Hints and trouble shooting & Displaying program information
Displaying program information
Display program version
pdfaPilot --versionwill display the currently used version of pdfaPilot CLI.
Display usage information
pdfaPilot --helpwill give you a complete overview about all available commands for processing.
pdfaPilot --help <command>will give you an overview about all available options for the command.
Display status
pdfaPilot --statuswill inform you about the current license state as well as the possible return and reason codes (see "Results").
Hints and troubleshooting
Ensure sufficient free disk space
To ensure stable processing, it is recommended to have at least 4 times of the input file size of processed files available for intermediate file system storage (e.g. /tmp on Unix and similar on other systems).
Avoid stopping workflows on Windows
On Windows, you can prevent your workflow from stopping in case of a pdfaPilot CLI crash by setting the following registry entry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\
SYSTEM\
CurrentControlSet\
Control\
Windows\
ErrorModeIf ErrorMode is set to "2”, crash dialogs will be suppressed. For further details, see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/128642/en-us?fr=1
Limiting the maximum memory used by pdfaPilot
Using Linux, you can limit the amount of memory used by a single process by an additional parameter:
--maxmemory=<max. memory in MB>Processing will stop and result in an error if memory is exceeded.
Limitation of concurrent processes
If the StdOut of the command line indicates "Maximum number of parallel processes allowed by license already running; waiting until one of the current processes terminates" (before pdfaPilot 8: "Waiting for CPU"), the maximum number of parallel processes is reached. A default Server/CLI license allows up to 8 parallel processes. To run more than 8 processes simultaneously, you should look at callas License Server as the better option. You can find more info here.
Performance enhancement
If you want to enhance the performance of your pdfaPilot CLI processes, please keep in mind the following rules:
For embedding missing fonts your system font folder will be scanned unless defined otherwise (see "Font Embedding"). pdfaPilot will create a font cache to improve the performance time, but still it might be useful to remove fonts that are not needed from this directory.
If you are using any font embedding fixups, your system font folder will be scanned unless defined otherwise in the fixup configuration. A font cache will be created to improve the performance time, but still it might be useful to remove fonts that are not needed from this directory.
Creation of XML or PDF reports takes less time than the XSLT option (see "Report types").
Creation of reports takes additional time even if a profile contains only fixups, an analysis will be executed for gathering report information.
Optimization of needed installation space
To reduce the pace needed by the installation of pdfsPilot, it is possible to delete some subfolders of the CLI component (in subfolder /cli) if their respective functions are not needed in the individual use case.
To avoid processing errors or unexpected behaviour of pdfaPilot any modification should be done well-considered.
| etc/Actions | If no Arrange action is used |
| etc/APDFL | If no font embedding or PDF/A conversion is used (or if font situation is clear) |
| etc/Backgrounds | If no layer/image mask report is used |
| etc/Certify | If no preflight certification is used |
| etc/ColorConversion | If no color conversion is used |
| etc/HtmlConverter | If no PDF report based on HTML template is used |
| etc/Inventory | If no inventory report is used |
| etc/MailConverter | If no e-mails are processed |
| etc/PDFOfficeTool | If no Office-files are processed |
| etc/PDFPSTool | If no PostScript-files are processed |
| etc/Reports | If no PDF/A-HTML Report or ZUGFeRD is used |
| etc/TPex | If no tagged PDF to HTML/EPUB export is used |
| etc/UnpackTool | If no archive files are processed |
| etc/Visualizer | If no Comparison is used |
Install basic fonts on Linux
As most Linux distributions are delivered without or with very few fonts, it is advisable to install at least a basic set of fonts.
We recommend installing at least the the fontconfig package ant the MS core fonts, which is e.g. done on Debian-based distributions by the following commands:
sudo apt -y install fontconfig
sudo apt install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
For other distributions, please consult the respective documentation.
Possible errors within the Server-UI communication
The communication between the Server-UI and the underlying Server process (which observes the folders) takes place by network communication ports using SOAP.
When the Server-UI shows a warning for a connected Server like "Error 28", it indicates that there were errors either during the connection to the Server process itself or that the Server process has stopped working.
You can try to reconnect to the Server in the UI or try to start the local Server process again by the "Start Server" option.
Get in touch
If some necessary information is not provided by this manual or if there are any questions or feedback please contact the product management by using the "Contact Support" form on www.callassoftware.com.
You can also send an e-mail to [email protected].
If you file a bug report please make sure your inquiry contains the following information:
- operating system
- pdfaPilot version (call pdfaPilot --version)
- command line call
- original PDF (please delete unnecessary pages to avoid long file transfers), used profiles or configuration files
- converted PDF (if available)
You can also visit the support section on www.callassoftware.com to get answers to common questions or find a reseller near you. The latter might be useful if you want to send a support request that is neither in English nor German.