Advanced PDF processing

PDF to PDF/UA

PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility) is the ISO standard that defines a form of PDF suitable for use with assistive technology, most obviously with text-to-speech software that makes PDF files accessible to those with visual disabilities. A good introduction to PDF/UA is provided by this PDF Association publication.

Mimotek’s Structuriser technology already creates PDF files that satisfy the major requirements of PDF/UA. Structuriser determines the reading order of the text in the page and tags the page content (including images). This information is embedded in the PDF file as a structure tree, to produce a Structured PDF file, which forms the core of PDF/UA. The process is automatic, although a user interface is provided so that an operator can view and, if necessary, correct the automatic tagging.

We are currently further developing the Structuriser technology to allow it to export conforming PDF/UA files. This involves integrating the existing tagging functionality with a verification engine based on the Matterhorn Protocol rules.

For further information, please contact us.

PDF to ZUGFeRD & FACTUR-X conversion tool

ZUGFeRD (which is an acronym for Zentraler User Guide des Forums elektronische Rechnung Deutschland) is a file format for digital invoices that are both human- and machine-readable. The human-readable part consists of a PDF/A-3 file, within which is embedded a machine-readable XML representation of the same information. The second version of the ZUGFeRD specification, which is currently under joint German/French development,… Continue Reading

Mimotek announces the release of Mimotek Structuriser 2.0

The second generation of Mimotek’s Structuriser software is now shipping. This upgrade builds on the success of the original version but offers a significant improvement in productivity, both through its feature set and its performance. The key changes are: Mimotek Structuriser Server 2.0 shows a significant increase in throughput compared with version 1. Mimotek Structuriser… Continue Reading

Structured PDF or Tagged PDF

‘Tagged PDF’ and ‘Structured PDF’ are both terms that describe flavours of PDF that not only allow a digital document to be displayed and/or printed, but also allow meaningful content to be reliably extracted. The details of the two definitions are similar in that they both require (amongst other things) that fonts are embedded, characters… Continue Reading

PDF validation

The validation of PDF files was a major theme of the recent PDF Association technical conferences. While there are organisational and political issues to be solved (involving who would provide the tools and what guarantees could be given as to their accuracy), it would clearly be valuable if those processing PDF files could have access to… Continue Reading