Automated Testing of PDF Documents

In a paperless era, the PDF format has become a de facto standard from creating documents like bank account statements, utility invoices or hotel booking confirmations. This article explores the different ways to automate the testing of PDF documents.

The Portable Document Format (PDF) was created by Adobe Systems, introduced at the Windows and OS/2 Conference in January 1993. It remained a proprietary format until it was released as an open standard in 2008. Since then, it has been under the control of an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) committee of industry experts.

What to Test in a PDF File

Testing a PDF document can involve several steps, depending on what you want to check. Here are some common aspects of PDF files that you want to validate:

• Open, View and Annotate: Ensure the PDF opens correctly in different PDF readers like Adobe Acrobat or web browsers and PDF annotation tools.
• Navigation: Check if all links, bookmarks, and table of contents work properly and target the right destination.
• Text and Images: Verify that all text and images are displayed correctly without any distortion. Ensure that all fonts are embedded and rendered correctly.
• Tags and Structure: Verify that the PDF has proper tagging and structure for accessibility, making them usable for people with disabilities.
• Loading Time: Check how quickly the PDF loads, especially if it contains large images or many pages. This is even more important when the document is downloaded to a mobile device. Ensure the file size is optimized and not excessively large.
• Permissions: Verify that the PDF has the correct permissions set (e.g., restrictions for printing or copying).
• Encryption: Check if the PDF is encrypted and if the encryption works as expected.
• Compatibility on Different Devices: Test the PDF on various devices (e.g., desktops, tablets, smartphones) to ensure it displays correctly.

Using Tools to Automate Testing of PDF Testing

Some of the points mentioned above could require initially human verification to ensure that the document meets its visual requirements. Using the zoom function is a good way to verify the visual quality of your PDF file. You can also check the non-functional requirements like file size.

Once you have visually checked that the PDF meets its requirements, there are however many domains when automated testing tools can significantly enhance the process of testing PDF documents. The initial document can then be used as a baseline for many automated checks.

Here are some ways when automated tools can help checking and ensuring thorough validation of your PDF files.

Automated Content Verification: Tools can automate the verification of text, images, and layout within PDFs, ensuring that the content is accurate and properly formatted. A simple proofing tool can check for spelling and grammatical errors. You can also automate the detection of visual differences between the baseline document and the new file.

Accessibility Testing: PDF Accessibility Checkers can help ensure that your PDF file meets accessibility standards, making them usable for people with disabilities. Accessibility testing aims at detecting common accessibility issues such as missing alternative text for images, improper reading order, and color contrast issues

Performance and Load Testing: Tools can simulate different environments and devices to test how quickly PDF files load and perform under various conditions. This is crucial for large documents or those with many images like white papers.

Security and Permissions: Automated tools can check if the correct permissions are set on the PDF, such as restrictions on printing or copying, and verify encryption settings. You can also use specialized tools to detect and analyze malicious content within PDFs. This includes checking for embedded JavaScript or hidden objects that could execute harmful action

Compatibility Testing: Tools can test PDFs across different platforms and devices to ensure they display correctly everywhere. This includes checking the compatibility with various PDF readers and browsers. Again, you achieve this objective with automated detection of visual differences between the baseline document and the new PDF file.

Regression Testing: Automated tools can run regression tests to ensure that changes or updates to the PDF do not introduce new issues. This is particularly useful for documents that are frequently updated, are generated dynamically from changing data and where multipage formatting is important, like monthly credit card statements for instance.

Conclusion

Even in a paperless era, PDF documents like order confirmations or invoices are still a major element in the customer experience with a company. Using automated tools to check the quality of these documents helps organizations to perform efficiently the validation activity.