Foxit Developer

PDF Compliance ​

Overview ​

PDF Compliance ​

Foxit PDF SDK supports standardized PDF version conversion. Currently supported versions are PDF 1.3, PDF 1.4, PDF 1.5, PDF 1.6, and PDF 1.7. When converting to PDF 1.3, if the source document contains transparency data, it is converted to PDF 1.4 instead of PDF 1.3 (PDF 1.3 does not support transparency). If the source document contains no transparency data, conversion proceeds to PDF 1.3 as expected.

PDF/A Compliance ​

PDF/A is an ISO-standard PDF format for archiving and long-term preservation of electronic documents. Unlike standard PDF, PDF/A disables features unsuitable for long-term archiving, such as font linking (as opposed to embedded fonts), encryption, JavaScript, audio, and video.

Foxit PDF SDK provides APIs to convert PDFs to PDF/A-compliant documents or verify PDF/A conformance. Supported PDF/A standards include PDF/A-1a, PDF/A-1b, PDF/A-2a, PDF/A-2b, PDF/A-2u, PDF/A-3a, PDF/A-3b, and PDF/A-3u (ISO 19005-1, 19005-2, and 19005-3).

PDF/E Compliance ​

PDF/E is an ISO-standard PDF format for archiving and reliable exchange of engineering documents. It is suited to creating, exchanging, archiving, and printing documents in engineering workflows.

Starting in version 10.1, Foxit PDF SDK provides APIs to convert PDFs to PDF/E-compliant documents or verify PDF/E conformance. It supports the PDF/E-1 standard.

PDF/X Compliance ​

PDF/X is an ISO-standard PDF format for exchanging graphics-intensive documents. It is primarily used to ensure consistency and predictability when printing files in design, drafting, engineering, and graphic arts.

Starting in version 10.1, Foxit PDF SDK provides APIs to convert PDFs to PDF/X-compliant documents or verify PDF/X conformance. Supported PDF/X standards include PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3, PDF/X-4, and PDF/X-4p.

Quick Start ​

See the detailed PDF compliance sample configuration and run guide for setup steps and sample execution.

Trial and Licensing ​

  • If you use a Foxit PDF SDK trial license, you do not need a separate license for the compliance engine library.
  • If you use a production Foxit PDF SDK license, obtain an additional unlock code from the Foxit sales team to initialize the compliance engine library. Pass the unlock code to ComplianceEngine.initialize(compliance_resource_folder_path, compliance_engine_unlockcode).

Multithreading Safety ​

  • Thread safety: Starting in v10.0, Foxit PDF SDK APIs and the compliance engine include default thread-safety mechanisms.
    • Before implementing a multithreaded application, call the ComplianceEngine.initializeThreadContext API to initialize the thread context correctly.
    • After the thread context is initialized, you can safely use the other compliance plugin APIs.
  • Platform limitation: The Mac Java language library does not currently support multithreaded operations.

See the Foxit PDF SDK multithreading safety guide for more details on thread-safety support.

Preflight ​

Starting in version 10.1, Foxit PDF SDK supports preflight functionality through the core Preflight class for PDF/A compliance checking and conversion, helping developers verify whether PDF documents conform to PDF/A and other standards and automatically convert them to compliant versions.