About additional checks and properties

The Preflight tool includes a collection of additional checks (called rules in previous versions of Acrobat) that you can add to a profile. These are available from the Custom Checks section of each profile. You can modify these checks in a variety of ways, depending on the PDF property they describe.

Some properties are defined by a simple statement that is either true or false for a given object in a PDF, for example, “Font is not embedded” or “Color managed color used.” Some property statements specify relationships between the actual value of a property (for example, text size or spot color name) and the value you enter in the dialog box (for example, “12” or “Deep blue”). Other statements compare numerical values.

Relationship between property value and typed value		Relationship between numerical values	Boolean properties
is equal to	is not equal to	is less than	is true
contains	does not contain	is less than or equal to	is not true
begins with	does not begin with	is equal to
ends with	does not end with	is not equal to
is contained in	is not contained in	is greater than
		is greater than or equal to

Property groups

The properties for defining a check are grouped in categories. You can view a list of all property groups in the Edit Check dialog box. In addition, you can view the individual properties that make up each group, as well as an explanation of how the Preflight tool uses the properties.

The following property groups are available:

Text: Includes information about how text is rendered, whether it is scaled anamorphically or slanted, or whether it can be mapped to Unicode and thus copied or exported correctly.
Font: Describes all aspects of a font in which text is rendered. Note that text size is a text property, not a font property, because a font can be used at many sizes throughout a PDF document. Text size is included in the Text property group.
Image: Includes image resolution, bit depth, number of pixels, rendering intent, and more.
Colors: Includes color characteristics, such as color spaces, alternate color spaces, patterns, and spot colors. Alternate color spaces enable Acrobat to display or print certain spot colors and multicomponent spot colors (DeviceN). For example, to reproduce the color orange on a monitor or printer, the PDF requires an alternate color space (made up of RGB or CMYK colors) that defines what the spot color looks like.
ICC Color Spaces: Includes properties for accessing the characteristics in the embedded ICC profiles, which define the ICC color spaces. ICC profiles contain data for translating device-dependent color to a device-independent color space, such as CIE L*a*b. This helps you reproduce color consistently across different platforms, devices, and ICC-compliant applications (such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign). A document that contains objects in different color spaces (such as RGB, CMYK, and Grayscale) could have different ICC profiles for calibrating the color for each color space.
Graphic State Properties For Fill: Includes graphic state information about how areas are filled, particularly the color values of the current color space.
Graphic State Properties For Stroke: Includes graphic state information about how lines are drawn, particularly the color values of the current color space, as well as line-specific properties, such as thickness.
General Graphic State Properties: Includes settings that control how text, graphics, or images are displayed in a PDF page. Overprint settings, for example, are included here.
Halftone: Includes graphic state settings relevant to prepress operations, such as screen angles, frequencies, and spot shapes.
Page Description: Includes general information about objects on a PDF page, such as the type of object (for example, whether it is an image, a piece of text, or a smooth shade) or whether it is inside or outside the viewable area of the page, or how far it is from the trim box.
OPI: Includes properties for analyzing all existing OPI links (comments), whether from OPI version 1.3 or 2.0. The possible OPI entries in a PDF are the same as in PostScript files.
Embedded PostScript: Refers to the PostScript code that can be embedded into the PDF. There are three properties: one for a PostScript operator used directly in a page description; one for PostScript code embedded in a PostScript XObject; and one for an early form of a PostScript XObject, a PostScript Form XObject.
Object Metadata: Includes information embedded with the object, such as its creator, resolution, color space, copyright, and keywords applied to it. For example, if a Photoshop image with metadata is placed in an InDesign document, and the document is converted to PDF, this information can be retrieved and checked by properties in this group.
Annotations: Includes most characteristics of comments and drawing markups, traps, and printer marks.
Form Fields: Includes properties for form fields.
Layers: Checks for optional content, which may affect the appearance of a page.
Pages: Includes page numbers and page sizes that represent the various document boxes supported by Adobe PDF 1.3 and later technology (media box, bleed box, trim box, and art box). This group also includes plate names for PDF pages that belong to a preseparated PDF.
Document: Includes all the pieces of information that apply to the PDF as a whole, such as whether the document is encrypted, contains form fields, or contains bookmarks.
Document Info: Lists all the standard entries that can also be accessed by the Document Info dialog box in Acrobat, and information that has been standardized by the ISO 15930 standard (PDF/X).
Document Metadata: Includes information embedded within the document, such as its title, author, copyright, and keywords applied to it. This information is also available in the Document Metadata section of the Document Properties dialog box in Acrobat. (Choose File > Properties, click the Description tab, and then click Additional Metadata.)
Structured PDF: Includes several basic properties for the tagging structure in a tagged PDF, for which the PDF/A standard defines constraints.
Output Intents For PDF/X or PDF/A: Defines which output process the PDF has been prepared for. A PDF intended for high-resolution printed output typically contains an output intent with an embedded ICC profile, for use by a proofing device or a device’s RIP (raster image processor).
Output Intent For PDF/X or PDF/A (ICC Profile Properties): Includes properties for accessing information from an ICC profile embedded in the output intent. This group includes the same properties as ICC profiles for objects, such as profile name and type. The ICC profile describes the output condition of the device where the document will be imaged.
Efficiency Of PDF Content Stream: Helps determine how efficient page descriptions are encoded. For example, it is possible to include the text Hello as a text operator for the whole word, or as several text operators for each character in the word. The latter is less efficient and reduces the speed of page rendering. The efficiency checks return percentages for several types of operators. A smaller value in most cases is better than a higher value.
Errors In PDF Syntax: Returns information about specific errors in a PDF’s syntax. For example, if certain keys required by the PDF specification are not included, Acrobat may still be able to render the file. For predictable PDF rendering however, it is preferable to encode all PDFs in strict compliance with the PDF specification.
Errors In Structured PDF: Returns information about errors in the tag structure of a tagged PDF. For example, an error is returned if the type of a tagged object is not properly specified. The properties in this group help identify errors in tag structure.
Errors In PDF Content Stream: Returns information about errors in the page descriptions in a PDF. For example, three number operands are required to define RGB color. If there are fewer than three operators, it is not possible to render the page. Properties in this group help determine the reasons why a PDF page isn’t rendered.