged so it can be
rendered on different screen sizes. This makes sense when you are
generating the PDF from native electronic documents, especially when they
may be viewed on mobile devices, but not so much when you are scanning
hard copy to create images. You can still include the appropriate metadata
tags to make the scanned image PDF/A-1a compliant, but I'm not really sure
you would be making the document any "better" in any archival preservation
sense.
On the other hand doing some OCR to add full text searching might be a way
to make it a more "findable" document, but that alone won't make it
PDF/A-1a
Christian Meinke, CRM
Southern California Edison
Information Governance
(626) 302-7133/PAX 27133
Mobile (818) 414-9515
[log in to unmask]
From: Andrew Warland <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: 12/02/2010 03:13 PM
Subject: [RM] PDF/A-1A and PDF/A-1B
Sent by: Records Management Program <[log in to unmask]>
Hi from Sydney, Australia
I am reviewing options for long-term preservation of scanned documents
for the (Local Government) organisation I work for and it has been
suggested by some scanning companies that documents in PDF/A-1A format
is difficult to achieve.
There are currently two types of PDF/A, PDF/A-1A and PDF/A-1B, as
defined in ISO 19005-1:2005, Part 1: Use of PDF 1.4.
The Digital Preservation website notes the following:
'For pragmatic reasons, when PDF/A is mandated, PDF/A-1b is usually
acceptable. Full PDF/A-1a compliance, with tagged document structure,
is hard to achieve except in a workflow that anticipates that
objective from initial document creation.'
(http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000125.shtml,
retrieved 1 December 2010)
Is anyone able to comment, based on experience with scanning
documents, whether PDF/A-1A is a 'better' version for long-term
digital preservation, or if PDF/A-1B is in fact 'acceptable' for this
purpose? In what circumstances would PDF/A-1A be the preferred
option, and is it 'hard to achieve' in practice? Should we wait for
PDF/A-2 to be released? (ISO 32000-1)
Andrew Warland
Sydney, Australia
My views entirely
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