[pdftex] Problem with hyperref to create a PDF/A

[David Rendon]

Hi, Laurent,

I'm glad someone else is working on creating PDF/A files using LaTeX!  
On Jan 18 I asked a question regarding that and got no reply, but I  
do  have good news for you. My old message is "Setting annotation  
flags in links created by hyperref".

***The problem***
Acrobat Prof. 8 expects a particular Annotation Flag, "Print", to be  
set for every link in your original file. What this means for the non- 
experts (like me) is that for each link, the string "/F 4" should  
appear in the appropriate part of the file.

(4 isn't the only number that works. Any number whose binary  
representation has a 1 in the 3rd least significant bit should work.)


***The official solution***
On 2007-10-29 Heiko Oberdiek added the ability to set these flags in  
the hyperref package. But I have not been able to get it to work. (See  
my old message). If anyone is kind enough to try guide me, I can tell  
them what I have figured out from the hyperref.dtx file.


***My dirty workaround***
Hack the hyperref.sty file to hard code the flag definition, at least  
until the official solution makes it to the manual. For this:

Back up hyperref.sty
Search for "/Border[\@pdfborder]%" (no quotes)
You should get only one hit, that looks like this:
>   \else
>     /Border[\@pdfborder]%
>   \fi

Insert the string "/F 4 " (no quotes, notice the space AFTER 4) before  
that line, so the block reads
>   \else
>     /F 4
>     /Border[\@pdfborder]%
>   \fi

Generate a PDF using pdftex. (I don't know if a Postscript file will  
work, probably not). The PDF file is valid (I think), but not PDF/A  
compliant.
Use Acrobat Prof. 8 to generate a valid PDF/A from the PDF file.

I hope this helps you while the official solution is workable.

Bon soir!


David