Commissioned by the German National Library, the job requires that the content published by German dailies is archived long-term. A call for tenders was therefore posted at the end of 2009 to find a service provider for the “collection, conversion and preparation of electronic editions of daily newspapers”. Software provider iSquare was awarded the contract. Because the tender invitation stipulated that all electronic newspapers should be archived in the long-term PDF/A format, after a comprehensive research on the market, iSquare integrated software that includes pdfToolbox technology from callas software into its overall solution.

“We were especially impressed by the high quality of the results produced by the callas software technology,” explains Michael Kapst, President of iSquare. “callas pdfToolbox is therefore the ideal addition to our solution for the German National Library.”

Complex process demands numerous individual steps
The task of providing the German National Library electronic editions on a continuous basis requires an extensive range of tasks. First, the iSquare ePaper Manager runs its spider program to retrieve the electronic versions from the various websites of the daily newspapers between 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. “The publishers offer various ways to download the ePaper,” explains Kapst. “The publisher sites often require selecting the pages you want to include in the PDF files. With callas pdfToolbox you can directly select individual pages and/or categories such as politics, sports etc. Many publishers also require you to first select the region-specific edition.”

Newspaper publishers are required to offer their electronic newspapers in a convertible format. If this is not the case, this is documented and a complaint is filed separately. An XML metadata record is also created for each edition that has been collected. Finally, the editions are checked to verify their completeness and consistency and then stored in a database, which can be accessed using the web interface. Here the data can be accessed for further editing and to correct any potential errors. The data is then converted into a PDF/A file. For this purpose, iSquare decided to integrate callas pdfToolbox into its solution to ensure that all PDF/A specifications are fully met and errors are automatically corrected. The callas pdfToolbox software analyzes the PDF documents and also handles imbedded objects such as fonts, metadata, images or compression algorithms if necessary. This way, any hidden problems can be identified and resolved in the conversion process.

The 8,400 pages processed on average each day, including metadata, are generally available to the German National Library for retrieval by noon via an OAI-compliant (Open Archives Initiative) interface.

“The institute is not very concerned with speed so much as it is with the completeness and correctness of the files. And this is where our callas pdfToolbox software makes its essential contribution,” callas software CEO Olaf Drümmer concludes.

About callas software
callas software finds simple ways to handle complex PDF challenges. As a technology innovator, callas software develops and markets PDF technology for publishing, print production, document exchange and document archiving.
callas software helps agencies, publishing companies and printers to meet their challenges, by providing software to preflight, correct and repurpose PDF files for print production and electronic publishing.
Businesses and government agencies all over the world rely on callas software’s future-proof, fully PDF/A compliant archiving products.
In addition, callas software technology is available as a programming library (SDK) for developers with a need for PDF optimization, validation and correction. Software vendors such as Adobe®, Quark®, Xerox® and many others have understood the quality and flexibility provided by these callas tools and have incorporated them into their solutions.
callas software actively supports international standards and has been participating in ISO, CIP4, the European Color Initiative and the Ghent PDF Workgroup. callas software is based in Berlin, Germany. For more information, please visit www.callassoftware.com.