callas pdfToolbox Desktop is the easiest yet most powerful PDF preflight and correction application on the market. You can fix PDF problems during preflight or with a click on the button in the Switchboard. Flatten transparency, convert fonts to outlines, convert office documents or even PostScript directly into PDF, compare versions of PDFs, visualize ink coverage … no task is too difficult for callas pdfToolbox Desktop.

Comprises of Desktop and Server versions

Description

Current version 12

Don’t check all your files manually, pdfToolbox offers you multi-step conditional processing of files, based on variables that you create yourself. Create automated flows for files that have to be checked and/or adapted on the same variables, making your file processing more time efficient.

Avoid production errors
With pdfToolbox Desktop you can create your own preflight (quality control) rules or you can simply depend on any of the predefined profiles that come with the software. Many of those are based on international standards such as ISO PDF/X or the Ghent Workgroup specifications. As testament to its reliability and power, the preflight engine in pdfToolbox has been licensed by Adobe for use in its Acrobat Pro product. Proof of preflight stores additional metadata in your PDF documents after preflight and protects the document with a digital signature. Doing this, it becomes easy to prove that the file you delivered was indeed good or that a file wasn’t inadvertently changed in your workflow.

Identify and fix problems
For those PDF files that fail quality control, pdfToolbox Desktop provides unique visualiser technology that visually highlights the severity of problems such as ink coverage overruns, low-resolution images, incorrect separations and small text or line-art. The errors are colour-coded right on top of the actual PDF document so that you can easily judge how severe they are and whether they can be fixed or will require a new PDF to be delivered.On the fixing front pdfToolbox Desktop not only has all of the power of its preflight profiles available but comes with the extremely easy-to-use Switchboard as well.

Do you have multiple versions of a PDF file and you must know all differences between them? Or do you want to fix a PDF file by for example embedding a font but you want to be reassured that this won’t introduce unwanted changes to the PDF? Simply open two versions of a PDF file and enable the visual comparison engine to immediately see the differences between the two files; differences are highlighted in red on top of the PDF file and using the loupe you can zoom in and examine even the smallest details.

Impose yourself
How about doing simple imposition tasks, such as making booklets or doing a step-and-repeat? The Switchboard in pdfToolbox Desktop seamlessly performs those easy imposition tasks; it can even split spreads into single pages before running that booklet action for you. A number of more complicated imposition schemes are delivered with the product as well and of course you can modify them or create your own.

Plug-in or standalone?
Regardless of what functionality you need, pdfToolbox Desktop lets you access it both inside of Adobe Acrobat Pro (where it lives as a plug-in) and as a standalone application. If you prefer sticking to your trusted Adobe Acrobat environment or you want to combine the power of pdfToolbox Desktop with the object editing capabilities of Adobe Acrobat, run it as a plug-in. If you prefer a cleaner user experience or if you don’t have Adobe Acrobat installed, use it as a standalone. Both are available, even on the same computer, so it’s totally up to you.

Handle multiple files
While pdfToolbox Desktop is designed to examine and fix one file at a time, it does offer its batch mode for those situations where someone sends you a whole bunch of PDF documents. The Switchboard allows you to run any Switchboard action on a whole folder of PDF files; the files are automatically moved in a success or error folder based on the result of processing.

Server version
callas pdfToolbox Server automates and standardises the process of file delivery and reception. For print, publishing, advertising, packaging and design companies, it offers the most comprehensive solution for automated high quality preflighting and reliable automatic correction of PDF files. callas pdfToolbox Server will speed up job turn around times and significantly reduce error rates.

Because pdfToolbox Server is fully multi-processor aware, it can handle many different tasks in parallel; up to 8 files can be processed simultaneously with the standard product license. The unlimited version of pdfToolbox Server is only limited by the power of the computer server it is installed on.

Key features

Make the most of your PDF control with these key features:

  • Full support for all ISO PDF standards: PDF/X, PDF/A, PDF/VT and PDF/E
  • Full support for specifications from industry associations such as the Ghent Workgroup and PDF/X-Ready
  • Reporting of problems through different types of predefined PDF reports
  • Customisable PDF reports based on HTML templates for maximum adjustment to your brand and users (including easy adaptation of colours, layout, icons and logos and textual content)
  • Interactive identification of problem objects after preflight

Don’t just report problems – fix them

  • Many instant fixes for common PDF problems
  • Run fixes individually or build them into preflight profiles
  • Secured fixing by using PDF comparison technology; easily identify when a fix causes visual differences
  • Build process plans: customisable lists of fixes that can be executed on PDF documents conditionally
  • Fix broken documents by re-distilling (generating PostScript and distilling back into PDF) or by rasterising each page

Customise quality control and fixing

  • Insert variables into checks or fixes
  • Modify values for variables whenever run in pdfToolbox Desktop
  • Decide on the fly whether checks or fixes need to be run for a specific document

More than fixes – PDF actions

  • Convert office documents, images and PostScript / EPS files into good PDF documents with simple drag-and-drop
  • Save images for each page of a PDF documents (can be used to generate preview images or high resolution TIFF files for production)
  • Generate PostScript or EPS files from PDF documents
  • Perform simple impositioning tasks (creating a booklet, doing a step-and-repeat…) or create complete impositioning templates
  • Prepare professional looking handouts and presentations for on-screen and printed delivery
  • Scale, move, extend, rotate and flip pages and content
  • Change page size to what is visible on the page
  • Add printer marks based on the trim and bleed-box
  • Detect printer marks in PDF documents and fix the trim and bleed-box accordingly
  • Flatten transparency to support older workflows / devices
  • Work with PDF documents containing layers (option content)
  • Embed and/or subset fonts, outline fonts if necessary
  • Change image compression
  • Sharpen images in your PDF documents

Professional colour management without the hassle

  • Convert PDF documents using ICC profiles; wizard takes the guessing out of the job
  • Use your DeviceLink profiles for colour conversion, TAC reduction or ink saving
  • Use DeviceLink pack for smooth CMYK to CMYK conversion
  • Convert all spot colours to CMYK
  • Modify individual spot colours in a PDF document (change names, modify alternate colour space and values, remap to another spot colour or process colour or convert to CMYK)
  • Quickly convert PDF documents to RGB or grey (with dot-gain compensation)

Get the most out of metadata

  • Provides convenient browsing of document metadata as well as object-level metadata for images embedded inside the document
  • Support for all relevant industry metadata standards including Dublin Core, IPTC, PRISM, GWG AdTicket/AdsML, PLUS, EXIF and Camera Raw
  • Facilitates metadata based researching in Yahoo, Wikipedia, Amazon, Google and AskMetaFilter
  • Supports GPS data for use with Google Maps, OpenStreetMap and Google Earth
  • XML export of all document and object level metadata for tracking image use and licenses

System requirements

Mac: MacOS X (Intel), version 10.9 or newer, 64-bit-compliant (PlugIn requires also Acrobat DC 64-bit)

Windows:
Windows 7 or newer
Windows Server 2008 R2 or newer

Linux:
Debian 7 (and derivates like Ubuntu 12.x )
RedHat RHEL6 (and derivates like CentOS6)
SuSE SLES11 (and derivates like OpenSuSE11)
Other Linux distributions are also supported as well if the version of the glibc is at least v2.12
Solaris (Sparc and Intel): Solaris 11 (v5.11) or newer
AIX (PPC): AIX 6.1 (oslevel 6100-09) or newer

Resources

Case study:

See product testimonials here

Brochure:

View the pdfToolbox brochure