PDF Research Adobe Acrobat Uses...
Transfer Files
Proofing
P/S Utility
Presentations
WWW
Archiving
Forms
EDMS

Digital Archiving...

  1. Required Components
  2. How To Create Digital Archives
  3. How To Create CD-ROM Collections
  4. Archiving Old Manuscripts

Many of the most important documents within companies are already digital files. These documents are assets of the company representing final packaged results of countless manhours of labor - maps, forms, brochures, vector plots, GIS, photographic scans, spreadsheets, graphs, word processing, annual reports, training manuals, etc. Their accessibility and reusability is a real issue particularly in an environment as prone to change as companies face in contemporary times.

The problem is that the files may be products of any number of different programs, produced on an array of different machines.

How can these files be archived when there are so many different variables involved?

One tactic is to convert the files to PDF. Files that have lain dormant in one end of an organization take on new life when they are made compatible with all of the machines running off a common server or intranet. Converting and cataloging the files reclaims otherwise lost assets that can still be of service to the organization. With the fonts embedded, even the most sophisticated graphics layout files can be shared and printed on local printers by the newest assistant or intern.

1. Required Components
  • Minimum system requirements
  • PDF conversion software - PDFWriter and/or Acrobat Distiller®
  • Acrobat Catalog® for cataloging and indexing files
  • Acrobat Reader® for opening converted files
  • Acrobat Exchange® for conducting cross document indexed searches and for recomposing pages from different sources into new documents
  • Adobe Illustrator® for opening PDF files for the purpose of reediting vector graphics and restoring as PDF files

Component Availability

PDFWriter, Acrobat Distiller®, Catalog, Reader, and Exchange are modules of the Adobe Acrobat package that can be purchased directly via mail order for about $200.

Adobe Illustrator® is available as a separate program for about $400.

2. Creating Digital Archives

There are two quick ways to create a PDF file:

  1. Save or Export the file directly in the PDF format from a growing list of programs - Adobe Illustrator 5.x and above, PageMaker 6.5, etc.
  2. Choose PDFWriter (available in the Adobe Acrobat package) as the print driver. Instead of printing to a printer, the file will be output to the PDF format - works well for Microsoft Word, Excel. Does NOTwork well for programs using Postscript - QuarkXPress, Photoshop Clipped Paths, imported Illustrator files, etc. The other risk you run is that the fonts will not be embedded which means that the receiver may not be able to see the fonts.

The "clean" way to create a PDF file is to:

  1. Save your source file, regardless originating program, as a Postscript file with the fonts embedded. The file may be many pages in length.
  2. Open Distiller and select the appropriate "Job Options" regarding font embedding and particularly "Compression." For proof e-mailing we recommend 72dpi compression resolution. For proofing on-screen we recommend an intermediate compression resolution of 300dpi.

Modify the file in Adobe Acrobat Exchange®:

  1. Open Exchange and edit your files - add other pages, crop, rotate, create links and bookmarks, append notes, etc.
  2. "Save As" an optimized file and add security passwords if desired. Optimizing reduces the size of the PDF file and adds byteserving (a.k.a., linearization) - which means that the end user will be downloading files one page at a time while the full document downloads in the background.

Catalog the files using Adobe Acrobat Catalog®.

The end user can open the individual files in Adobe Reader® (free) or in Adobe Exchange®. Exchange also allows the user to conduct searches across many documents through indexes created in Catalog®.

3. Creating CD-ROM Collections

There are two sets of instructions regarding how to create a collection of PDF documents for distribution on CD-ROMs. One is written by Ken Anderson of Adobe Systems called "Authoring An Acrobat CD Product, Complete Project Guide." It is available from the PurePDF website.

Compare his instructions to the following step-by-step production notes written by Chris Lane of Computer Multimedia Productions Corp. (813-531-7279) - downloaded 6/22/98 from the PDFZone User Forum.

  1. Create all source PDF files remembering to use 8.3 filenames with no dashes (-) or other non-ISO characters in them. In general it is also best to use only one case (upper or lower... I prefer lower) because Acrobat in Unix will try to match case, but most Unix CD-ROM drivers change the case of the files to either all upper or all lower case. This means that if you have a file called BillyBob.PDF, and you have a PDF link from main.pdf to BillyBob.PDF, inside Acrobat, this link will be case sensitive as BillyBob.PDF. On the PC and Mac side, the OS manages to ignore the case and call BILLYBOB.PDF or whatever, but in Unix the OS wants to find BillyBob.PDF. The bummer becomes that most Unix CD-ROM drivers are written to assume that ISO standard filenames which means 8.3 and all uppercase. To add to the problem, some Unix CD-ROM drivers will change the case from upper to lower so that when you look at the filenames on the CD-ROM they will look more "Unix" or lowercase (hey, I didn't write the drivers so don't shoot the messager). The result is that in Unix, Acrobat cross-document links between files on CD-ROM has a good chance of not working, particularly if you use changing case filenames. If you use all upper or all lower you at least have a chance it making it work. There is also something called the "RockRidge" extension which allow Unix to do longer than 8.3 and case sensitive from CD-ROM but creating one of these has its own set of pains in the ass. Also some newer Unix will do long file names from CD as well. (NOTE from Tom Thiersch <thiersch@env-sol.com> to amend the step one instructions...If by "ISO" you mean "ISO 9960", that spec requires that all letters be UPPERCASE; so, despite your personal preference for lowercase, you should keep that in mind. Failure to strictly follow the ISO 9660 standard can cause your CD-ROM to be un-mountable in certain situations (Netware seems to be notorious for this). Don't forget that Acrobat cross-file links embedded in your PDFs will also be case-sensitive in those environments which care about it, so the file names need to be all uppercase on the hard drive where they are originally created and linked, not just on the CD-ROM after lower-to-upper translation is done by your CD-ROM mastering software. This requirement to create all uppercase filenames can be particularly tricky to do in certain versions of Windows, so be careful!)
  2. Place all the source PDF files in a Mac virtual volume (you can create the virtual volume using Adaptec's Toast which is what we also use to burn the CD master). A side benefit of making a virtual volume is that you wind up with a easy configuration management snapshot of what you put on the CD-ROM, whereas grabbing the files off of the hard disk tends to lead to situations where later attempts to modify the CD image finds that files have been modified or deleted from the hard disk. The toast virtual volume becomes a file which you can place on a Jaz or other rewritable media and then easily open later to modify the CD image for a new burn.
  3. Create the Acrobat Catalog index of the files on the Mac virtual volume. A side note here is that we have found that Catalog runs faster on the PC, so we often create a volume on the PC side (using a Jaz or other rewriteable disk) and copy the PDFs in the Mac virtual volume to the PC volume. If you use a PC and Mac LAN (such as PCMacLAN) you can index the virtual volume across the LAN with some speed loss.
  4. Place all the Acrobat install files in the Mac virtual volume in a sub-folder called Acrobat (or whatever you like). You can copy all the installers from the Adobe website which has reader installers for Windows 32-bit, Windows 16-bit, Mac, and various Unix flavors. Note that you will probably want to use Acrobat Reader with Search and not just the Acrobat Reader since this will give your users search capabilities.
  5. You may want to optimize the Mac virtual volume using Norton's Speed Disk or similar. Older versions of Toast required this before burning the CD.
  6. Under Windows, use an installer creator package such as InstallShield or even a shareware install creator (we have used Install/Setup http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/kpherzog/) to create groups/folders and then launch the Acrobat installer. Remember to make the pathing to the Acrobat installer match what will be on the CD (for example \acrobat\win32\setup.exe). Place the resulting installer file into the Mac virtual volume along with your other files (we usually put it at root). Note that your installation routine should either detect Windows95+ or Windows3.1 or ask the user which they are running and then run the appropriate Acrobat reader installer. You can also make your installation routine optionally run the Acrobat installer or check if Acrobat is installed (this is tricky since you also need to check the version currently installed). Note that under Windows you can also play with the Acrobat abcpy.ini file which will customize the Acrobat Preferences to your specifications.
  7. Arrange the Mac virtual volume so that it is open and you only see the files that the user needs. We normally set this folder up the show only the main PDF and an alias (Mac shortcut) to the Mac version of the Acrobat installer.
  8. In the installation instructions for the Mac tell the user to run the double click on the Acrobat installer icon only if they don't have Acrobat Reader with Search version xxx or higher already installed on the machine. Note that, on the Mac you do not have to worry about creating folders/groups or adding to the Start menu, so you do not need to write special installation routines here.
  9. In the installation instructions, direct Unix users to the Unix install scripts and tell em good luck.... I think Unix users are used to pain so this does not seem to phase them.
  10. In the installation instructions, tell Windows users to run the installation routine you created above.
  11. If you want an autorun CD, create an autorun.inf file and place it in the root of the Mac virtual volume. Make sure that you create this file on the PC side, since the Mac uses a different end-of-line than the PC.
  12. Start up Toast and set it to create an ISO/HFS hybrid. Tell toast where the data files are (the Mac virtual volume). Let it rip.
  13. Test like crazy on all platforms.

4. Archiving Old Manuscripts

If you assume that only crisp and clean text documents can (or should be) archived using this technology, take a look at the work being done by Octavo. This company specializes in archiving old book and rare manuscripts in their original form, preserving the look of the original paper text and binding. But these documents are also text and image PDFs which means that they can be searched by text. They use sophisticated cameras and Acrobat for compressing storing and distributing the finished work. These are necessarily larger than usual files, but the benefits are obvious. See a PDF sample (5 pages, 1170K) of Shakespeare poems.

Another exciting example of archiving is the work done by Direct Imagination. They have reproduced Owen Jones' The Grammar of Ornament (originally published in 1856) into a series of PDF-rich CD-ROMs that contain 112 digitized plates from the original color edition, 160 vector renderings of many of the graphic designs and patterns, introductions and research commentary. The finished work has been accepted into the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution. Other volumes published by Direct Imagination include: Studies in Design and Art of Decorative Design by Christopher Dresser, Le Costume Historique by Racinet, and under development is Art Nouveau... Art of M.P. Verneuil. Be sure to visit their website.

Return to PDF Research Companion home page.
a production of Performance Graphics
©1998 The Miller De Wulf Corporation