Guidelines for uploading PDF files

The quick way

We recommend you follow these guidelines for using an optimized PDF file to guarantee a great user experience.

1. Recommendations for creating PDF files
2. Optimize PDF files with Adobe Acrobat or a similar tool
3. Troubleshoot PDF optimization issues

1. Recommendations for creating PDF files

Familiarize yourself with the export possibilities and settings of your native application (Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, or similar). Try to create the document in your native application using the following guidelines.

Note: See this article to verify the recommended size of your PDF file.

PDF elements look different on Showpad after uploading.

If the uploading and processing succeeded but looks different on Showpad, you can disable the optimization to display the original file instead of the optimized Showpad version.

1. In the Admin App, click on the PDF you uploaded.
2. In the details panel, scroll down to Optimization.
3. Hover over the Use optimized file option, and click the pencil icon.
4. Disable the toggle, then click Save changes.

InDesign settings for successful processing results.

We recommend the following settings in InDesign. You can save these presets for future use with Showpad.

1. General Settings.
2. Compression.
   
3. Output.
   
4. Advanced.
   

Note: PDF files, secured with a password, cannot be processed. You can still use the file in your Files and Experiences libraries, but it won't be optimized. If you want to let Showpad optimize the file, you need to remove the password.

2. Optimize PDF files with Adobe Acrobat

If you have PDF documents that are not processed or viewed as expected on Showpad, you can use Adobe Acrobat or a similar tool to optimize them.

1. Open the PDF in Acrobat.
2. Go to File, then Save as Other, and click Optimized PDF.
3. Click on the Settings drop-down menu, and select Mobile. This setting is a great start if you encounter an issue with a PDF. Click OK, then Save.
4. Upload the document to Showpad to see if this resolves your issue. You can customize these settings by changing the recommended resolution of the images and using the subsetting of fonts. Read the guidelines above to optimize images and fonts. In this window, you also have the option to discard objects that are not necessary.

   Note: Some hyperlink parameters, like Mouse Actions in a PDF, are incompatible with touch devices. Consider using standard hyperlinks to make them render correctly.

5. If you still encounter a problem after using the Mobile setting, check the Transparency box and select Low or Medium Resolution.
6. Another option is to flatten the file to a lower PDF version. If this conversion fails, you will get an error message displaying the underlying issue. This message reveals why the PDF fails to process in Showpad, and you can resolve the error in your original file.

PDF color changes on iOS

Colors in photos on PDF documents may look different on your iPad if the document was saved using the CMYK color profile. You will need to re-save the PDF as RGB. To do so, follow the following steps in Adobe Acrobat:

1. Open the file in Acrobat.
2. Go to the All tools tab, Use print production, click Preflight, and convert the images with the RGB profile.
3. Click Analyze and fix.

You can achieve the same result in Preview on a Mac by creating a Generic PDFX-3 document with the Quartz Filter. 
As a test, you can open the file in iBooks. If you see that the issue is also present in this app, it means it is iOS related and is not caused by Showpad. You'll need to check with the file's creator and try to recreate the PDF with the RGB profile.

PDF font changes

Some fonts allow for better readability results than others, so it is advised to choose fonts that allow good online readability when creating a PDF document. However, as creating documents from scratch is not always the case, it might happen that you already have the final file and cannot change the font. If after uploading a PDF to Showpad, users notice readability issues (e.g., blurry characters), there is a quick fix that will increase the font quality.

1. Open the PDF document with Adobe Acrobat and navigate to the All tools tab.
2. Select Use print production.
3. Choose Flattener Preview and check the relevant boxes:
   • Convert All Text to Outlines
   • Convert All Strokes to Outlines
   • All pages in document
4. Click Apply, save the document, and upload it again to Showpad.

3. Troubleshoot PDF optimization issues

It's possible that you still receive processing errors after optimizing your PDF file. Most likely, your file became corrupt, and you'll need to find a way to resolve this issue before uploading it again. There are several possibilities you can try if errors still occur.

Here are some examples:
The PDF document contained image masks that were not down-sampled

1. Open the file in Acrobat.
2. Go to File, Export a PDF, PostScript. The file will now be flattened.
3. Open the .ps file you just generated.
4. The file will now open in Acrobat Distiller as a PDF, with all the elements flattened.
5. Upload the flattened PDF to Showpad.

If this doesn't solve the problem, you'll need to check with the file's creator.  

Processing or viewing issues because of image masks

Image masks are often used when using transparent images in PDF documents. Using masks can cause an issue when the PDF is processed on our Showpad servers. Even though your file will not always be stopped at processing, you may end up with viewing issues later on. Therefore, as a rule of thumb, we recommend flattening transparency in Adobe Acrobat.

1. Open the file in Acrobat.
2. Go to All tools, Use print production, Preflight, PDF Fixups, and choose Flatten transparency.
3. Select a low or medium resolution.
4. Save the file and upload it to Showpad.

Pages show offset

If pages are partially cut off, the page boxes of the PDF are not set up in the right way. 
PDFs are divided into page boxes. Pages boxes will define the format and size of the PDF pages. 
For typical use on the web, you need to ensure that the media box and the crop box are the same. You can use Preflight in Adobe Acrobat to make sure they are set with the same values.

Vertical scrolling on long sized files

If you have a long PDF file with a custom height (not a standard A4, A3,... format), you have to split up the pages manually. Pages are not cut automatically during the processing on our servers.