CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pdfpdf-generationstandards
IInspectable
IInspectable

Reputation: 51375

What is the correct format of a date string?

I'm implementing a PDF producer. Among other things, it writes an /Info dictionary, containing a /CreationDate entry. However, I am confused about the precise format of the date string, in particular whether or not it should have a trailing ' (apostrophe).

The ISO approved copy Document Management – Portable Document Format – Part 1: PDF 1.7, First Edition (7.9.4 Dates) prescribes the following format:

( D : YYYYMMDDHHmmSSOHH ' mm )

In contrast to that, PDF Reference, Sixth Edition, version 1.71) (3.8.3 Dates, also published by Adobe) has it documented as:

( D : YYYYMMDDHHmmSSOHH ' mm ' )

(note the trailing apostrophe character)

Which one of these is correct?

1) The Errata to Sixth Edition does not have an entry for this specific issue.

Upvotes: 5

Views: 557

Answers (2)

pdfsage
pdfsage

Reputation: 66

ISO 32000-1:2008 is the official standard and superseded the Adobe PDF Reference. Many areas were improved from the 1.7 spec prior to publication by ISO.

In this case, as 32K-1 shows, the extra ' (apostrophe) in the date example is indeed incorrect. If Adobe's products are writing that extra one at the end, it's a bug and we'll see about fixing it.

I will also point out that for the forthcoming ISO 32000-2 (PDF 2.0), DocInfo is deprecated in favor of XMP. So if someone is writing a PDF producer in 2016/2017, they shouldn't be worrying about DocInfo but instead focusing on XMP.

Upvotes: 3

joelgeraci
joelgeraci

Reputation: 4917

Well... there's what the PDF Spec says, and there's what Adobe Acrobat does. When creating a PDF using Adobe Acrobat DC, the trailing apostrophe is present. The good news is, of the viewers I've tested, it doesn't seem to matter either way.

Upvotes: 3

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