In a perfect world, printing companies would be able to accept any PDF file to print without concern. PDF is, after all, a standard, so shouldn’t all files work the same way? The simple answer is that they do not. If you’ve read articles in the software space of WhatTheyThink over the years, you may be aware that the PDF standard has many variations. And because PDF is a standard that has been around for more than a few decades, those variations have grown in many directions. To learn more about the basic PDF standards, spend some time on the websites of The Ghent Work Group and PDF Association to review their educational content that can help you understand the difference between the variations and the growing body of work to address accessibility, packaging, and other segments.

The fact remains that there are many variations. Today, we create files intended to meet the needs of many applications, especially in the part of the world where we create both transactional and marketing communication using techniques for personalization. Many of the files are developed to address multiple output channels, including print, web display, email, and mobile technologies, each with different needs and constraints. Creating transactional communication often includes steps that add index records, comments, and special operators that allow the file to navigate to all required output channels. Marketing communications may also contain special operators for multiple channels. PDFs may also include multiple layers designed to address different processes. Let’s just say a PDF file can be complex.

The tools that create the files are also a diverse array of home-grown systems, hybrid programs,  and vendor tools designed to meet the needs of their constituents. In enterprise environments like healthcare billing, insurance, or banking many of the systems that produce PDF were written in-house decades ago and natively produce other formats that are transformed into PDF. Other companies use dedicated composition systems to generate their files, which may be in a native PDF file format or transformed to PDF from another format like AFP or PCL by a transform engine. Cloud-based products like Canva have joined the pantheon of tools, while others like native Adobe products like InDesign or Illustrator to produce their PDF.