[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

PDF24 has no setting that prints only the text in black, so this should not happen. Please first check whether it still happens with the current version of PDF24 Creator.

If the text is still black, so that we can reproduce this, please send us a file where it happens with this button:

Send a file to the PDF24 team

Ideally send both the Publisher file (.pub) and the PDF that PDF24 created from it.

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

an option to recognize text while saving does not exist yet, it is on our to-do list. Text recognition is always done by the OCR tool, but you don't need to save the PDF in between:

• Several images in one PDF: In the PDF24 Toolbox use Images to PDF. When the result is ready, click Continue and then PDF OCR. The PDF opens directly in the OCR tool, there you click Start and then Save files.
• Each image as its own PDF: Open PDF OCR, click Add files > From filesystem and select the images directly. The OCR tool converts them to PDF and recognizes the text in one go.
• Automatically: The OCR tool has a Hot folder in its settings. While the OCR tool is open, images placed in this folder are recognized and saved as PDF with text automatically.

Online, OCR also accepts images directly: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/ocr-pdf

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

to add for other readers: a redaction can't be undone, the covered content is removed from the file. If it is your own document, the only way back is the original file from before the redaction. So keep the original and save the redacted version as a new file. With the next version, the redaction tool in the PDF24 Toolbox names the result like file_redacted.pdf, so the original is not overwritten by mistake.

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

thank you for the feedback. For other readers: this was a bug in version 11.19.0 of the Toolbox tool Blacken PDF. It has been fixed since version 11.20.0. When saving, every page with a black box is turned into an image, so the covered content is no longer in the file and the box can't be moved or removed in other programs. Since version 11.31.0, annotations and form fields on the page are covered as well, and document information, metadata, attachments and JavaScript are removed from the redacted file.

Please make sure you use the current version: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/creator

Redacting also works online: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/redact-pdf

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

yes, with the PDF24 Toolbox of PDF24 Creator (Windows). The tool Change PDF page size can be run from the command line with a job file:

1. Create a job file, e.g. C:\Data\job.json (write the backslashes in paths twice):

{ "action": "changePdfPageSize", "pageSize": "A4", "pageOrientation": "auto", "fileInfos": [ { "file": "C:\\Data\\test.pdf", "name": "test.pdf" } ] }

pageSize can be A0 to A6, letter, legal or your own size like 210x297mm or 8.5x11inch. pageOrientation can be auto, portrait or landscape.

1. Run the job:

"C:\Program Files\PDF24\pdf24-Toolbox.exe" -processJob C:\Data\job.json C:\Data\result.json

1. In result.json you then find the new PDF under outputFiles (file = path in the temp folder %TEMP%\PDF24, name = intended file name). Copy this file to the folder you want.

Description of -processJob: https://creator.pdf24.org/manual/11/#912-process-a-job

Without the command line, the tool is also online: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/change-pdf-page-size

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

pdf24.exe has no switch that prints the version, but there are two quick ways without WMIC:

1. The file version of pdf24.exe is the version of PDF24 Creator. In CMD:

powershell -NoProfile -Command "(Get-Item 'C:\Program Files\PDF24\pdf24.exe').VersionInfo.ProductVersion"

This prints e.g. 11.31.1.

1. With the normal setup (EXE), the version is in the uninstall entry in the registry:

reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{81A6F461-0DBA-4F12-B56F-0E977EC10576}_is1" /v DisplayVersion

If PDF24 is installed in another folder, the folder is in the value InstallDir under HKLM\SOFTWARE\PDF24.

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

these are the ways to use PDF24 functions without the online interface:

• On Windows, PDF24 Creator can be used from the command line. The PDF24 Toolbox can run its tools with a job file (-processJob): https://creator.pdf24.org/manual/11/#91-command-line
• The PDF24 DocTool converts, merges, compresses and splits files from the command line: https://creator.pdf24.org/manual/11/#11-pdf24-doctoolexe
• For your own website there are ready-made PDF24 widgets (e.g. compress, merge, convert to PDF), which you embed with a short code: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/widgets

If you tell us what exactly you want to automate, we can say whether it is possible with PDF24.

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

thank you for the file. Your text file is saved in the Chinese ANSI encoding (GBK) without an encoding mark, and it contains only one Chinese word. The program that read the text file for the conversion therefore guessed a Western encoding, and the two characters became "±¸·Ý". Notepad++ detects the encoding correctly, so it shows the text correctly. PDF24 does not convert text files itself yet, it lets Microsoft Word open them or prints them with the program that is set for .txt files in Windows.

Please save the text file as UTF-8 with BOM (in Notepad++ in the menu "Encoding") and convert it again. Then the encoding is marked in the file and the characters should come out correctly.

A built-in conversion for text files that detects the encoding by itself is on our to-do list. Thank you for the report.

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

-profile expects the ID of a profile, not only its name. A profile you created yourself has the ID user/<name>, in your case user/PDFA2. Without the prefix PDF24 does not find the profile and shows the profile selection. The built-in profiles are default/low to default/best, profiles for all users (HKLM) start with all/.

Since version 11.31.0 there is also the switch -silent: the DocTool shows no window at all, writes errors to stderr and returns an exit code. Please use full paths:

"C:\Software\PDF24\pdf24-DocTool.exe" -convertToPDF -silent -profile user/PDFA2 -outputFile "C:\Out\testA2.pdf" "C:\In\testBadPdf.pdf"

Description in the manual: https://creator.pdf24.org/manual/11/#11110-convert-to-pdf and https://creator.pdf24.org/manual/11/#1111-general-format-and-options

About the result that is not PDF/A: the PDF/A conversion has been improved several times since version 11.20 (color conversion for PDF/A in 11.21.0, a new PDF engine in 11.31.0). Since 11.31.0 your profile also has the option "Force PDF/A conformance" on the page "PDF/A" (PDF24 Settings > Output profiles). It allows lossy conversions, e.g. flattening forms, for files that could not be made conformant otherwise. Please update to the current version (https://tools.pdf24.org/en/creator), enable this option in your profile and convert the file again. You can check the result here: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/validate-pdfa

If the file is still not PDF/A, so that we can reproduce this, please send us a file where it happens with this button:

Send a file to the PDF24 team

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

yes, this works with an output profile and the automatic saving of the PDF printer:

1. Open PDF24 Settings > Output profiles and create a new profile with the format PDF. On the page "Digital Paper", enable "Use digital paper" and choose your PDF. It is placed behind the content of each page, like a letterhead. If it should lie on top of the content, use "Use overlay" on the page "Overlay" instead.
2. In PDF24 Settings > PDF Printer, choose "Automatically save documents after printed". Under "Auto Save", set the output directory and select your new profile under "Profile".

Every document you print from Word to the PDF24 printer is then saved automatically with the overlay. More about the PDF printers in the manual: https://creator.pdf24.org/manual/11/#6-pdf-printers

Please use an overlay PDF with the same page size as your documents (e.g. A4). In the current version a different size is not fitted to the page, this fix will come with the next version.

If you only need it for single files, you can also combine them afterwards with the tool "PDF Overlay" in the PDF24 Toolbox. This also works online: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/overlay-pdf

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

there is no setting to activate annotations, the tool "Annotate PDF" in the PDF24 Toolbox works without it. Since version 11.20.1 the tools for editing, annotating and signing have been reworked several times (for example in 11.25.0 and 11.26.1). Please update to the current version: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/creator

If adding annotations or free drawing still does not work with the current version, please tell us what happens when you choose a tool and click or draw on the page.

This also works online: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/annotate-pdf

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

error 32 comes from Windows and means that another process has the target file open, so PDF24 cannot overwrite it. PDF24 itself only tries to write the file. So the difference is something on your two PCs, or the file on the share, that keeps the file open. Please check:

• Is the file you overwrite still open somewhere, for example in a PDF viewer, in the preview pane of File Explorer, or by a colleague on the share? Close it and click "Retry" in the message.
• Save under a new file name in the same shared folder. If that works, the existing file is locked. If it fails too, the problem is the folder or the connection to the share.
• Compare the two affected PCs with the others: sync programs (e.g. OneDrive), backup software or a virus scanner that checks files on the network drive can keep a newly written file open for a moment.
• Your IT can see on the file server which user or PC has the file open at the time of the error.

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

sorry for the late reply. Yes, the window "Select source" currently appears every time you import from the scanner, even if only one scanner is installed. Setting a default scanner so that this window is skipped is not possible yet. It is on our to-do list.

For several pages this helps: in the window "Select source", check these two options before you click on your scanner:

• Close app manually: PDF24 does not close the window of your scanner after the scan. If your scanner driver supports it, you can scan further pages there and close the window when you are done.
• Collect files: the scanned pages are passed to the PDF24 Creator together as one file at the end instead of page by page.

PDF24 remembers both options for the next scan.

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

you can do this with a separate PDF24 printer that saves automatically. Then PDF24 shows no window, and WinCC only has to print the report to this printer.

1. Click » Settings at the bottom of the PDF24 Assistant and open PDF Printer. If WinCC runs under a different Windows account than yours (your screenshot shows a service account), click Run as administrator first, so the settings apply to all users.
2. Click Install a PDF printer and add a printer, for example "PDF24 WinCC". Select it in the list.
3. Under PDF Printer Tool choose Automatically save documents after printed.
4. Under Auto Save set the Output Directory, e.g. C:\Reports, and the Filename, e.g. WinCC %Y-%m-%d %H-%M-%S (date and time of printing). Leave Use a file name chooser before saving the file switched off, and switch off Show progress while saving if you don't want to see a progress window.
5. Save the settings and select the new printer as the printer for your report in WinCC.

We recommend a separate printer instead of changing the default "PDF24" printer, because PDF24 itself also uses the default printer internally in some cases.

More about the PDF printers in the manual: https://creator.pdf24.org/manual/11/#6-pdf-printers

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

yes, for selectable text the image must go through text recognition (OCR). -convertToPDF only puts the image into a PDF.

OCR from the command line works with pdf24-Ocr.exe from the PDF24 program folder. It also accepts image files such as TIFF directly:

pdf24-Ocr.exe -outputFile "C:\Scans\output.pdf" -language eng "C:\Scans\input.tif"

Further options (several languages like eng+deu, -deskew, -autoRotatePages, ...) are described in the manual: https://creator.pdf24.org/manual/11/#101-command-line

Online you can do the same with OCR PDF: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/ocr-pdf

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

unfortunately your screenshots are no longer available on ibb.co. Does the problem still occur with the current version of PDF24 Creator? You can download it here: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/creator

If it does, please tell us the Windows Server version and send us screenshots of the affected windows, once as administrator and once as a normal user. So that we can reproduce this, please send us the screenshots with this button:

Send a file to the PDF24 team

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

Halve pages always cuts exactly in the middle, the cut position cannot be set. Splitting one sheet into a grid of several pages (the reverse of "Pages per sheet") is not possible yet either. A freely selectable cut position is on our to-do list, and we have added your case of splitting a sheet into a grid to it. Thank you for the detailed example.

Until then the only way is Crop PDF in its visual mode: crop the sheet to one page area, save the result, repeat this for every area and then join the files with Merge PDF. For 30 pages on one sheet this is a lot of work, so it is only practical for a few pages.

• Crop PDF: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/crop-pdf
• Merge PDF: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/merge-pdf

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

sorry for the late reply. In PDF24 Creator the quality levels differ mainly in how images are handled:

• Good quality: images with more than 300 dpi are reduced to 300 dpi, JPEG quality "Good".
• High quality: images are reduced to 600 dpi, with less JPEG compression.
• Best quality: images keep their original resolution and JPEG images are taken over unchanged. This gives the largest files.

300 dpi is the usual value for printed images, so Good quality is a good start. If you see compression artefacts in photos, set JPEG Quality on the page Compression to High quality; the file becomes somewhat larger.

For CMYK and PDF/X:

1. Drag the Word file into the PDF24 Creator, click Save as... and select the format PDF.
2. First select the Quality of PDF, then set PDF standard to PDF/X-3. PDF24 then converts the colors to CMYK, you don't need to set Color Conversion in addition.
3. On the page PDF/X select the Printing condition your publisher requires, or Custom with the ICC profile they give you. Then save the file.

PDF24 offers PDF/X-3 only (no PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-4). Please ask your publisher which PDF/X version and printing condition they need, and let them check the file before printing.

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

for your own website there are ready-made PDF24 widgets, for example to compress, merge or convert to PDF. You embed them with a short code, and your visitors use the tool directly on your page: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/widgets

For automated processing on a Windows computer, PDF24 Creator has a command line: https://creator.pdf24.org/manual/11/#11-pdf24-doctoolexe

If you tell us what exactly you want to automate, we can say whether it is possible with PDF24.

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

there is no setting or profile yet that makes PDF24 always print or save as image, and it cannot be locked down by an administrator. Thank you for the suggestion, we will add it to our list.

You use version 11.20.1. Since version 11.31.0 you can do it per document in the print dialog of PDF24 Reader, please update:

1. Open the PDF in PDF24 Reader and click "Print".
2. Under "Options", tick "Print as image". You can also choose the resolution (150, 300 or 600 DPI).
3. To print, choose your printer. To save, choose "Create new PDF" as printer. The new PDF then contains the pages as images.

Printing from PDF24 Creator and the Assistant also uses this print dialog since 11.31.0.

For automated printing, PDF24 Reader can print from the command line with the flag forceImagePrint: https://creator.pdf24.org/manual/11/#121-command-line

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

when PDF24 Creator is uninstalled, the uninstaller also removes the PDF24 entries for PDF files, including "PDF24 Reader" under "Open with".

If PDF24 is still listed there after uninstalling a current version, please tell us which entry exactly is shown and which Windows version you use. So that we can reproduce this, please send us a screenshot of the menu with this button:

Send a file to the PDF24 team

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

sorry that this question remained unanswered for so long. The files behind your links are no longer available, so we could not check them.

Please try again with the current version of PDF24 Creator: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/creator

If the recognized text is still shifted, we would like to look at it. So that we can reproduce this, please send us a file where it happens with this button:

Send a file to the PDF24 team

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

sorry that this question remained unanswered for so long.

You can do this with the tool Pages per sheet. It is in the PDF24 Toolbox and also online: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/pages-per-sheet

It places several pages of a PDF on one larger sheet, row by row from the top left. Each page is scaled to fit its place on the sheet. To keep the A4 pages at their original size, which matters for projecting, choose the Page size that matches the number of pages:

• 2 pages per sheet (2 side by side): A3
• 4 pages per sheet (2 × 2): A2
• 8 pages per sheet (4 × 2): A1
• 16 pages per sheet (4 × 4): A0

Set Margins to 0 and leave Add borders unticked.

Please note the limits: there are only these fixed grids, at most 16 pages per sheet and A0. If the pages of your pattern have overlap or glue margins, these stay on the pages, so the parts will not line up exactly. A free grid and cutting off the overlap are not possible at the moment. Thank you for the suggestion, we will add it to our list.

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

thank you for the kind words. A default colour and opacity of your own for free drawing cannot be saved at the moment. The colour, line width and opacity you choose are used for the following strokes as long as the editor is open, but the next time it starts again with the default values.

In the online editor you can set them before drawing: choose "Freehand" and then the button "Color and line width": https://tools.pdf24.org/en/annotate-pdf

Thank you for the suggestion, we will add it to our list.

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

there are two different things at work here:

1. Merge PDF in the PDF24 Toolbox does not use a profile. Images are converted with the built-in image converter, whose settings are in the PDF24 Settings under Images To PDF. Black-and-white images are stored lossless with a general-purpose compression, color images as JPEG with JPG Quality 100 (the default). If your black-and-white TIFF files use fax compression (CCITT G4), as is common for archival scans, the PDF becomes much larger than the TIFF files. So the large file size does not come from the "Best quality" profile.

1. The dpi value in a profile is a maximum. Only images with a higher resolution are reduced to this value. Your scans have 400 dpi, which is below 600 dpi, so they stay unchanged, and the result is the same with or without the resolution checkbox. The smaller result (60 MB instead of 250-300 MB) comes from the profile compressing the images again, not from the resolution.

The dpi setting only makes a difference if you choose a value below 400 dpi, and then the images lose resolution. If you want to keep the full resolution, the profile you use now is the right way. For color images, you can also lower JPG Quality under Images To PDF; this makes them smaller, but JPEG is lossy.

You can also convert TIFF files online: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/tiff-to-pdf

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

a correction to our answer above: PDF24 does have a hot folder for compressing, since version 11.31.0. Open PDF24 Compress (pdf24-Compress.exe in the PDF24 installation folder) and choose a folder under Hot folder. PDF files placed in this folder are compressed automatically and saved next to the original with the Save file suffix. This works while PDF24 Compress is open.

For unattended runs, for example as a scheduled task, the command line described above remains the way to go.

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

sorry for the late answer. The classic PDF24 printers send their print jobs to the Windows service "PDF24" (printer port \\.\pipe\PDFPrint, for the fax printer \\.\pipe\FaxPrint). If this service is not running, the port does not exist, and printing fails with an error like this one. The PDF24 tray icon belongs to a different process, so the error appears even if the tray icon is visible.

Please check:

1. Open the Windows services (services.msc), find the service "PDF24" and start it. Its startup type should be "Automatic".
2. Alternatively, start it in a command prompt opened as administrator with net start pdf24.
3. In the printer properties (Ports tab), the PDF24 printer should use the port \\.\pipe\PDFPrint.

More in the manual: https://creator.pdf24.org/manual/11/#131-the-pdf-printer-is-not-working-properly-print-jobs-are-stuck-in-the-print-queue-what-to-do

If the service does not start with error 1053, the fix will come with the next version.

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

thank you for the screenshots. In the PDF, the bottom border of the last row on page 1 is missing, while the other borders are there. To find out where it gets lost, please tell us how you created the PDF:

• printing from Excel on the PDF24 printer,
• the tool Convert to PDF in the PDF24 Toolbox with the Excel file, or
• the online tool https://tools.pdf24.org/en/excel-to-pdf

and which PDF24 version you use. If you have only used one of these ways, it is worth trying another one in the meantime.

So that we can reproduce this, please send us a file where it happens with this button:

Send a file to the PDF24 team

If possible, send both the Excel file and the PDF.

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

the dialog "Select an output profile" appears because -profile takes the next word as the profile ID. In your command this is -compress, which is not a profile, so the DocTool asks for one. -Medium and -inputFile are not options either; the input files are simply listed at the end. Profile IDs look like default/medium or default/good, not like the names in the dialog.

For compressing you need neither -join nor a profile. Use the command -compress with the values for the images. One file:

"F:\PDF24\pdf24-DocTool.exe" -compress -dpi 144 -imageQuality 75 -outputFile "C:\Documents\Compressed\compressed_file.pdf" -silent "C:\Documents\large_file.pdf"

All PDF files of an input folder into an output folder:

"F:\PDF24\pdf24-DocTool.exe" -compress -dpi 144 -imageQuality 75 -expandDirs -includeFileExtensions .pdf -outputDir "C:\Documents\Compressed" -silent "C:\Documents\Input"

• Lower values for -dpi and -imageQuality give smaller files and lower image quality; 144 and 75 are the defaults.
• With -outputDir the files get a suffix with the values, e.g. large_file_144dpi_75%.pdf.
• -silent (since version 11.31.0) shows no windows and reports errors with an exit code, so the command can run unattended from a batch file or a scheduled task. With an older version, please update first.

The options are described here:

• https://creator.pdf24.org/manual/11/#11118-compress-pdf-files
• https://creator.pdf24.org/manual/11/#1111-general-format-and-options
• https://creator.pdf24.org/manual/11/#11119-exit-codes

Without the command line: PDF24 Compress (pdf24-Compress.exe in the PDF24 installation folder) has a Hot folder setting (since version 11.31.0). PDF files placed in this folder are compressed automatically and saved next to the original with the Save file suffix. This works only while Compress is open, and the files are saved in the same folder, not in a separate output folder.

Compressing single files also works online: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/compress-pdf

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

sorry for the late answer. Since version 11.9.0, PDF24 has its own preview handler for 32-bit programs. On 64-bit Windows it was registered with a wrong entry for the separate preview process, so 32-bit programs such as 32-bit Office could not load it there. This is corrected since version 11.31.0, together with other improvements of the preview handler (the preview no longer blocks while loading). This may well be the cause of the crashes you see with versions after 11.8.0.

Please update PDF24 to the current version and test the preview in your CMS again.

If Word or Outlook still crash, please tell us the name of your CMS and your Office version. The crash entry from the Windows Event Viewer (Windows Logs > Application, entry "Application Error") would also help. You can send it to us with this button:

Send a file to the PDF24 team

[Author]

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