Can I linearize (web-optimize) PDF/A files?

[Support]

Q: I am evaluating PDF/A Conversion
(pdftron.PDF.PDFA.PDFACompliance) for one of our customers. In your
benefits page (http://www.pdftron.com/pdfamanager/benefits.html) , it
states that the software “Includes an option to create linearized (web-
optimized) PDF/A documents.” This seems not to conform to or is not
allowed by the PDF/A-1 specification. Am I correct? If it is
allowed, can you point me to the part of the specification that allows
this ? Thanks.

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A: ‘PDF/A’ specification does not say that PDF/A file can’t be
linearized (or web optimized).

If required PDFTron PDF/A Converter (pdftron.PDF.PDFA.PDFACompliance)
can generate linearized PDF/A documents, however this is not default.

This is explained in Section “6.1.9 Linearized PDF” in ISO 19005-1

“Linearization shall be permitted but any linearization information
supplied within a file should be ignored by conforming readers.”

[Support]

Q: So if we are using Adobe Acrobat Reader X, reading a linearized pdf/
a pdf file from a webserver, Reader will not utilize the linearization
and downloads the whole file before displaying it to the user? I am
assuming that Acrobat Reader X is a conforming reader. The reason for
linearization is for the appearance of speed to the end user.

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A: I believe that Acrobat Reader X would use the linearization info
in PDF/A files and you will be able to access the pages as soon as
they are served.
It should be easy to test.

[Support]

I created a pdf/a document with Word 2010 and saved as pdf/a pdf. I
then used pdfa.exe to convert with linearization. I opened the file
to make sure that Fast Web View said yes.

I then put both documents on a Windows 2003 IIS webserver and the
root.
Doc.pdf and doc_pdfa.pdf. I configured IIS performance on the website
to be 20KB/s to slow down the webserver.

From IE9 and Acrobat X, it worked, Acrobat downloaded the first page
and displayed it while downloading the rest. With Firefox and Acrobat
X, Acrobat downloaded the whole file before displaying it. It seems
to be a browser/acrobat problem. I have not tested other IE7/8 or
Acrobat 9.

Thank you again.

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