1. WHITE PAPER
CREATED
EQUAL
All
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NOT

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Table of Contents
Not All PDFs Are Equal.................................................................. 3
High Fidelity Rendering ................................................................. 4
What is Rendition Fidelity? ................................................................ 4
Why is Fidelity Hard?........................................................................ 4
The Risk of Interpretative Conversion .................................................. 5
Our Secret Sauce............................................................................ 6
Our Promise of Fidelity...................................................................... 6
Beyond Conversion......................................................................... 8
Proven Production Readiness ............................................................. 8
Contact Us....................................................................................... 9

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Not All PDFs Are Equal
Enterprise documents are growing at an astonishing rate, and 35% of this digital universe is
subject to compliance and regulatory constraints1
. Ensuring that documents look and act the
way they should, is no longer a ‘nice to have’, but has become a critical IT issue impacting
legal, marketing, operations, and finance departments.
When organizations look at document management, and specifically enterprise document
conversion, there are a number of criteria that must be evaluated: System reliability,
repository integration, file compression, throughput performance, etc. This whitepaper
examines the most visible, yet one of the most commonly overlooked, aspects of document
management: Rendition Fidelity. An end user converting a document to PDF does not
guarantee Rendition Fidelity and can result in any number of unacceptable outputs.
The paper defines Rendition Fidelity and describes the specific attributes it encompasses.
It further outlines the fidelity-related risks organizations may experience, and describes
an integrated automated solution to address enterprise document conversion and
Rendition Fidelity.
1 http://www.cioupdate.com/insights/article.php/3911571/Data--We-Have-a-Problem.htm

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High Fidelity Rendering
WHAT IS RENDITION FIDELITY?
Rendition fidelity is the level of accuracy a rendition (e.g. PDF) has when compared to its
source. The highest fidelity rendition is an exact match to the original.
WHY IS FIDELITY HARD?
When converting from one document format to another, inconsistencies will often present
themselves between the original and the rendition. Excluding the impact of the applications
that create the files in the first place, the challenges are often due to issues with the files
themselves:
BAD CONTENT
1. Missing Content: Most document formats are proprietary and closed. When a technology
interprets these formats, certain assumptions are made, causing a re-formatting of the
content and the absence of some content.
2. Format Errors: Modern Open-Formats such as Microsoft’s Office®
Open XML may be
published, but how the application applies the details found within the format
remains proprietary.
INCOMPLETE CONTENT
3. Missing Content: Authoring applications often allow the embedding of additional files of
other file formats. Although the authoring system may be able to handle these embedded
files, technologies which simply interpret these file formats will be limited to the parent or
container file and child files or formats are usually absent or represented by a box with an
X indicating there is missing content.
4. Missing Links: Linked content is often embedded within documents, but may not be
available in the same relative position upon automated publishing as it is defined in
the document.
5. Missing Fonts: Fonts used by the author may not be available to the rendering technology.
In this case, alternative fonts document will be placed in the rendition. This can cause
a re-formatting or reflowing of the content and in some cases may cause the data to be
completely unreadable.

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THE RISK OF INTERPRETATIVE CONVERSION
Many document conversion tools will simply interpret the source document and attempt to
create a representation of the source document, but many issues often persist:
1. Images are missing or distorted.
2. Content reflows cause inaccurate page counts, Table of Contents, hyperlinks, etc.
3. Document ‘fields’ and other in-file menus may end up with the menu options or control-
codes instead of the intended values.
4. Embedded content of an external file is missing, distorted or results in many pages of code
in the output file.
5. Inaccurate interpretations of page margins and pagination.
These common issues are mitigated when using the Native Application.
Adlib delivers the highest quality output, within a scalable and fully automated environment.
This is achieved by converting the document using the same application that was used to
create the file. Using the native application allows the rendering process to reconstruct the
data in the same way that it was intended to be represented by the author.

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Our Secret Sauce
When converting documents to PDF, Adlib uses the native application that was used by the
original author in order to create the best possible reproduction of the original document. It
effectively recreates many of the steps a user would take in order to create a high quality PDF
rendition of the document, with many additional benefits.
Using Adlib to convert large volumes of documents means:
1. Rendering processes are automated across a range of formats without the user needing
to understand the nuances of each format.
2. Hyperlinks can be automatically detected, validated & modified - this is particularly
important when the link points to a document that is being merged.
3. Heading styles can be used to generate Bookmarks and/or Table of Contents.
4. The original document can be automatically compared against the PDF Rendition to
ensure that common fidelity issues such as missing fonts, sources and content
reformatting were not encountered.
Other capabilities include support for advanced features such as Form field updates,
Rendering Comments & Markups. Adlib also converts documents that contain various
embedded file types such as an Excel®
Sheet or Visio®
diagram within a Word®
or
PowerPoint®
presentation.
OUR PROMISE OF FIDELITY
In a high production environment, fidelity issues can be difficult to detect and can go
largely un-noticed. This can significantly increase both cost and risk. Poorly formatted
documents that are discovered must be manually correctly or rendered which creates
considerable cost. Poorly formatted documents that are not discovered may be
stored or distributed without any intervention which significantly increases risk to
the organization. Poorly formatted or altered documents have been the source of
legal and compliance issues when there is a significant difference between the
authored document and the transformed document.
The Adlib architecture works with the applications and settings required
to create the highest quality output across a range of applications. This
deep integration helps to ensure the unique elements of each format
are accurately interpreted and converted. Some examples of
key features considered in the conversion process are
outlined below.

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1. Word
b) Hyperlinking
c) Creation of PDF Bookmark Structure
d) Updating of field codes
e) Table of Contents handling
f) Control of Comments, Review
g) Validation of rendering fidelity
h) Embedded objects (Visio®
, PowerPoint®
, Excel®
, etc.)
2. Excel
j) Support for print areas
k) Support for multiple worksheets
l) Creating PDF Bookmark structure
m) Embedded objects (Visio®
, PowerPoint®
, Word®
, etc.)
3. PowerPoint
n) Support for printing slide notes, Story Boards
o) Support for printing handouts
p) Embedded objects (Visio®
, Excel®
, Word®
, etc.)
4. Metadata
Using the Native Application enables the document metadata to be accessed during
the conversion process allowing the system to use document metadata for conditional
processing as well as exposing metadata on the document, or embedded into
the document.

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Beyond Conversion
Adlib is the industry leader in enterprise document-to-pdf conversion software. Our solution
offers the highest fidelity PDF rendering engine on the market, with accurate OCR capabilities
and intelligent document assembly to automatically convert, combine and enhance
documents into professional PDF files.
Adlib’s technical innovation ensures virtually any document is converted to the highest
quality possible, eliminating the risk of missing fonts, content reflow issues, formatting
inconsistencies and missing links and embedded objects.
PROVEN PRODUCTION READINESS
Adlib technology integrates with the most popular ECM, QMS, PLM, and other Repository
systems including EMC Documentum, OpenText®
LiveLink®
, Microsoft®
SharePoint®
,
MasterControl®
, NextDocs®
, Dassault Systems, and more.
Adlib software converts many thousands of documents per day at some of the largest
businesses, institutions and countries in the world, all leveraging MS Office®
as the native
application on the Adlib Server.
Adlib has demonstrated over 99.99% reliability when converting high volumes of documents
by leveraging Adlib PDF.
INPUTS OUTPUTS
TIFF
DWG
CONVERT COMBINE ENHANCE
HIGHLIGHTS
• Converts 400+ file types
including Office, email and
CAD drawings
• Outputs into a variety of
formats including PDF
and PDF/A
• Page Scaling and layer support
• PDF Stamping: Watermarks,
headers, footers, page
numbers, date/time
• PDF Navigation: Links, index,
bookmarks and table of
contents
• Accurate OCR with zonal data
extraction, barcode and optical
mark recognition
• Optimize size, embed only
used fonts, down-sample
images, compression
BENEFITS
• High quality, professional
assets
• Eliminate the cost of CAD
authoring and viewing tools
• Increased productivity
and collaboration
• Enhances document
archive strategy
• Protects intellectual property

9. Adlib Publishing Systems Inc.
General Inquiries info@adlibsoftware.com
Sales Support sales@adlibsoftware.com
Technical Support support@adlibsoftware.com
Phone 905-631-2875
Fax 905-639-3540
Toll Free
Sales 1-866-991-1704
Support 1-866-991-1705 (North America Only)
Printed in Canada. All rights reserved.
215-3228 South Service Road, Burlington, Ontario Canada L7N 3H8 | 1.866.991.1704 | 1.905.631.2875 | +44 (0) 1454 776688 | adlibsoftware.com
Adlib is the leading expert in document-to-PDF Conversion, enabling the world’s largest organizations to improve the efficiency, quality and
control of document intensive business processes to optimize productivity, mitigate risk and reduce costs. Being the trusted technology
provider to Global 2000 organizations, Adlib brings over a decade of expertise supporting more than 5,000 international companies and
government organizations to help them reduce the financial exposure and risk of non-compliance with regulatory agencies; reduce IT costs
by centralizing document Conversion; and leverage document-to-PDF as a shared service across the enterprise. Adlib is a proud Microsoft
Certified Gold Partner and a member of the PDF/A Competence Center. For more information, visit www.adlibsoftware.com.
© 2013 ADLIB SOFTWARE WPPDFEQUAL080113
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