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Workflows

A workflow represents a broad use case and defines the general conversion process. Workflows are tailored to a specific use case, which is also reflected in the available configuration settings. All workflows provided cannot be changed.

The Conversion Service provides the following workflows:

You can select specific configuration settings for the workflow via profiles. You can add stamps during the conversion process, and configure the metadata in the resulting output PDF.

Convert to PDF​

The Convert to PDF workflow is engineered for converting documents to PDF. Files are converted to standard PDF (not PDF/A), the file format is not validated, and the output documents cannot be signed. OCR is available as an optional processing step.

Archive as PDF/A workflows​

These workflows are engineered specifically for preparing documents for archiving. They assure conformance according to three specifications:

  • Archive as PDF/A-2: Default workflow for archiving.
  • Archive as PDF/A-3: Features and steps are identical to PDF/A-2, but allows you to embed attachments that are not in conformance with PDF/A.
  • Archive as PDF/A-1: Older version of the PDF/A standard. It is used where PDF/A-2 or PDF/A-3 conformance is not possible.
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The Conversion Service automatically selects the highest conformance level for the Archive as PDF/A workflow chosen. For example, if you choose to convert to PDF/A-2 using the Archive as PDF/A-2 workflow, the Conversion Service converts to PDF/A-2a where possible, which is the highest conformance level for PDF/A-2. The generated file is also compatible with PDF/A-2b (basic) and PDF/A-2u (Unicode) specifications.

For more information on conformance levels, see PDF/A - The standard for archiving.

Generally speaking, the processing steps for all Archive as PDF/A workflows are identical. All input documents of a job are processed as follows:

PDF/A workflow steps

1. Analyze file type
In a first step, the documents are analyzed. If the file type of any document is unsupported, conversion is aborted. Otherwise, they are sent to the next processing step depending on their file type.

2. Validate & repair PDF (Quality Assurance)
To ensure document quality, PDF and PDF/A documents are validated. If a corruption is detected, the Conversion Service attempts to repair it.

3. Convert to PDF
Non-PDF documents (e.g images, Office documents, etc.) are converted to PDF if their format is supported by the Conversion Service.

Note: The conversion of Office documents requires an additional step which can only be enabled with an appropriate license.

4. Perform OCR
To make the resulting document searchable, OCR is performed on documents that require it. The recognized text is stored directly in the PDF.

Note: This is an optional step and can only be enabled with an appropriate license.

5. Apply stamping
Stamps such as barcodes, text stamps, image stamps or placeholders are added.

6. Convert to PDF/A
PDF documents that are not already PDF/A conforming are converted to a high-quality PDF/A.

Important: The actions performed in this step vary for PDF/A-1 and PDF/A-2 and PDF/A-3.


7. Merge / Collect
The converted documents of a job are merged or collected into a single document, depending on the profile setting.

8. Optimize
The resulting document is compressed and optimized for archiving. This includes several steps: redundant and unnecessary data for archiving is removed, images are compressed intelligently and fonts are merged and subset.

Note: This is an optional step and can only be enabled with an appropriate license.

8. Sign
The resulting document is digitally signed using the signature settings in the selected profile.

Note: this is an optional step and can only be enabled with an appropriate license.

Archive as PDF/A-2 workflow.

Create Dossier PDF​

The Create Dossier PDF workflow is specifically designed to compile multiple PDF documents into a single dossier. All PDF document supplied to the job are merged into a single PDF in the order that they were added to the job.

Prepare Invoice PDF​

The Prepare Invoice PDF workflow is engineered specifically for preparing invoices. This workflow converts a main document to PDF/A-3 and attaches one or more files to the result. For example, to a PDF invoice an Excel table containing additional data can be attached.

Archive as TIFF​

The Archive as TIFF workflow is engineered specifically to prepare documents for archiving in suitable TIFF format.

Sign PDF​

The Sign PDF workflow is engineered specifically for signing archived documents without removing the existing signatures.

Extract XML from PDF​

The Extract XML from PDF workflow outputs an XML file containing the extracted OCR data or an empty <document> tag if no embedded OCR data is found.

Convert to XML​

The Convert to XML workflow is engineered specifically to extract searchable text from documents and output the results as structured XML. Unlike the Extraction workflow, which extracts existing embedded text data from PDFs, the Convert to XML workflow processes all input documents to generate text data in XML format.

Enabling workflows​

You can enable or disable the workflows available in the Conversion Service Configurator, in the Workflows & Profiles tab by clicking the toggle button right next to the workflow name. Your changes are kept in memory until you click Save & Restart Service.