[pdftex] PDFX3 Standard

[William Adams]

There's little I can add to Hans' excellent overview of this, but I did
feel impelled to comment on one thing in the hope of learning a bit more hopefully:

Hans said:
>It is interesting to note that we occasionally get pdf files that are 
>'validated and ok' but definitely not pdf/x. Also, you need to keep in
mind 
>that some graphics (read: illustrator graphics) when written in their 
>native format (which is now pdf) contain some ps code (in some kind of 
>comment object) as well as an (i presume) editable duplicate of the
graphic 
>(even preferences and strings can end up typeset in the file which
means 
>that in order to reuse them later the editing application has to parse
the 
>typeset code) that can confuse validators -- although it is supposed to
be 
>invisible to the viewing application (placed some 7000+ points in the 
>margin and encapsulated in special objects.

Interestingly, there seems to be some sort of built-in failsafe in the
interpretation of PDF ``form'' objects which will keep such as such even
during techniques intended to flatten them out (printing as PS from
Acrobat Reader to redistill) if the # of objects in such a form cross
some threshold---came across that in a recent project, two graphic .pdfs
contained some 20,000+ paths each and were kept as form objects even
when everything else in the 560 pg. book was flattened out
properly---took a while to diagnose that.

Isn't there a limit of 32,767 objects in a .pdf?

William