callas pdfToolbox - New Key Features

New features in callas pdfToolbox 15

The pdfToolbox 15 update of callas pdfToolbox is a major release
featuring powerful new improvements and features
to meet your evolving needs.

An upgrade to
pdfToolbox Server 15, pdfToolbox CLI 15 or pdfToolbox SDK 15
from earlier versions of these products requires a valid
Software Maintenance Agreement (SMA).

Features

Here are some of the key enhancements
you can expect in callas pdfToolbox 15 to
enhance your PDF workflows:

• Simplified preflight profile editor and
  process plan enhancements


• Painlessly creating preflight checks from object selections


• Numerous powerful new checks and corrections


• Further improvements on
  the 'Test mode' and JavaScript functionality


• More powerful variable window (Ask-at-Runtime dialog)
  for pdfToolbox Desktop

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 14.3:

The pdfToolbox 14.3 update of callas pdfToolbox is a minor release
not only addresses known issues but also introduces new compatibilities
to enhance PDF workflows.

Free of charge update:

• callas pdfToolbox 14.3 is a free update for everyone
  who is using callas pdfToolbox 14 already.

Features:

• Improved PDF file structure management,
  including the ability to update and apply bookmarks
  using the QuickCheck functionality.


• Enhanced support for DPart metadata,
  allowing extraction, modification, and injection of
  DPart information into PDF documents.


• Various smaller features and fixes,
  such as better checks for vector elements,
  broader color space support for image creation,
  and improved rendering issue detection.


• Added support for Linux using the ARM architecture,
  expanding compatibility for users on
  the Amazon Graviton platform.

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 14.2:

The pdfToolbox 14.2 update of callas pdfToolbox mostly corrects
identified problems with the pdfToolbox 14.1 release,
but also adds a few additional features.

Free of charge update of:

• pdfToolbox 14 Desktop for owners of a pdfToolbox 14 Desktop license


• pdfToolbox Server, pdfToolbox CLI or pdfToolbox SDK
  for owners of a Software Maintenance Agreement (SMA)

Features:

• Desktop:

• User interface for Process plans, Actions etc.:
  Improvements regarding display of content and usability


• Arbitrary JavaScript controlled Check/Fixup:
  Separate tabs for script and resources


• Test mode:
  Shortcuts for displaying page geometry boxes added


• Imposition:
  New import function for config files and
  PDF sheetconfig templates


• Process plan:
  Improved automatic scrolling when
  (multiple) objects are selected and moved


• Process plan:
  Auto-complete of the "app" object is also available
  when editing JavaScript in VS Code as external editor



• Enhanced predefined Profiles:

• PDF/A-4... validation:
  Adjustments made to match veraPDF requirements:


• Binary comment in the file header is missing or
  does not comply PDF/A requirements


• ToUnicode CMaps using incorrect values


• Additional action (AA) entries


• Detection of certain encryption settings in a PDF



• Enhanced Fixups:

• Create and apply shapes:
  New option to enlarge page size if needed


• Create and apply shapes:
  New option to suppress separations from rendering


• Map spot and process colors:
  New option "Convert to alternate color"


• Map spot and process colors:
  New option for "Adjust spot colors" to map spot color tint values proportionally


• Map colors:
  DeviceGray images can be mapped to a spot color


• Map colors:
  Improved processing speed for documents with high number of pages



• Enhanced Properties:

• Font not valid:
  "Embedded CID-Font not embedded as CID" added


• Sifter-based properties:
  Enhanced recognition for object detection



• Actions:

• SaveAsImage:
  Support for pagebox / custom rectangle for image format PDF



• CLI:

• Support for Amazon Linux 2023 LTS



• Reports:

• Custom PDF Report:
  New parameter "listpages" in manifest.xml to
  suppress ink coverage information on page level


• Quick Check:
  Extended information for images properties on page- and document-level



• General:

• Page selectors now support an end page in multipage expressions



• Most recent version of Adobe PDF Library integrated (v18.0.4PlusP1u)

• Internal HTML converter updated to callas pdfChip (v2.5.083)

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 14.1:

The pdfToolbox 14.1 update of callas pdfToolbox mostly corrects
identified problems with the pdfToolbox 14 release,
but also adds a few additional features.

In tandem with it, callas also released the first version of new
PDF-based self-paced training material for pdfToolbox Desktop.

Minor update adds interesting small features:

• Profile and process plan updates:

For those who want to build automated workflows
to deliver profile or process plan updates to their workflows
or end-users, pdfToolbox 14.1 adds the capability to do
bulk export of profiles and process plans.

This new feature allows users to select as many
profiles or process plans as they want,
spanning multiple libraries, and exporting them
in one go into a ZIP archive.

This archive could then be dropped into automation software,
for example based on the GIT build system,
to further handle the updated profiles.

Using the capabilities of GIT deployment workflows,
the ZIP archive can be uncompressed,
the individual profiles can be brought under version control
and ultimately deployed with just a few clicks.




• Creating link annotations:

pdfToolbox already contained a feature to search for
specific text and create link annotations (hyperlinks)
in a PDF document for that text.

Two new fixups now also allow you to search for objects using
a preflight check, and overlay them with a link annotation,
or, more generically, create a link annotation at a particular
area of a page.

A great example of the new technology is the ability to use
pdfToolbox to search for QR codes and decode the URLs
contained in them.

The new fixup can then be used in a process plan to
overlay each QR code with a link annotation that has
the same target as the text encoded in the QR code.
Making it ideal to repurpose print documents for digital use:

• Optimizing QR Codes for ePapers with Process Plans






• New training material for callas pdfToolbox Desktop:

The most important part of pdfToolbox undoubtedly
is profiles and process plans.
Understanding how these function,
and how you can build them yourself,
is crucial to using the full power of the application.

To this end, callas created PDF-based and self-paced
self-training material focusing on 4 topics:


• Profile Creation


• Process Plans for Automation


• Checks & Fixups


• Variables



Using a series of exercises with solutions and explanations provided,
you can go from creating checks and fixups to understanding how
profiles and process plans work at your own pace.

Content:

You will learn in the 4 sessions how to...

• … modify Checks and Fixups or configure them yourself.


• … combine Checks and Fixups into Preflight Profiles.


• … build Process Plans to automate your PDF workflows.


• … set up simple Variables to create dynamic Preflight Profiles.



This training material (at no cost) can be downloaded directly from:


• callas online help pages

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 14:

New release improves the processing of personalized documents (VDP),
introduces faster automation and easier reporting!

callas pdfToolbox 14 is a major release
including a number of interesting improvements:

• The need for speed: Personalized Documents (VPD):

Personalized documents, typically documents
with a lot of similar content on each page and a
very high number of pages, much faster as well.

Creation of personalized documents from PDF templates
in combination with structured data is another feature
of the new version.

This allows the insertion of textual content,
bar codes or QR codes into template documents.

More generically, pdfToolbox version 14 also contains a
generic text search and replace fixup which is of course also
useful outside of the VDP space
(previous versions of pdfToolbox were limited to text search).




• More powerful customizable reports:

The preflight engine in pdfToolbox can generate reports
in many different formats: PDF, XML, HTML, JSON…

For communication internally or with clients,
the PDF reports are ideally suited, especially because they
can be completely personalized with HTML-based templates.

Creating these templates, especially for more complex report layouts,
isn’t easy though; pdfToolbox 14 includes updates to
the report generation engine that make this task
more straightforward for non-experts.
This opens up the power of customized PDF reports for more workflows.




• Process Plan and JavaScript improvements

Process Plans are the powerhouse of callas pdfToolbox.

The visual editor allows building complex PDF processing workflows with ease;
the integration of JavaScript support allows for unlimited flexibility.

For Process Plans, pdfToolbox 14 has better exit codes for immediate
interpretation of processing results, allows saving Process Plans that are
missing connections (often useful during the creation and testing phase),
makes it easier to enable/disable 'Quick Check' and 'Quick Fix' steps, and more.

Customers using JavaScript will be very happy to see added auto-completion
while typing in the built-in editor, the ability to easily edit JavaScripts in
Visual Studio Code instead of the built-in editor, and the ability to edit
different JavaScripts in a Process Plan simultaneously in Visual Studio Code.




• New or enhanced predefined Profiles

PDF/UA-1 validation: Improved reporting for untagged PDFs.




• Protected profiles

Profiles and Process Plans can be quite complex;
as a result, they contain a lot of intellectual property.

pdfToolbox 14 lets you protect such profiles or Process Plans.
You can add copyright information such as a title and description,
a URL where more information can be found and
a major and minor version.

And then pdfToolbox allows enabling these profiles for a
imited amount of time after installation, and / or allows
restricting their use to certain pdfToolbox installations.

This gives partners a way to make libraries with
protected profiles and Process Plans and charge for them;
essentially selling them as a service to clients.




• Using pdfToolbox in cloud and auto-scaling environments,
  easier use of callas License Server

Together with pdfToolbox version 14, callas is also releasing
a SaaS version of the License Server solution.

License Server is an alternative licensing way for pdfToolbox
where the software is not activated on a specific machine
but gets its permission to run from a central License Server.

Where before this License Server had to be installed locally
(which requires some technical know-how, especially when
running a cluster of License Servers for redundancy),
callas now offers the callas License Server in the Cloud service.

This is a fully redundant cluster of License Servers maintained by callas,
that can immediately be used
(after purchase of the necessary process or credit cartridges).

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 13.1:

The update responds to the release of

while at the same time introduces a number of interesting new features.

pdfToolbox 13.1 implements all variants of the GWG specifications.
A few tweaks and additional features for the preflight engine of pdfToolbox
were necessary to support the new GWG specifications.

Preflight profiles that completely implement all variants
can be found in the pdfToolbox preflight library.

• Improvements to support GWG 2022:

• The GWG 2022 specifications require preflight applications to
  check whether the document contains areas with too much ink.

  New here is that it is sometimes required to check only
  process colors and sometimes to check also spot colors.
  This is now possible in pdfToolbox 13.1.




• A major feature of the GWG 2022 specifications is that
  they allow preflight applications to be intelligent in
  how they check PDF files.

  They can now ignore objects that could never cause production problems
  (the easiest example is that objects that are completely invisible,
  can be ignored).
  This reduces the number of false positives (PDF files that throw errors,
  but really shouldn’t) and is great for production.

  pdfToolbox has had its Sifter technology to do this for
  years and in pdfToolbox 13.1 it has now been further
  optimized to provide better performance,
  especially for larger and more complex documents.




• Other improvements in pdfToolbox 13.1

• pdfToolbox 13.1 support the optimization of complex vector objects.
  Vector paths are simplified by replacing those parts of them that extend
  beyond their clipping paths by a straight line (in effect removing all
  complexity that is invisible because it’s clipped anyway).

  As this happens a lot in some complex files,
  this can have very significant results on reducing file complexity.




• callas License Server is used increasingly
  in some environments to license pdfToolbox.

  However, this does have effects on simplicity of use of pdfToolbox
  as the information about the License Server(s) must be passed on
  the command-line with each call, or in each Enfocus Switch configurator
  where you want to use this.
  

  pdfToolbox 13.1 instead supports a new configuration file that lives next to
  the pdfToolbox executable to provide the License Server information,
  dramatically reducing this complexity.




• Also in version 13.1, pdfToolbox now supports transparency
  (specifying opacity, blend modes…) when using
  Place Content technology to add content to a PDF document.

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 13:

New release simplifies process automation,
features greater interactivity and an optimized user interface!

callas pdfToolbox 13 is a major release
including a number of interesting improvements:

callas pdfToolbox 13 is more dynamic than before!

New features and improvements now integrated into pdfToolbox 13 are primarily
targeted at large-format, label, packaging and personalized mass printing.

callas pdfToolbox 13 adds new options for process plans,
and improvements to how these are configured within the user interface.

The new version enables a higher level of automation than ever, once again
improving users’ productivity and efficiency when working with pdfToolbox.

• Checks and Fixups can be set using JavaScript

JavaScript can be used to define checks and fixups on a fully dynamic basis.
This provides a wider range of options for using JavaScript to dynamically
generate checks and fixups.

Checks can be set using JavaScript via ‘Arbitrary JavaScript controlled Checks’.




• JSON report has been added

Beside the existing human-readable PDF and the XML reports,
the JSON report has been added.

This report type allows easier access from JavaScript environments
to configurable details about the PDF and its subsequent processing.




• New Imposition language

JavaScript also is the basis for a new Imposition language
that comes with pdfToolbox 13; making impositions much easier.

JavaScript may be used instead of the custom tab-delimited
scripting language invented by callas software long ago.

There are no changes to the sheet configuration or background files
since it is possible to skip creating a sheet configuration file altogether and
directly specify the sheet geometry in the JavaScript or “classic” runlist.

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 12.2:

callas pdfToolbox 12.2 is a minor update
including a number of interesting improvements:

• Improvements to the Process Plan Editor

pdfToolbox 12.2 come with usability improvements
to the Process Plan editor, especially for complex Process Plans.




• Test Mode Improvements

  It also adds additional functionality to Test Mode
  to be able to see the difference between the tested PDF file
  before and after corrections and snap view to identify individual objects.

  
  

• Other improvements include:

• An improvement to Context Aware Preflight (sifter) to allow
  finding objects that are too close in a group of objects
  (for example, find all cut contour objects that come too
  close to other cut contours).

• The ability to check values of user defined
  XMP metadata properties.

• The ability to treat text in a special way
  when pages are rasterized into images.

• Support for the recently released
  Adobe Acrobat 64-bit version on Windows.

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 12:

callas pdfToolbox 12 is a major update
including a number of interesting new features:

Increasingly supporting PDF validation, correction and transformation.

QuickFix

callas pdfToolbox 11 added a QuickCheck engine:
the goal was to extract information from PDFs blazingly fast,
even for huge files.

In pdfToolbox 12 the complimentary QuickFix engine is introduced,
which accomplishes the same for PDF corrections.

The QuickFix engine comes with lightning-quick solutions for
spot colors, output intents, page boxes, adding and removing pages…

While the performance of pdfToolbox is already out of this world,
the QuickFix engine’s goal is to perform modifications in close to constant time,
whether it’s on a PDF with a single page or half a million pages.
In time-critical environments, this is a game-changer.

Actions

For years pdfToolbox has known the concept of “Actions”.
You could create these in the Switchboard,
and then use them in Process Plans.

In pdfToolbox 12, callas promoted Actions to first-class citizens.
They now appear in the list of Fixups and have a brand-new editor
which allows editing all of their properties, not just those that happen
to be visible in the Switchboard.

Additionally, they fully support variables, making them a lot more flexible,
especially in a Process Plan context.

Color improvements

Color is a critical topic every year,
as it’s both complex and used in just about any workflow.

pdfToolbox 12 introduces major new color functionality.

First up is adding a spot color separation based on
ink amounts of objects in the file.
This is essential when printing on transparent media and
adding a (expensive) white backing layer.

Talking about separations, pdfToolbox 12 also introduces
minimum and maximum ink checks for individual separations,
crucial in flexo workflows, amongst others.

The Visualizer technology includes new sections for
the minimum and maximum ink per separation checks,
but also adds an out-of-gamut section and the ability to
compare color differences between PDFs.

The latter provides a heat map of all areas on those files
with a color difference larger than a set DeltaE.

pdfToolbox of course fully supports all of these
novelties in its automated workflows as well.

OCR

The Tesseract OCR engine built into pdfToolbox 12 provides a way to
automatically create fully searchable text for PDFs that don’t contain live text.

This is important in the context of specific standards (such as PDF/A or PDF/UA)
but can also be crucial for workflows in which you want to use
the text search capabilities pdfToolbox has.

By default, the OCR engine has support for English and German enabled
in the product, but you can download other languages if needed.

JavaScript

What is unique about pdfToolbox is its mix of easy to use components,
coupled with the incredible extensibility that comes from integrating
technologies such as HTML and JavaScript.

In pdfToolbox 12, this is again taken a step further by allowing
JavaScript to create Fixups on the fly.

While this may not be needed in simple, straightforward workflows,
it is absolutely crucial in highly flexible environments where pdfToolbox
needs to react dynamically on PDFs and metadata coming in.

Compatible with Apple macOS Big Sur

Recently Apple released its new macOS Big Sur update.

pdfToolbox 12 is fully compatible with this most recent update.

callas software has extensively tested pdfToolbox 12 with regard to
Apple’s new OS release, and upgrading to it should not give
any issues for pdfToolbox 12.

Miscellaneous smaller features in pdfToolbox 12

• A new (stretching) bleed creation mode
  specifically for the Sign & Display market.


• New Process Plan steps to compare files,
  run QuickFixes and merge PDF files.


• Support for new ISO standards (PDF/X-6, PDF/A-4, PDF/VT-3)


• Improved barcode detection for 1D and 2D barcodes.


• A new “Export as previous version” for Profiles and Process Plans.


• Improvements to the contextual preflight system (Sifter).


• Extended “User Unit” (scaling factor) support throughout pdfToolbox.


• Improved bleed creation that adds bleed only when necessary.


• An easier fixup to convert elements to Rich Black.


• DPart (Document Part) creation.

Free powerful PDF tools included into callas pdfToolbox Desktop 12

No license activation or other obligations.

These powerful tools provide professional users and developers
with detailed insights into PDF files, including their internal structure,
the fonts and metadata used, and any DPart structures or tagging structures in place.

Users can even extract barcodes and QR codes,
and the “test mode” makes it possible to validate pdfToolbox profiles.

PDF tools included for free:

• Explore PDF

This function provides an insight into the internal structure of a file,
offering a variety of views that reveal features like the content stream or
resources like fonts, ICC profiles and more.
Among other applications, the tool is useful for hunting down invalid PDF files.



• Explore Fonts

This tool lets users analyze embedded fonts,
including their internal encoding or glyphs.




• Explore Metadata

This tool can be used to output or export both
the metadata within a PDF document and
the metadata related to any images the document contains.



• Explore Layers

The layer explorer shows a list of all layers within the document,
as well as their visibility setting.
It also supports metadata in line with the ISO standard on Processing Steps.



• Explore Tagging

This tool visualizes a file’s internal tagging structure and
elements like headings, paragraphs or image captions.



• Display DPart metadata

This viewer identifies all DPart information
that applies to pages or page regions,
making it easier to set up automatic DPart-based processes.

See also callas pdfDPartner.



• Extract Barcode

By analyzing barcodes and QR codes,
this tool delivers both the encoded data and
any parameters that are relevant for printing,
such as bar width reduction and module width.



• Test Mode

This tool lets users test, improve and export
any pdfToolbox profile using any test file.
However, if the user does not have a license,
the output PDF file will no longer be available
once Test Mode is closed.

Download the trial version of callas pdfToolbox
and use these powerful PDF tools for free
without having to activate your license.

Tutorial: Learn how to use these powerful PDF tools

Additional features

pdfToolbox 12 also contains a wide range of other features.

These include:

• Improved visualization of page boxes and units in pdfToolbox Desktop.


• Support for pdfToolbox Server in the License Server.


• Better spot color name display throughout the product.

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 11:

callas pdfToolbox 11 is a major update
including a number of interesting new features:

• Process Plans Workflow Editor

callas pdfToolbox 11 introduces a new graphical editor tool
create/define the workflow in a multi-step process plan.

• Bleed Creation for Complex Irregular Shapes

The Shapes Engine in callas pdfToolbox 11 can create
pixel repetition bleed for complex irregular shapes;
besides bleed for rectangular documents, add a varnish,
insert a cutcontour or an under-color white.
In some markets, like labels, this is a real game changer
for automatic workflows!

• Export of Dielines

callas pdfToolbox was already capable of working with cutcontours or dielines.
They could be detected, created from scratch, deleted or split into separate
PDF files for handling by die making software or digital cutting equipment.

What was missing, was the capability to export such an element in a format
suitable for this equipment, directly from pdfToolbox.
In pdfToolbox 11, you will have the ability to export the content of a PDF file as:

• DXF


• CF2


• SVG

With the support of these three formats,
callas pdfToolbox will cover the majority of the cutting equipment out there
and remove one of the barriers to take incoming production files and make
them suitable not only for printing but also for die making or cutting.

• Retrieve specific text on a page in your document

How can you use this in your workflows?

• Stop documents that contain certain words during the preflight check.

Whether documents are OK to print doesn’t only depend on
the production quality, but also on the textual content.



• Split a document into multiple ones by searching for certain text.

In transaction printing for example, you could split a document
containing invoices for many customers into individual invoices.

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 10.1:

callas pdfToolbox 10.1 is a minor update
including a number of interesting new features:

• High-quality color conversions & ink reduction

Perhaps the most important novelty in pdfToolbox 10.1
is the inclusion of a set of 53 DeviceLink profiles.
While pdfToolbox always came with an optional set of DeviceLink profiles
as a payable option the updated set of profiles has now been
integrated in version 10.1 and is usable without additional cost.

DeviceLink profiles are typically used to do conversions from
CMYK to CMYK while preserving correct separations.
This can be done to convert files created as a US or Japanese standard
to the color standard used in Europe (or vice versa),
to convert files prepared for coated paper to uncoated printing workflows or
to correct high ink usage in incoming files in the best possible way.




• Support for Photoshop files

One of the most frequent requests from customers was to enable
pdfToolbox to convert Photoshop files (PSD files) into good PDF documents.

With pdfToolbox 10.1, this now becomes a possibility!
Not all Photoshop features are currently supported,
but the majority of files should convert to PDF without any problem.
This allows automated workflows to be more efficient and to accept
more client files directly in the workflow without needing manual intervention.




• And more …

Besides these interesting new features, pdfToolbox now also provides:

• New Switchboard actions / ‘decoration’ features:

"The Switchboard Actions" under "Decorate" let you place a range of
different object types or even pages within a PDF:

• Remove invisible objects.


• Split or reorder pages.


• Placing objects such as:


• Folding marks,


• text,


• page number,


• date,


• logo/image,


• watermark,


• mail stamp,


• letter background,


• add summary page,


• add divider page,


• move objects,


• add empty pages.



Example of place object: Add text.
The "Add Text" action lets you place text on a page.
All you have to do is:

• Enter the text to be placed.


• Define text size, rotation and color.


• Define the position where the text is to be placed under "Placement";
  interesting here is the "Mouse Selection", where the dimensions of
  the region can be specified using a mouse, very much like
  inserting a "Text box" in Microsoft PowerPoint, for example.


• Define Offset (relative to Placement);
  if the text doesn't appear on the page, enlarge page.


• And finally, define the page range,
  in case it is a multi-page document that you are dealing with.

And voilà! The result will then be shown in the visualizer.




• Split Device-N or N-Channel objects into different objects,
  each using a subset of colorants

This is important in workflows where many different spot colors are used
and where e.g. the dieline needs to be split into a separate PDF file.




• Rotate page content with a specific amount

pdfToolbox has always been capable of rotating in increments of 90°
(e.g. to go from landscape to portrait),
but it can now also rotate page content by any arbitrary amount;
with or without changing the page size of the resulting PDF document.




• Convert colors in specific page ranges in a document

A PDF file for a book e.g. might thus have all inner pages converted
to black and white, while the cover pages remain in color.

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 10:

The new version takes a significant new step in preflight technology by making it
possible to detect more problems, while making detection more accurate.

It also makes pdfToolbox ready for cloud deployment and introduces additional
capabilities for process plans for step-by-step conditional processing of PDF files),
preflight reports and more.

For the first time, pdfToolbox 10 introduces a preflight engine that has
the capability to check the relationship between objects in a very
flexible and broad fashion.
Examples of where this technology can be used are the detection of bleed,
checking whether objects are inside or outside an irregular die-line,
determining whether black set on knock-out will really be a problem…

One of the big challenges of preflight in automated workflows is avoiding false positives:
files that are no problem in production, but are still flagged as problematic.
Better detection possibilities in pdfToolbox 10 will dramatically reduce this problem
and thus increase the productivity of automated workflows using it.

Automation is crucial for companies to remain competitive,
and pdfToolbox 10 enables better automation.
pdfToolbox 10 provides deep analysis not just of single objects,
but of objects in the context of all the other objects in the PDF.

• Sifter & Processing Steps

The technology that makes this possible is called "Sifter".
It uses mathematical algorithms to determine what the relationship between objects is.
Whether they overlap, intersect, are in close proximity…
That technology forms the basis of a lot of the new capabilities in pdfToolbox 10.

One of the areas where Sifter is important,
is in support for the new 'Processing Steps' ISO Standard.
This standard around handling elements in files that are linked to
non-printing steps in the workflow is important for the packaging,
label and large format market segments.

Interactive as well as profile driven evaluation, modification and preflight of
PDF Processing Steps Metadata is fully supported in callas pdfToolbox.




• Even better preflight reports

pdfToolbox supports fully customizable preflight reports where both
design and content of the report can be modified to fit a client’s needs.
In pdfToolbox 10, that customizable report can be extended with a copy of
the original document where the preflight errors are highlighted
using masks with comments or layers.

In pdfToolbox 10, it also becomes possible to translate preflight results
in languages not supported in the software to provide alternative wording
for items used in standard reports (simplified problem descriptions for example)
and to generate reports in multiple languages from one preflight.




• Process Plan power

Process Plans provide step-by-step execution of
Profiles, Checks, Fixups and Actions on a PDF document,
and they allow conditional processing where preflight Checks or
variables influence what the next step is going to be.
As Process Plans are used more and more often,
and in more challenging scenarios,
pdfToolbox 10 increases their capabilities.

It is now possible to call another Process Plan in a Process Plan,
which makes it much easier to reuse processing logic.
pdfToolbox 10 further allows to create a Process Plan which
creates multiple output files:
one could build a Process Plan that generates a production version
and a proof version of an incoming PDF document for example.




• Quick Check

While Sifter enables pdfToolbox to be used for more challenging analysis of
PDF documents, sometimes customers really only want simple answers.
“Quick Check” functionality in pdfToolbox 10 caters to that;
it provides basic information about a PDF in an extremely fast way.




• Test mode

pdfToolbox allows creating extremely flexible Profiles and Process Plans.
Sometimes this makes it hard to fine-tune them until they do exactly what you want.
With pdfToolbox 10’s test mode, this is now a breeze.

Test mode works on a copy of a PDF file, so you don’t risk ruining your
test PDF file and it can be used directly from the Profile or Process Plan editor.
This significantly speeds up the test cycle.




• And much more...

pdfToolbox 10 also includes advances in other areas.
It readies pdfToolbox for true cloud deployment, so that one can take advantage
of the rapid resource up and down scaling of modern cloud services and for
environments where processing needs vary greatly even in non-cloud implementations.

It also makes extensive logging of preflight operations available if customers
want to track processed files, common preflight problems and more.
The preflight engine was upgraded to allow more complex preflight checks using
Boolean logic (‘and’ and ‘or’) and optional content (‘layers’) is now
fully supported in HTML templates used by the Place Content technology.

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 9.4:

• Prepares support for the PDF 2.0 Standard

callas pdfToolbox 9.4 introduces a number of internal changes
to prepare support for the PDF 2.0 standard.
PDF2.0 was published as a standard by ISO,
the International Organization for Standardization, in July 2017.




• Insert Pages Mixup

A new “Insert pages” fixup allows inserting
new empty pages or duplicating existing pages.
A new preflight condition allows identifying objects
with specific dimensions (for example to give an error only
for objects exceeding a certain width or height).




• Custom ID in Preflight Checks and Fixups

This makes it much easier to refer to them in XML reports or
when using Javascript in for example process plans.




• Compare Profiles

When working on different versions of preflight profiles,
it’s often difficult to find out what exactly has changed.
pdfToolbox 9.4 contains a “compare profiles” feature that
can be used to easily highlight differences between profiles.






• "Explore PDF View" Improved

The “Explore PDF” view has been improved to allow
easier navigation through the internal code of a PDF document.

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 9.3:

• Adobe PDF Library

pdfToolbox now uses the latest version of the Adobe PDF Library.
It provides bug fixes in the areas of rendering and transparency flatting
and improves stability and performance of the application.




• Pre-separated pages

A new Switchboard action allows for converting pages containing CMYK
(and optionally spot colors) into pre-separated pages (without rasterization).
A one page CMYK PDF file is converted into a four-page pre-separated PDF file.
Pre-separated pages have metadata to allow compatible equipment
to recognize them as such.






• Size of a page box

The pdfToolbox check for the size of a page box such as
the trim box has been extended.
Now it is also possible to check that a page has either
a given size or a multiple of that size.
This allows for checking whether a page can be
proportionally scaled to the required size.




• Variable can be reloaded from the last run and
  exported/loaded to/from JSON file

A small convenience feature can make the development of profiles
and process plans using variables much easier:
when testing profiles or process plans in pdfToolbox Desktop,
variables can now be reloaded from the last run.
It is even possible to export variablerna into a
JSON file or load such a JSON structure.
The same JSON can also be used in pdfToolbox CLI or SDK.
A real-time saver when it comes to testing profiles with
large amounts of variables.

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 9.2:

The main new feature in pdfToolbox 9.2 is the ability to
search for fix-ups, checks, profiles … across multiple libraries,
but a host of smaller features can be found throughout the product.

• Cross-library search

Libraries have transformed the way people work with
Checks, Fixups, Profiles and Process Plans:
the ability to store those by product or client for example is a great time-saver.

However, sometimes you just want to find an item you know you worked on,
but you don’t remember where it was.
In pdfToolbox 9.2, there is the ability to see all Checks, Fixups and so on
with the Library they are in next to it, and there is a separate
'Search Libraries' window to enable very detailed searches.



• Using an external text editor for Javascript variables
The power of Variables in pdfToolbox is unlimited as of
the introduction of Javascript variables in version 9.
Up to now, you have no choice as to edit variables inside
the variable window in pdfToolbox, but version 9.2 offers the ability
to open a Variable in your standard text editor,
so you can edit it in your preferred script editing environment.
This gives you easier access to syntax coloring, code completion and tools,
such as Javascript, checking (with lint for example) inside that editor.



• Other additions to pdfToolbox 9.2

The new update release introduces the following smaller features:

• Some Switchboard Actions now feature a help button at the bottom.
  This button leads to the callas software documentation website at:
  help.callassoftware.com.
  Not all Switchboard Actions have this yet, more will be added as time goes by.


• The 'Ask at runtime' and 'Variable editor' windows
  feature better keyboard shortcut support.


• More information is provided in the XML report
  for the output intent in a document, and there is a new
  Fixup (“Embed output intent with specified parameters”)
  that lets you embed an output intent without first having to
  create it in the pdfToolbox preferences.


• The 'Place text' and 'Place page number' Fixups
  allow adding a white background behind the added text.


• The 'Outline page geometry boxes' Fixup
  has the possibility to select which sides of the page box
  should be outlined (instead of always outline all of them).


• The 'Rotate page' and 'Set page geometry boxes' Fixup
  supports using a check to define which pages should be changed.
  This makes it possible for example to only rotate pages 3, 7 and 10
  by using a proper preflight Check that uses the sequential page number.


• The 'Enlarge page' Fixup can be performed on specific pages as well,
  and it has new options to select which side of the page should be enlarged.

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 9.1:

pdfToolbox 9.1 focuses on improving usability and reliability even further.
pdfToolbox 9.1 adds support for the Processing Steps standard,
includes a new version of the Adobe PDF library and
extends several main pdfToolbox features.

• Improved shape technology

pdfToolbox 9.1 extends the shape technology to enable some of these use cases,
such as better support for spreading or choking while adding irregular shapes.




• Processing Steps

Processing Steps is a specification originally developed by the Ghent Workgroup
to associate information about printing and finishing processes
(such as cutting, embossing, varnish …) with a PDF document.
This is done by grouping page objects in layers
(technically: optional content groups, OCG), and adding metadata
to those layers to identify them as processing steps.
The specification is going through a standardization process at
the ISO organization to become an official international standard.
pdfToolbox 9.1 implements wide support for this specification:
it is possible to view or add processing steps information,
check for its availability or correctness during preflight and
fix common problems with it.




• Place content supports SVG

The place content functionality in pdfToolbox is a very flexible way
to add content to PDF documents, from simple text or page numbers,
over barcodes with the built-in barcode library,
to more challenging tasks with place content templates.
In pdfToolbox 9.1, it is now also possible to simply add
a complete SVG file to a PDF document.




• Process plan debugging

Process plans are a convenient and powerful way to run complete fixup sequences
on PDF documents, optionally with conditional (if … then …) processing.
Building complex process plans can be challenging and pdfToolbox 9.1
helps by providing process plan debugging functionality.
In debug mode, all information about processing
(including intermediary PDF files and reports) of a process plan is stored.
This allows running a process plan and then analyzing in detail what the
result of each step was to further optimize what happens in the process plan.




• New version of the Adobe PDF library

pdfToolbox internally uses the Adobe PDF library for transparency flattening or
rendering of PDF documents. This library has been updated in this release,
to be on par with Adobe’s flagship Acrobat DC product.
This change improves reliability and quality of
the transparency flattening process specifically.

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 9:

callas pdfToolbox now extends its functionality towards the different finishing
operations that are necessary to prepare a PDF before it heads off to the RIP.
Many of the new features dramatically enhance the possibilities of pdfToolbox
for the large format printing, label and packaging markets for example.

• Extends the use of variables into PDF preflight and correction




• Extending this feature to cover wider areas and to allow for
  dynamically changing variable values during processing.
  This makes it possible to create extremely flexible and powerful
  profiles and process plans without sacrificing usability.
  Customers can build a profile that has the viewing distance
  of a job as input and then calculates all necessary limits for
  text sizes and resolution minima automatically.




• Large Format Printing - New section with dedicated features:




• Add varnish, white, foil, stamp


• New bleed creation capabilities
  (stack, repeat last pixel, mirror)


• Add grommets marks (eyelets)


• Tiling for very large jobs
  (creation of a number of smaller, printable, pieces)


• Create shapes
  (enabling varnish, white, foil creation to specific objects).
  Allows detection of vector or bitmap elements to turn them
  into separate "shapes".


• Advanced variables




• Prepress innovations




• Automatically creating background objects,
  e.g. for printing on transparent material.


• Better support for spot colors in PDF with CxF based workflows.
  While PDF files contain enough information about spot colors
  to show a good screen preview, more complex operations such as
  correct color proofing or accurately converting spot colors to
  CMYK are more challenging.
  By storing CxF (color exchange format, ISO 17972-4) data in the PDF file,
  much better results can be obtained for more accurate
  color visualization and output.




• New Features in callas pdfToolbox Desktop / Viewer Improvements

• Zoom functionality





• Object Inspector / Wireframe visualization





Object inspector allows hovering over objects in the file.
All relevant properties of those objects are shown instantly together
with a preview of the object and the objects above and beneath it.

Filtering out different object types is built in;
the object inspector has the ability to hide certain types of objects
(imagine turning off all images to see what they are covering)
and to switch to a wireframe viewing mode.
In that mode all objects are shown using outlined rectangles
in different colors to give an X-Ray view of the document.

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 8:

• Full support for multi-channel workflows and PDF/X-5n,
  and soft proofing of color / PDF/X-5n



• pdfToolbox 8 makes it possible to convert any PDF document
  to a multi-channel color space using an appropriate ICC Profile.

This means RGB or CMYK content can easily be converted into
hexachrome, CMYK + Red or any other multi-channel scenario;
this is of critical importance for packaging and,
increasinglyall digital workflows.

Also included is support for the creation and validation of PDF/X-5n files,
an ISO standard that is designed to support such color spaces in
prepress data exchange.



• pdfToolbox 8.1 can also do PDF/X-5n soft proofing.

Soft proofing of PDF/X-5n files enables color-accurate display of
documents that use multi-channel ICC profiles.
Multi-channel color is becoming increasingly important because more and
more often printers use more than 4 colors on their digital presses.

Another area where they are frequently used is packaging.
Soft proofing capabilities let users control color in different environments,
which until now was only possible with highly specialized products.

The new feature is available in the standalone version of
pdfToolbox 8.1 Desktop and in pdfToolbox 8.1 CLI, Server and SDK
where soft proof images can be created.




• pdfToolbox libraries



• If custom preflight or correction profiles are created,
  pdfToolbox 8.1 can make one’s life much easier with pdfToolbox libraries.

In pdfToolbox 8.1 different profile libraries can be managed;
each library can contain a different set of profiles, checks,
fixups and all other supporting settings
(such as HTML templates, color conversion settings etc…).
Libraries can be imported and exported to be shared between users,
and it’s easy to switch between libraries in pdfToolbox to
quickl work on different projects.




• Integrated barcode library

• In many workflows barcodes need to be added to documents at
  some point in the workflow.

To enable this pdfToolbox 8 now includes a full,
professional barcode library that can add over a hundred
different types of barcodes to PDF documents.
From 1D to 2D barcodes or QR codes, pdfToolbox 8 covers it all.




• Adding dynamic text

• Adding page numbers to a PDF document is a recurring request and with
  the new “Add dynamic text” fixup, pdfToolbox 8 makes this possible.

The fixup allows adding a wealth of information,
either static text or dynamic text on a PDF document using a
number of different fonts, colors and placement options.




• The power of callas pdfChip integrated in callas pdfToolbox

• callas pdfChip is a very powerful HTML to high-quality PDF converter.

pdfToolbox 8 now integrates the power of pdfChip to support scenarios
where the content to be added to a PDF document is more complex than
a barcode or dynamic text.
With some knowledge of HTML, CSS and optionally JavaScript it is
possible to decorate PDF files in any way necessary in a workflow.




• Object Inspector – detailed examination of PDF documents





• Using preflight, pdfToolbox has always been capable of quickly detecting
  problems or potential problems.

Using the visualizer many preflight problems
(such as bleed errors or ink overruns) can quickly be diagnosed visually.

The new Object Inspector adds to that the ability to see a comprehensive
list of properties for all objects in your PDF documents.
Users can click on a document to see which objects are used in that location,
and examine all properties (font, color, transparency, resolution, …)
of those objects.
A great tool to pinpoint pesky problems detected by preflight or
simply to pick apart a troublesome PDF document.




• Quicker processing of big PDF documents and
  TIFF export with result files of any dimension.

• In some workflows customers have to process very big documents;
  documents that are very complex or, while relatively simple,
  contain a huge amount of pages.

pdfToolbox 8 is optimized to deal with such documents
without delays or problems.

pdfToolbox has been capable of saving each page of a PDF document
as PNG, JPEG or TIFF image,but that output so far was limited to
32.000 pixels in any dimension.
In pdfToolbox 8 that limit has been completely removed for TIFF files
(with the exception of the 2GB file size limit imposed by
the TIFF format itself).
This makes it possible to generate high-resolution TIFFs of
even the biggest files.

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

New features in callas pdfToolbox 7:

• Fully customizable preflight reports

• New highly customizable preflight report providing
  attractive overview and flexible adoption.

The preflight report listing errors and warnings is often the only contact
your clients have with your production workflow; that makes such reports
essential in conveying the proper information.

callas pdfToolbox comes with a new preflight report layout that is
much more visually attractive, provides the information in a more clear
and concise way and is fully customizable so that you can add your
company logo or brand colors when needed.

• Operator intervention in an automated workflow

• Even in fully automated workflows human intervention is sometimes required.

With callas pdfToolbox, this manual intervention step is built right into
both the Server and Desktop applications.

The new checkpoint feature of callas pdfToolbox Server allows you
to define workflow steps that submit files to callas pdfToolbox Desktop
instances over the network.
Operators can then easily verify whether certain automatic corrections
were made as intended or jump in to make manual changes.

Problem files can be kept in a “waiting room” within callas pdfToolbox Server
instead of moving them immediately to the error folder.

Operators using callas pdfToolbox Desktop see that list of problem files
right inside their callas pdfToolbox interface; they can open those files on their
desktop machine, inspect or modify them using the callas pdfToolbox tools and
decide to reject them, overrule potential errors or approve a corrected version.

callas pdfToolbox Server keeps track of who checked the PDF file out to avoid
multiple operators losing time by looking at the same file, and moves the files
to the success or error output folder based on the operator’s decision.

• Radically improved transparency and font engines

• Transparency is still an issue in many of today’s prepress workflows.
  callas pdfToolbox now has smoother results and better performance.


• There are similar problems with overprinting objects.
  Some workflows have problems with rather complex objects.
  callas pdfToolbox can flatten overprinting objects in the same way
  as transparent objects.


• One of the most error prone fields is with regards to fonts.
  callas pdfToolbox is based on a completely new font engine with
  enhanced conversion capabilities, better stability and higher performance.

• Clean up of PDF files for print and mobile production workflows

• Cropping pages to what is visible on the page,
  disregarding invisible objects or objects that are partially masked out.

This provides much better performance as only
the actual visible page content is being used.



• Hard cropping of images.

The non-visible parts of images are removed to make the overall file smaller
(and avoid problems with content that is not visible,
but could be retrieved using PDF editing software).
Images can be cropped to their mask and additionally to one of the page boxes.



• Removal of arbitrary page objects.

This for example allows easily removing a die line or all elements using
a particular spot color; e.g. that should not show up on a printing plate.



• Removing all metadata from PDF documents.

The new fix up even allows removing object level metadata,
which can bloat PDF files considerably.

• Other new features

• Calculate the total area coverage of each separation in a PDF file
  (for cost calculation for example).


• Compare two PDF documents or a specific number of
  separations from two PDF documents

Possible to only compare the non-black channels (non textual objects) or
only the black channel (only the text) without modifying the PDF beforehand.


• Count the number of separations generated by a PDF file.


• Determine the x-height of text.

This is based on the new EU regulation for text size on packaging material
that requires this particular check. As the required text size is defined as
x-height, which is different from the regular text size (point size),
this new preflight check can accurately check the x-height of text.

For regular production workflows callas pdfToolbox also supports
Ghent Workgroup specifications (GWG 2012) for ads and commercial print.

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox

Key features in callas pdfToolbox:

• Process plans

• Building logic into profile


• Execution of processing steps in response to results of previous sequences


• Combining profiles with actions

• Color remapping improvements

• Extensions to the conversion of color channels, so that any
  process color channels can be converted to spot colors and vice versa


• Spot colors can be put anywhere on PDF layers

• callas pdfToolbox supports

• Networked-enabled setup and management
• callas pdfToolbox Desktop connect directly to local
  callas pdfToolbox Server running on a different machine.


• Profiles and hot folder configurations done at
  callas pdfToolbox Desktop while actual processing
  runs on different server.


• Load-balancing
• Via Dispatcher Mode

• Numerous other enhancements

• Many checks, fixes and profiles have been extended and
  the process stability is further increased

callas pdfToolbox can:

• Check and correct according to industry standards,
  including PDF/X-1, PDF/X-3, PDF/X-4, PDF/X-5, PDF/A and PDF/VT


• Perform a quick visual inspection of the files
  that have not passed quality control


• Convert native documents into print-ready PDFs


• Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Publisher, Visio and Project


• OpenOffice


• Pages (Mac OS X only)


• PostScript and EPS


• PNG, JPG and TIFF images


• Perfectly convert color with smooth color, pure black text and
  enhanced gray balance for consistent print output


• Fix PDFs that have correct printer marks
  but without a correct trim or bleed box set


• Visually compare PDFs to accurately see what changes have been done
  or make sure no unintended changes were introduced


• Execute a single fix or a profile full of fixes on a complete folder of
  a large amount of files using the batch processing feature

For prepress professionals,
there’s an updated PDF engine which supports:

• The latest ISO standards


• Advanced color management


• Imposition of everything from business cards to full N-up impositions
  (N-up printing allows you to print two or four or more pages
  on single sheets of paper)


• Splitting or joining of PDF content


• Controls to resize and reposition PDF content


• The ability to embed, subset, replace and convert fonts to outlines


• 64-bit systems

Interesting?

• Download Free Trial of callas pdfToolbox