ExifTool Forum

General => Metadata => Topic started by: aborruso on August 31, 2022, 10:34:38 AM

Title: How to check if a PDF is a PDF/A
Post by: aborruso on August 31, 2022, 10:34:38 AM
Hello,
I have a PDF/A file, and if I run "exiftool input.pdf" I have the output below.
It's a PDF/A created using libreoffice.

How can I read that this is a PDF/A?

Thank you very much

ExifTool Version Number         : 12.16
File Name                       : tmp.pdf
Directory                       : .
File Size                       : 15 KiB
File Modification Date/Time     : 2022:08:31 16:24:11+02:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2022:08:31 16:24:12+02:00
File Inode Change Date/Time     : 2022:08:31 16:24:11+02:00
File Permissions                : rwxr--r--
File Type                       : PDF
File Type Extension             : pdf
MIME Type                       : application/pdf
PDF Version                     : 1.6
Linearized                      : No
Page Count                      : 1
Page Layout                     : SinglePage
Language                        : it-IT
Tagged PDF                      : Yes
Part                            : 3
Conformance                     : B
Producer                        : LibreOffice 7.3
Creator Tool                    : Writer
Create Date                     : 2022:08:31 16:24:11+02:00
Creator                         : Writer
Title: Re: How to check if a PDF is a PDF/A
Post by: StarGeek on September 01, 2022, 01:25:00 PM
What do you mean by "read that this is a PDF/A"?  Do you mean that you want exiftool to check if it qualifies as a PDF/A?

I think that is a bit beyond the scope of exiftool, as reading the Wikipedia description (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/A#Description) seems to indicate that a lot of checks and verification needs to be done to make sure all the data is embedded and nothing is pulled from an external source.

This StackOverflow question (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/569129/how-can-i-test-a-pdf-document-if-it-is-pdf-a-compliant) seems to give some options for detecting if a PDF is compliant.