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Indiana University Northwest

Web Services and Web Technical Infrastructure

Displaying Scanned Images in PDF Format

Pages made for the web should be created in html code whenever possible. Occasionally pages need to be displayed in Portable Document Format or .pdf format, allowing the page to look the same as if it were printed.

Use PDF to

  • distribute "official" forms that are printed
  • filled out by hand, and submitted (in person or by snail mail)

Pages at IU Northwest must be handicapped accessible. Making files in html format will allow handicapped accessibility. Adobe Acrobat files (.pdf) are not accessible by screen readers. An Acrobat file is nothing more than a type of image file and is not ideal for all people.

Comments from Ted Frick, Indiana University School of Education, concerning Creating Web Pages, Information to Consider should be read especially before making a pdf page.

Quoted from World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) site, Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) area, guideline 11:

"Many non-W3C formats (e.g., PDF, Shockwave, etc.) require viewing with either plug-ins or stand-alone applications. Often, these formats cannot be viewed or navigated with standard user agents (including assistive technologies). Avoiding non-W3C and non-standard features (proprietary elements, attributes, properties, and extensions) will tend to make pages more accessible to more people using a wider variety of hardware and software. When inaccessible technologies (proprietary or not) must be used, equivalent accessible pages must be provided. "

Making pdf file with Original Document Available

To make pdf files, Adobe Acrobat program needs to be purchased and loaded. In whatever application (Word, Excel, WordPerfect, Photoshop, etc.) you are using, just choose the Print function and select Acrobat Distiller or Acrobat PDFWriter as your 'printer' to make the pdf file. Distiller is a simulated printer that allows converting fonts, images and color in your pdf files. PDFWriter is best used for simple business forms that have mostly text and is faster than Distiller. PDFWriter is best if you goal is to minimize file size, you're willing to live with images/graphics that are grainier, and you have largely text. Laser print the PDFwriter PDF to see if it is satisfactory.

To make a document that is a pdf, if the original document is available, the most efficient way is to use Adobe PDFWriter in Acrobat 5. When installing Acrobat, you need to select a custom install to sellect PDFWriter. In whatever application (Word, Excel, WordPerfect, Photoshop, etc.) you are using, just choose the Print function and select as your "printer" PDFWriter. This saves the file in PDF in smallest file size. PDFwriter is best if you goal is to minimize file size, you're willing to live with images/graphics that are grainier, and you have largely text. Laser print the PDFwriter PDF to see if it is satisfactory, if that's what users will be doing.

PDFWriter creates a MUCH smaller PDF. It is truly worth the bother of obtaining or recreating the original file in Word or another application.

8-Page Text Document Example

Technology Council 2001 Plan text document originally done in Microsoft Word (not editied) is shown below:

Clearly, Acrobat PDFWriter makes the smallest file size for pdf files, if you have the original document.

Making pdf File With a Scanned Document

If the document can only be scanned use Acrobat Distiller. If the original application can open the document, from the application, you can directly to Distiller or PDFWriter, with PDFWriter making the smallest files size.

Financial Aid Form Example

Additional financial aid form - Original Scan - Grayscale, 150 dpi.

In the above examples, I think the smallest size file that would be acceptable to use would be feecourtesy-distiller-ebook-medqual-medcomp.pdf 295KB

The Best Method is to use HTML or Similar

Of course, one could be REALLY efficient and if users can fill out a Web form with a computer running a Web browser, and submit the info (a few Kbytes) to a CGI that can e-mail it, put into a database, store as XML or whatever is needed to capture the information. See Web Forms for allowing this.