- Gary McGath, Freelance Technical Writer
Are you looking for expert, reliable writing on computer technology? Drop me a note. - Follow Mad File Format Science on WordPress.com
-
Join 144 other subscribers
-
Recent Posts
RSS feed
Stuck with learning at home while the schools are closed? I’ve created a page with lots of links to help you learn the basics of file formats on your own!
Files that Last: Digital Preservation for Everygeek, an e-book to bring the message of digital preservation to the broader geek world.
Article on PDF/A validation with JHOVE
An article by Yvonne Friese does a good job of explaining the limitations of JHOVE in validating PDF/A. At the time that I wrote JHOVE, I wasn’t aware how few people had managed to write a PDF validator independent of Adobe’s code base; if I’d known, I might have been more intimidated. It’s a complex job, and adding PDF/A validation as an afterthought added to the problems. JHOVE validates only the file structure, not the content streams, so it can miss errors that make a file unusable. Finally, I’ve never updated JHOVE to PDF 1.7, so it doesn’t address PDF/A-2 or 3.
I do find the article flattering; it’s nice to know that even after all these years, “many memory institutions use JHOVE’s PDF module on a daily basis for digital long term archiving.” The Open Preservation Foundation is picking up JHOVE, and perhaps it will provide some badly needed updates.
Share this:
Like this:
Related