Visually inspect PDF files

pdfToolbox provides a visualizer technology to visually inspect a PDF file. With this you get a number of different tools to help you with the analysis of problematic PDF files. This article gives you an overview of the different possibilities.

Using the visualizer to inspect the PDF document

Sometimes knowing which objects are in the PDF document isn't sufficient, and in those cases the visualizer technology in pdfToolbox comes to the rescue. The Visualizer allows you to explore aspects of a page that may be relevant for printing purposes.

  1. To access the Visualizer, use one of the "Visualize..." menu items under the "View" menu in pdfToolbox Desktop.
  2. Depending on the menu item you use, a different visualizer "Mode" will be shown. You can use the pull-down menu here to select different modes without having to go through the menus again.
  3. Each visualizer mode has different views. Use this menu item to select a different viewing mode.
  4. Each visualizer mode has different additional information and options. 

Visualize ink coverage

The ink coverage mode of the visualizer overlays the PDF document with a gray mask and highlights any area of the file that goes over a certain threshold with bright colors. Read more about it in this article: View ink coverage per separation.

Visualize seperations

With the different separation preview modes you can view single separations, just the process separations, just the spot color separations and more. Read more about it in this article: Display ink coverage information for all separations.

Visualize safety zone

In this mode, a safety zone can be defined and visualized. Read more about it in this article: View safety zone in PDF.

Visualize out of gamut

This feature compares the currently opened PDF page based on its actual or assigned source color space against a color converted version of that page in an out of gamut heat map view. Read more about it in this article: Heat map for «Out of gamut» visualization.

Using the object inspector

The Object Inspector allows identifying the page content by showing which objects are on the PDF page (e.g. text, images, vectors, shadings) and displaying the respective attributes for them. Read more about it in this article: Examining page content: The Object Inspector.

Compare PDFs

The 'Compare documents' feature compares two PDF files. As result, all differences are displayed in the document using masks. Read more about it in this article: Compare documents.

Visualizer on CLI

The visualizer is also available on CLI. In this article you can find all command line options.