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Using PDF/UA with the RESTful Engine

The RESTful Report Engine supports PDF/UA-1 (Universal Accessibility) compliance. PDF/UA-1 is a subset of the PDF specification that ensures PDF documents are accessible to people with disabilities, such as vision impairment.

PDF/UA-1 compliance is not enabled by default in the RESTful Report Engine. Generating PDF/UA-1 compliant documents requires additional processing, which can slow down the report generation process.

There are multiple ways to enable PDF/UA-1 compliance in the RESTful Report Engine:

  1. You may add pdf.PDF_UA=true to the WindwardReports.properties file. Then all PDF output from the RESTful Reporting engine will have tagging added to it to meet PDF/UA-1 compliance.
  2. You may also enable PDF/UA-1 on a per report basis at run time. In order to do this include the setting in the properties section of your POST request. For example:
{
    "OutputFormat": "pdf",
    "Properties": [
        {
            "Name": "pdf.PDF_UA",
            "Value": "true"
        }
    ],
    "Data": "base64-encoded-template-data",
    "Format": "docx",
    "Datasources": [
        {
            "Name": "JSON",
            "Type": "json",
            "Data": "base64-encoded-json-data"
        }
    ]
}

Limitations​

Unused PDF Structure Elements​

These elements are not used by PDF/UA-1 Output.

<Part> <Art> <Sect> <Div> <BlockQuote> <Caption> <Index> <TOC> <TOCI> <Private> <H> <H1> <H2> <H3> <H4> <H5> <H6> <TH> <THead> <TBody> <TFoot> <Quote> <Note> <Reference> <BibEntry> <Code> <Annot> <Ruby> <Warichu> <RB> <RT> <RP> <WT> <WP> <Formula> <Form>

NameNotes
<TOC> <TOCI>Any Table of Contents in the template is converted to <L>, <LI>, <Lbl>, <LBody> structure elements
<H 1-6>Any paragraphs using the Heading styles are converted to <P> structure elements
<TH>Table header rows are converted to <TR> structure elements

Known limitations​

  • PDF/UA-1 compliant documents can only be generated when using a docx template. PDF/UA-1 compliant documents cannot be generated when using a pptx or xlsx template.
  • Documents containing charts will not be 100% PDF/UA-1 compliant. There may be minor issues with embedding of fonts and PDF structure.
  • Documents generated using Office shapes may not be 100% PDF/UA-1 compliant. There may be minor issues with PDF structure.
  • Documents generated using text boxes may not be 100% PDF/UA-1 compliant. There may be minor issues with PDF structure.
  • Documents using the Helvetica font in the header or footer may not be 100% PDF/UA-1 compliant. There may be minor issues with embedding of fonts.
  • Documents using form elements may not be 100% PDF/UA-1 compliant. There may be issues with the alternative descriptions and titles of the form elements.
  • In generated documents containing tables with headers the headers will not be tagged as headers in the PDF structure.
  • Irregular tables such as jagged or uneven rows may not be 100% PDF/UA-1 compliant. We've identified some cases where there doesn't seem to be a way to represent the structure within the PDF/UA-1 specification.
  • Absolutely positioned elements may not be 100% PDF/UA-1 compliant and are added to the PDF structure at the point they are anchored
  • Documents containing Hyperlinks that break across lines may not be 100% PDF/UA-1 compliant. There may be minor issues with PDF structure.