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About PDF Output

Short for "Portable Document Format," PDF is an open file format created by Adobe. PDF files represent two-dimensional documents in a device-independent and resolution-independent fixed-layout document format. You can generate PDF output from your project directly, or you can generate a PDF while simultaneously building FrameMaker or Word output.

PDF is a good choice if:

You want to use a format with which most end users are familiar.
You want users to be able to view the book online, as well as print it.

PDF output consists of a file with a .pdf extension that you can print or distribute to users.

You can also set PDF options in the Target Editor. These options let you specify the way that images, document properties, the initial view, and security are handled in the output. See Specifying PDF Options.

Accessibility and PDF

PDF output from Flare is designed to be accessible to users with disabilities. See About Accessibility.

Accessibility in PDF includes the following.

Images—alternate text HTML "alt" (alternate text) attributes are converted to the PDF equivalent during compilation so that screen readers have a way to describe the image. It is up to you to ensure that alt attributes are present on all images and descriptive enough to be useful to your end users. See Inserting Pictures and Editing Pictures.
Language for content XML "lang" attributes are converted to the PDF equivalent during compilation. This applies to both the project-level language (i.e., the language of the entire output document) and to element-level languages (i.e., languages applied to specific XHTML elements). This is an automatic process that occurs behind the scenes without user input.
PDF tagging You can select an option on the PDF Options tab of the Target Editor to generate a tagged PDF. This gives the file a structure similar to that of the source XHTML documents. This structure is necessary for certain accessibility applications, including screen readers. For more information about viewing the tag structure in Adobe Acrobat Pro, please refer to the documentation provided with that application. See Specifying PDF Options.

Note: If you enable this feature, the size of the PDF output may increase somewhat. Compilation time should not be significantly affected.
Tables—header cells Tables in PDF output are given a structure that designates which cells are header cells and which are content so that screen readers can translate the table data in a useful way. For more information about creating header cells in tables, see Inserting Tables into Topics and Editing Table Properties.

Output Type Comparison Table—Print-based Output Types

Following are the various print-based output types available, with the distinguishing features of each.

	PDF	XHTML	XPS	MS Word	FrameMaker
Primary benefits	Familiar to many users	Good for large, custom, enterprise level systems	Smaller file size than PDF Better print quality Easy file sharing Enhanced security	Work with output in Word	Work with output in FrameMaker
Main entry file extension	.pdf	.htm	.xps	.xml (default)	.fm or .book
Output files necessary to distribute	.pdf file only	All files generated	.xps file only	All files generated	All files generated
Program used to view output	Browser window or Adobe PDF Reader	Browser window	Browser window	Microsoft Word	Adobe FrameMaker

Note: Some font families contain bold or italic variants (e.g., the font Georgia has a relative named "Georgia Bold" and another named "Georgia Italic"). If you are generating native Adobe PDF or Microsoft XPS output, bold or italic formatting that is applied to text will display properly in the output ONLY if the font you are using already has a bold or italic font relative. You can determine the availability of such fonts by opening the Fonts folder from the Control Panel in Windows. For example, let's say you open the Fonts folder and see that, in addition to many other fonts, you have the following: Andalus, Angsana New, Angsana New Bold, Angsana New Bold Italic, and Angsana New Italic. If you use Andalus and apply bold or italic to some of the text, that content WILL NOT display in bold or italic in PDF or XPS output. However, if you use Angsana New and apply bold or italic to some of the text, that content WILL display in bold or italic in PDF or XPS output. The reason for this is that Andalus does not have a bold or italic relative, whereas the Angsana New font does.