Peter Hand
Registered
The company I work for produces a software application called Docuproof, a specialized piece of software that can compare Word files against artwork pdf files. For example, within the pharmaceutical industry, the original text for a label, insert or carton (which may be multi-lingual)is handle by the Regulatory Affairs department, when this document is passed signed etc, it is then sent to the artwork department who will use a third party software such as Quark Express or Adobe Illustrator to design the packaging. So the text will be 'flowed' from the word document into the graphics application and then the graphic artist can then insert the final graphics. Once this has been finished a secure pdf file is generated.
Now both the original word file and this generated artwork pdf product contains sensitive information and the pdf needs to be checked back to the original word file to ensure that no errors have been generated. This is where Docuproof comes in. Although these two are 'unlike in layout, Docuproof only looks for blocks of Unicode characters, ignoring graphic elements of the pdf file. So we can validate the integrity of the finished artwork pdf.
In Europe and the States Docuproof works well. However in the Far East, because of the complexity of Asian fonts the inspection is more demanding. One particular company in Singapore is using a mixture of Unicode and closed fonts, especially on the Thai and Korean text. So over there, when the graphic artists flows the text in to the graphic application on the Mac there seems to be some problem with the fonts. So they are using some type of hardware dongle that literally performs some type of electronic translation so the Thai script or Korean script can be displayed within the pdf. Once the pdf file is printed.. no problem. But this pdf file does not contain the embedded Asian font, consequently when Docuproof tries to analyses both documents all sorts of spurious characters are thrown up and it cannot perform the inspection comparison.
To my questions. Have you heard of this type of thing? I am not too well up on the Mac O.S. but I suspect that the people in Singapore are using an older version of the Mac O.S. that could not handle certain fonts, but I think the later versions of the Mac O.S can handle Unicode without the use of code translatory devices. Can anybody give me advice as to what versions of the Mac O.S. had problems with Unicode or Asian fonts? I have a big meeting coming up with this company and I want to have all my facts right.
Now both the original word file and this generated artwork pdf product contains sensitive information and the pdf needs to be checked back to the original word file to ensure that no errors have been generated. This is where Docuproof comes in. Although these two are 'unlike in layout, Docuproof only looks for blocks of Unicode characters, ignoring graphic elements of the pdf file. So we can validate the integrity of the finished artwork pdf.
In Europe and the States Docuproof works well. However in the Far East, because of the complexity of Asian fonts the inspection is more demanding. One particular company in Singapore is using a mixture of Unicode and closed fonts, especially on the Thai and Korean text. So over there, when the graphic artists flows the text in to the graphic application on the Mac there seems to be some problem with the fonts. So they are using some type of hardware dongle that literally performs some type of electronic translation so the Thai script or Korean script can be displayed within the pdf. Once the pdf file is printed.. no problem. But this pdf file does not contain the embedded Asian font, consequently when Docuproof tries to analyses both documents all sorts of spurious characters are thrown up and it cannot perform the inspection comparison.
To my questions. Have you heard of this type of thing? I am not too well up on the Mac O.S. but I suspect that the people in Singapore are using an older version of the Mac O.S. that could not handle certain fonts, but I think the later versions of the Mac O.S can handle Unicode without the use of code translatory devices. Can anybody give me advice as to what versions of the Mac O.S. had problems with Unicode or Asian fonts? I have a big meeting coming up with this company and I want to have all my facts right.
