User guide

Chapter 5: Working with Certified PDF documents64
Document Consistency
PDF Editing in a Certified PDF Workflow
To help reduce document consistency problems, the
Certified PDF workflow features a mechanism that:
• Logs all the changes that are made to a
Certified PDF document
• Stores these changes inside the Certified PDF
document
• Makes sure a new preflight check is run after
editing to guarantee that the PDF document is
still output-ready
Introducing the Edit Log
Based on the logged information, an edit log —a
human readable preflight report— is generated.
If consistency between the PDF document and the
source file(s) is very important, you can use the edit
log to change the source file(s) accordingly.
PDF editing Issues
PDF editing tools, such as Enfocus PitStop Pro, are
very convenient for making intermediate or
last-minute corrections in PDF documents. This
saves you both time and money because you do not
have to go back to the original application program
to re-create the PDF document. Sometimes, it may
even be more efficient to make the changes directly
in your PDF document. Enfocus PitStop Pro, for
example, allows you to make global color changes
throughout your PDF document.
Risks Involved in PDF Editing
PDF editing also involves a risk: as soon as you edit
and save a PDF document, you create a version of a
document that is different from the original docu-
ment you made using a word processor or a desk-
top publishing software. These inconsistencies are
hard to manage, and may introduce problems in
archiving or when the document is republished at a
later date.
Conventional PDF editing
In a conventional PDF workflow, the PDF document
goes through the hands of different parties who
can each edit it, if necessary. The original PDF doc-
ument is replaced by the edited one, and there is
no efficient means of tracing which changes were
made between the different versions of the file, or
by whom.
Source document
PDF editing
PDF editing
PDF version 3
PDF editing in a
non-Certified workflow
PDF version 1
PDF version 2
InstantPDF.book Page 64 Wednesday, June 9, 2010 4:04 PM