| Upload failures | There are several possible reasons for uploads failing. Please check the following if you experience problems uploading: (i) files that are too large for the current service level you are registered for - the service will generally tell you about this at upload time; (ii) files that are not in the correct format, i.e. are not industry standard PDF file format or are damaged or corrupted in some way - in this case try opening the problem file using Adobe Reader, or drag the file onto a Chrome browswer window, or check the file using our own free Javelin3 reader, and see if it opens as expected and without any password protection etc. - checking using Preview or similar Apple Mac programs is not sufficient as the file encoding can be incorrect in our experience!; (iii) communication issues during an upload - it is always best to upload files over a fast reliable link - mobile data links are less reliable than landline/WiFi conections |
| Conversion failures | A file may fail to convert owing to problems in its structure, format or complexity. In general very large and complex files may experience conversion problems on some pages, possibly resulting in the conversion terminating or taking an extended time. To resolve these issues make sure the file will open and display correctly and quickly in a standard PDF reader like Adobe Reader or our own free reader, Javelin3. Try using the conversion option IMAGE rather than SVG and see if that helps, because some PDF files have pages with extremely badly fractured images and textured backgrounds, and these can take an excessive amount of time to convert or leave fine white lines where image segments meet. Some large or poorly structured PDFs and/or PDFs with a very large number of pages with complex graphics may take a long time to convert and hit a timeout issue. In such cases wait for a while to see if an email is sent to you with the converted file link, and if not after 30 minutes or more and you have checked every possible reason and conversion remains a problem you can contact us for assistance - we may request a copy of the file in order to be able to identify the reason for the issue you have seen. |
| Format issues | Following successful conversion always check every page is displayed exactly as you expect it to be shown if it was the original PDF. There may be occasions when the positioning of some elements on complex pages might not be exactly as per the original. There can also be problems where supposedly hidden elements in the source document appear "through" the page when they should not - in such case it is best to amend the source PDF to ensure any hidden elements that are causing problems are deleted and the amended PDF is uploaded. |
| Font issues | PDF files should be created with the fonts used being embedded. The conversion process checks the fonts and matches them for web display on each and every page. PDF files without fonts embedded will generally display on the Webdoxx service correctly but exact replication of the original cannot always be guaranteed. Note that pages that are actually scanned images of text pages are not really text so may not display perfectly when zoomed as the text is not scalable. If in doubt, try using text recognition on the page or pages before uploading and converting the file as this will give the best results. |
| Hyperlink issues | Hyperlinks (links to external websites) must be in the correct format and must be explictly declared - pure text that looks like a link to a website is an "implicit" link and may not be activated when selected. To ensure all such implicit links are made explicit, publishers can use standard toolsets like Adobe Acrobat or Foxit Editor to recognize such links and convert them into the correct format before uploading and converting. We recommend that files created in MS Word should be checked to make any hyperlinks explicit before exproting to PDF, and then be exported with the options set to use header styles in order to provide structure to the PDF version |
| Page numbering issues | In many instances the PDF page number may not match the page number on print versions of a document. This is because the cover page, contents pages, acknowledgements etc. may not be treated as part of the page sequence, so the Page 1 of a printed document displayed on a page might be anything up to 10 pages or more into the file. If the source PDF page includes special page naming (e.g. roman numerals, i, ii, iii, iv etc. these will be shown in the drop-down page selection menu, but if not, users should be told that there is a page offset that applies when relying just on page numbering to locate elements in the converted file |
| Page orientation and size | It is strongly recommended that all pages in an uploaded document are single pages not spreads (pages that are actually displaying two pages across), with all pages having the same dimensions (height and width), and are set in the same orientation (i.e. ideally all in portrait or all in landscape orientation). Note also that very large underlying page sizes and high resolution graphics (such as some engineering documents) may not display well on browsers as the details will be shrunk to fit the available screen space |
