Options
  • State Verified Answer
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 7 replies
  • Answers 1 answer
  • Subscribers 15 subscribers
  • Views 770 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Related
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

PDFs with digital signatures can't be converted into PDF/A format

Jannik

Is this a known issue that M-Files can't convert PDFs with a digital signature into the PDF/A format?

We have a workflow in M-Files that converts every PDF invoice that we import into M-Files automatically into the PDF/A format for archiving purposes. Unfortunately some of the invoices we receive contain digital signatures. If we try to import these invoices it won't let us import them with the error message: "The file may contain unconvertable PDF elements."

In one instance the pdf could be converted but it totally messed up the content of the PDF. All the letters were replaced by random symbols.

If we remove the PDF/A conversion from the workflow the PDFs can be imported without any problems. But we need the PDF/A format for legal archiving purposes.

Is this something that will be supported in the future?

Parents
  • 0

    Have you checked if the signed PDFs are not already in PDF/A format? In which case a solution could be to detect the signed PDfs, and not convert them (again) in PDF/A.

  • 0 in reply to Laurent Gabiot

    Thank you for your input, that would actually be a great solution to our problem.

    Do you know if there is a way in a workflow to check what format the pdf is in before converting?

  • 0 in reply to Jannik

    Since signed PDFs are not meant to be modified, they often are converted to PDF/A, hence my advice above.

    Jannik said:
    Do you know if there is a way in a workflow to check what format the pdf is in before converting?

    Yes it is possible, but you are asking the wrong question: you should not check if the PDF is in the right format, but if the PDF is signed.

    Consider this case: the PDF is signed, but not in PDF/A. If you do the format test, you will detect that it is not in PDF/A, convert it to PDF/A, and destroy the signature.

    So to answer the right question: Is there a way in a workflow to check if the PDF is signed before conversion?

    Yes, it is possible to configure a workflow to do such a check, but it will need a VAF application containing the code for the signature verification.

    Here is an example of signature verification code:
    https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39317754/how-to-check-if-a-pdf-file-is-signed-or-not-using-itextsharp-in-c

    A PDF library will be needed. I'm not sure signature verification is possible with a free library (many PDF library are paid only, such as iTextSharp in the example I gave you).

    Let me know if something is unclear.

Reply
  • 0 in reply to Jannik

    Since signed PDFs are not meant to be modified, they often are converted to PDF/A, hence my advice above.

    Jannik said:
    Do you know if there is a way in a workflow to check what format the pdf is in before converting?

    Yes it is possible, but you are asking the wrong question: you should not check if the PDF is in the right format, but if the PDF is signed.

    Consider this case: the PDF is signed, but not in PDF/A. If you do the format test, you will detect that it is not in PDF/A, convert it to PDF/A, and destroy the signature.

    So to answer the right question: Is there a way in a workflow to check if the PDF is signed before conversion?

    Yes, it is possible to configure a workflow to do such a check, but it will need a VAF application containing the code for the signature verification.

    Here is an example of signature verification code:
    https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39317754/how-to-check-if-a-pdf-file-is-signed-or-not-using-itextsharp-in-c

    A PDF library will be needed. I'm not sure signature verification is possible with a free library (many PDF library are paid only, such as iTextSharp in the example I gave you).

    Let me know if something is unclear.

Children
No Data




              

© M-Files Corporation 2024 | Privacy Policy