Océ White Paper
PDF: supporting document interchange in
the collaborative engineering environment
Extending the “lingua franca” of the web to engineering documents
Executive summary
PDF has become the standard file format for convenient,
reliable electronic document distribution, sharing and
printing, particularly over the Internet. The key benefit of
PDF files is that they always retain the original “look and
feel” when displayed or printed. Originally developed for
the office environment, PDF is gaining increasing
acceptance in the wide-format area. At a time when
teamworking and collaborative engineering are keywords,
PDF supports working processes by enabling accurate
document interchange between people in many different
environments.
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PDF: supporting document interchange
Contents
1. “Electronic paper” and web-enabled document interchange
2. Document usage needs and trends in the engineering environment
3. How PDF addresses the unique needs of engineering
4. Building a PDF-oriented engineering process
5. How Océ is leading the way with PDF in engineering
1.”Electronic paper” and web-enabled document
interchanges
Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF) is rapidly gaining
acceptance as a global standard file format for electronic document
distribution, printing and archiving. Files in the PDF format serve
as reliable “digital masters”: they are easy to exchange, view and
print. Key to this acceptance is the fact that Adobe PDF files will
consistently reproduce in full—both on-screen and when printed.
The “look and feel” of the original document is maintained,
including all the formatting, fonts, colours, embedded images and
graphics of the file created by the original application. But unlike the
original application file, the PDF document is platformindependent: it can be shared, viewed and printed by anyone using
the Adobe® Acrobat® reader, which is freely available. To create
PDF files, Adobe offers the complete Adobe® Acrobat® software
package.
“Electronic paper”: a new class of documents
While PDF was becoming widely used, the Internet was also
gaining worldwide acceptance. Since then, the convergence of the
web and PDF technologies has led to the widespread adoption of
PDF as a reliable, universal standard for document display,
printing and delivery via the Internet.
Largely as a result of the acceptance of both PDF and the web, a
new class of documents—“electronic paper”—has emerged.
These are changing the nature of business communications,
combining the benefits of the familiar printed page with the
power of digital technology.
Initially PDF provided an integrated “view & print” solution for
the office environment. This has now evolved and broadened in
scope to “view & distribute”. Documents from any source can be
converted and “captured” in PDF form, and can be viewed and
reproduced correctly by anyone, anywhere, with any mainstream
systems and printers. Throughout their use, PDF document files
retain all the knowledge and content embedded in the original
document, which is why they are ideal for enterprise-wide use.
Universal medium for document interchange
In this way Adobe PDF provides a universal medium for
document interchange which is truly independent of location,
platform, application, distribution medium and output device.
By overcoming the complexities and incompatibilities imposed
by all these variables, PDF has gained rapidly increasing
acceptance and popularity. The impact of PDF is underlined by
the fact that it has become the standard for web-based document
delivery, with over 300 million downloads of the freely available
Acrobat® reader.
2. Document usage needs and trends in the
engineering environment
PDF was initially developed as a solution for document
interchange in the office and corporate environment. However
the benefits of convenient and consistent interchangeability are
just as relevant in the engineering environment. Here, too,
documents are generated using many different applications and
platforms. These documents later have to be shared with and
used by people in other departments and functional areas, for
example, project planning, purchasing, manufacturing and many
others.
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Sharing information is mission-critical
Today, sharing engineering information is mission-critical, yet at
the same time it has become more challenging because of trends
like globalisation, collaborative design, flexible and virtual project
teams, supplier partnerships, extended enterprises etc. Also, the
ever-increasing pressures on costs, turnaround time and time-tomarket are constant drivers for cost-effective and virtually instant
ways to share information.
Technology changes and challenges
In today’s business environment, enterprises are faced with major
technology changes and challenges across several fronts. These
have a far-reaching impact on their document processes and the
way they share information, for example:
• The transition from analogue documents (hard copy) to digital
documents (electronic files)
• Implementing new, enterprise-wide concepts in document
management, archiving and sharing
• Addressing new organisational forms and business models that
shape the way people work together in the design & engineering
environment
Against this background, key enablers are today’s web-enabled
working methods and corporate ITC infrastructures: global
networks are now a reality, not only at corporate level but also at
project and workgroup level.
Fast, consistent access to information
Whatever the working environment and IT infrastructure, the
essential requirements of users are the same: fast document
retrieval, quick and convenient delivery to the point of use
(whether by “push” or “pull”), and fast, consistent access to
stored information. But today there are more users than ever
before, all working in different departments, areas, disciplines
and corporate frameworks. Not all these users need or have access
to the native applications with which documents were created
(e.g. MCAD). In most cases all they need is to “view &
distribute” already released documents, and sometimes to
annotate them. Access by all these users has to be facilitated, but
also needs to be controlled. Who is allowed to view a document?
To print it? To edit it? Questions like these need to be addressed
and the appropriate levels of authorisation defined and allocated.
The chosen archiving system and file format must also be “webfriendly”, so that documents can be accessed and viewed via the
Internet using a normal web browser, and can then be
downloaded if required for local printing and distribution.
Future-proof document accessibility
Such an archiving system must ensure consistent document
accessibility in the future—not just next month or next year, but
possibly ten or even fifty years from now, depending on
organisational needs, service commitments and legal
requirements. This cannot be achieved simply by storing
application files. To achieve this demands a durable, platform
and application-independent document format that will remain
accessible regardless of changes in systems, applications and
environments.
Future-proof also means having a format that is designed to
accomodate evolving technology changes in security, workflow
and multi-media.
Documents as “electronic paper”
In other words, documents are stored as “electronic paper” that is
always accurately and consistently reproducible in every working
environment. This document format will offer all the same
functionalities in the digital environment as microfilm aperture
cards in the analogue environment. But at the same time a
number of functional enhancements can be provided. For
example, the time-consuming searching and retrieval of
information in a hard-copy environment can be eliminated by
electronic searching of digital documents, in which documents
can be searched on text or a wide range of other attributes.
This capability can play a key role in meeting today’s knowledge
management needs which call for effective sharing and re-use of
information.
Secure, long-term archiving
Another key issue is secure, long-term archiving. As enterprises
move towards all-digital working methods, this will increasingly
be dealt with by electronic solutions. Creating an effective and
stable archiving system also demands a universal format that is
independent of changing IT platforms and applications.
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PDF: supporting document interchange
3. How to address these changing needs in the
design & engineering environment
As already discussed, selection of the most appropriate document
format is crucial to ensure optimal support for the changing
needs and working processes in the design & engineering
environment. This is a choice that will have significant long-term
consequences because of the need for a universal and stable
format around which enterprises can build their document
management, archiving and distribution systems and processes.
Selecting the right file format
A number of so-called “universal” file formats have been
proposed at various times, e.g. TIFF and HPGL, as well as PDF.
All these formats meet some of the needs for document
interchange, but PDF best meets the needs of the engineering
environment in the following ways.
• Mixed content capability: PDF provides a “final form” page
fidelity standard that retains all the layout, fonts, colours and
other content attributes of complex documents, containing
graphics, images, text and tables. In other words, PDF provides
not only “WYSIWYG” but also “WYSIWYP” (“What You See
Is What You Print”)
• PDF handles both vector and raster information. Vector data
(e.g. text and other detailed information) is preserved during
conversion into PDF (using the Adobe® Distiller® program),
so it retains full detail sharpness and information content when
zoomed
• Of all the proposed formats, only PDF makes text and other
document attributes searchable. This is a primary need in digital
archiving situations, and underlines the fact that just capturing a
drawing by scanning is not enough! Searching can be by full text
search, by document attributes or manually by viewing
thumbnails, as well as the creation of searchable indices of PDF
files using backend asset management tools.
• PDF can handle physical document sizes up to 200 x 200
inches. (more than 5 x 5 m). This is large enough for most
engineering drawing and display graphics applications
• PDF is a structured and controlled format, with no proprietary
implementations which can vary over time, and can lead to
viewing and printing errors. This contrasts with the TIFF and
HPGL standard
• PDF documents can be generated in different ways to fit in
with specific situations and processes: for example by direct
export from the CAD application, conversion from other formats
(e.g. TIFF), scanned hard-copy documents via TIFF and
scanning of hard-copy documents direct to an archive or
network, including OCR
• PDF files can be secured with encrypted passwords, ensuring
that confidential information can only be viewed or printed by
authorised users. Also digital signatures can be incorporated,
allowing PDF documents to meet legal requirements
• Although PDF does not allow editing, just as with hard-copy
documents, annotations can be made by adding comments in the
form of “sticky notes”. These annotations can be tracked,
supporting collaborative engineering projects without the need to
share and distribute native files
• PDF documents can be viewed and printed by all, using the
freely available Acrobat reader
• PDF files are in general smaller than equivalent native files,
saving on storage space and network communication load
• Only PDF is designed for the Internet – Of all the storage
formats available, PDF is optimized for the web. Multi-page PDF
files can be downloaded over the network concurrently with their
display
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PDF: supporting document interchange
4. Building a PDF-oriented engineering process
PDF is not only an ideal format for document interchange and
archiving, it is also an excellent fit for every stage of the
engineering document process: from creation through document
management to document output. In addition, as an open
standard PDF is subject to both in-house and third-party
developments to add functionalities needed for trade-specific
workflows and applications.
PDF brings numerous benefits to the engineering process:
• PDF files are small and self-contained
• They can be viewed, printed and archived readily at any location
• They are page and device-independent
• The ability to secure the contents of PDF files meets the need
to protect confidential information
• The ability to add comments supports the review process
a single PDF file
Document management and archival
How does PDF fit into the various stages of the engineering
process? In fact PDF is an excellent fit at every stage:
• All printable files can be stored in PDF form, including both
small-format documents and engineering drawings
• Access to stored PDF files can be controlled, for example, view
only or print only
• Files in the archive can be searched by full-text search, search
on attributes or browsing thumbnails or searching an entire index
of PDF files
• Comments or “sticky notes” can be added to PDF files. All
comments on a document can be hosted on a central server,
meeting ISO requirements for document integrity by ensuring
that no changes have been made to the original document file
• The latest Acrobat® 5 version supports a collaborative
reviewing process
• Digital signatures can be used to make PDF files into legal
documents
Document input/capture
Document distribution and output
• PDF files can be created within the CAD application
• Other electronic file formats can be converted to PDF
• Hard-copy documents can be scanned to TIFF files and then
converted to PDF (including OCR)
• Original hard-copy documents can be scanned directly into
PDF files where the systems used allow this to be done
• Indexing data, hyperlinks, content tables, thumbnails, XML
data, security features etc. can be added to PDF files
• Multiple documents (e.g. PDF plot files, scanned PDF files,
small-format PDF files, TIFF files etc.) can all be combined into
• PDF files in an archive can be viewed and/or printed on any
device and at any location, either on a network or via the Internet
• PDF files can be distributed for review and/or approval with
the assurance of consistent, correct display and printing
• Documents can be distributed in the form of PDF files to
multiple users using predefined mailing lists, for example,
as e-mail attachments
• Multiple document sets can be created, including PDF files,
when using job submission software that supports this function
and printers with direct PDF support
PDF at every stage of the engineering process
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PDF: supporting document interchange
5. How Océ is leading the way with Adobe PDF in
engineering
Océ has committed itself to support Adobe PDF as the universal
document interchange format for the engineering environment.
By doing so, Océ recognises the need for both:
a) High consistency and integrity of output documents
b) The far-reaching impact of web-enabled working processes
and enterprise models
In this way Océ intends to offer its engineering customers the
same benefits of standardisation, consistency and
interchangeability that are already widely accepted in the printing
and graphic arts industries.
As a strategic partner of Adobe Systems, Océ can give its
customers the assurance of state-of-the-art and future-proof
document solutions with the highest standards of compatibility,
consistency and reliability. This is ensured by direct access to
Adobe’s proprietary software technology, with the support of a
dedicated implementation team at the Océ R&D headquarters.
Broadly-based PDF implementation
Océ’s commitment to a broadly-based implementation of PDF
technology is already reflected in a number of significant product
developments. For example, new printer generations such as the
latest Océ TDS-series of multifunctional wide-format systems
incorporate on-board Adobe PDF support in the printer
controller, which greatly enhances printing speed and reliability.
Meeting the need for convenient conversion of documents from
hard-copy to digital form, Océ scanners in the Océ TDS series
have a direct scan-to-PDF capability. This allows scanned
documents to be sent directly to the archive or to any other
destination on the network, as PDF files.
During this process, tasks like scanning, format conversion,
compression and generation of file information are all handled in
a single, automated process. This is performed transparently and
requires no special operator skills. Ensuring that all document
information is preserved, the Océ Image Logic® technology for
real-time image processing provides the highest possible scan
quality every time, with a range of selectable copy modes to
match the quality of the original document. Full PDF support is
also incorporated in Océ’s latest Océ Engineering Exec®
archiving and document management software, making PDF
an integral part of the engineering document process, ensuring
you that the full document fidelity of PDF is consistently
represented for all your document archival and management
needs.
Advice and support for optimum implementation
Like any part of the engineering process, successful PDF
implementation is not achieved simply by purchasing hardware
and software. It requires a careful analysis of users’ needs and
working processes, resulting in individual recommendations for a
cost-effective implementation that will deliver optimum results.
Océ document consultants possess extensive knowledge and
expertise on the engineering document process. This enables
them to advise and support enterprises in implementing PDFbased document flows and gaining the full benefits that these
offer.
For Adobe information,
visit www.adobe.com
Océ-Technologies B.V.
Venlo, the Netherlands
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and services, visit us
at www.oce.com
© 2002 Océ-Technologies B.V. Illustrations and specifications do not necessarily apply to products and services offered in each local market.
Technical specifications are subject to change without prior notice. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.