The Variable Print Standard the Document Claims
Claim PDF/VT-1 for a file holding a run of documents, one per recipient, and have it refused rather than written when it breaks the standard.
Summary
A printing works running a hundred thousand statements in one file asks for a file that says where each recipient begins and ends, and which pictures repeat from one statement to the next, so it renders them once. That promise has a name — PDF/VT — and a document that claims it is measured against it before it is written. A request that breaks the standard comes back refused, with what is missing named.
Technically
Written at the top level of a request, under
"variable_print"
variable_print claims the variable print standard for the document and writes it, with the moment the file was last written, into the document's own description. pdfvt1 is ISO 16612-2, one self-contained file built on PDF/X-4 and PDF 1.6. The claim rides on print: the request claims pdfx4 as well, says which pages belong to which recipient through document_parts, and states modified or created in its metadata; a claim with any of those missing is refused. Under the claim the hierarchy of parts is written on PDF 1.6 rather than 2.0.
Request Schema
-
variable_print— string, optional, absent by default. The only value ispdfvt1.
A drawing tells the press how to reuse it through drawings[].reuse and drawings[].encapsulated. Under the claim, a drawing said to be used once and placed twice, or said to serve one recipient and placed for two, is refused.
A Whole Request That Creates a PDF
One name below stands for a font file: put the encoded file in its place, or send the file itself beside the description, as a supplied part of the same call. One page carries a real font already encoded, and its request posts as it stands.
{
"print": "pdfx4",
"variable_print": "pdfvt1",
"output_intent": {
"profile": "press.icc",
"space": "cmyk",
"identifier": "FOGRA39",
"info": "Coated FOGRA39 (ISO 12647-2:2004)"
},
"metadata": {
"title": "Statements, October",
"trapped": "no",
"modified": "2026-10-17T09:00:00Z"
},
"document_parts": {
"root": {
"children": [
{ "claim": { "next_pages": 1 } },
{ "claim": { "next_pages": 1 } }
]
}
},
"page_boxes": [
{ "page": 1, "trim": { "llx": 14, "lly": 14, "urx": 581, "ury": 828 } },
{ "page": 2, "trim": { "llx": 14, "lly": 14, "urx": 581, "ury": 828 } }
],
"fonts": [{ "name": "body", "data": "PASTE_THE_FONT_FILE_BASE64_HERE" }],
"drawings": [
{
"name": "logo",
"box": { "llx": 0, "lly": 0, "urx": 40, "ury": 20 },
"items": [
{
"type": "rect",
"rect": { "llx": 0, "lly": 0, "urx": 40, "ury": 20 },
"fill": [0, 0, 0, 1]
}
],
"reuse": { "identity": "statement-logo-1", "scope": "file" },
"encapsulated": true
}
],
"items": [
{ "type": "drawing", "drawing": "logo", "x": 60, "y": 780, "pages": [1, 2] },
{
"type": "text",
"pages": [1],
"rect": { "llx": 60, "lly": 740, "urx": 535, "ury": 762 },
"content": ["Statement for Baker and Sons"],
"font": "body",
"font_size": 13,
"color": [0, 0, 0, 1]
},
{
"type": "text",
"pages": [2],
"rect": { "llx": 60, "lly": 740, "urx": 535, "ury": 762 },
"content": ["Statement for Westmill Dairy"],
"font": "body",
"font_size": 13,
"color": [0, 0, 0, 1]
}
]
}The document as a whole
The Numbers Reading Software Shows A Hundred Letters in a Single File What the Document Says about Itself What the Document Says about Itself, Said Once Text Nobody Can Copy The Notes a Program Leaves in the File for Itself The Notes a Program Leaves on One Page The Data a Program Hangs on a Run of Ink A File Still Readable Decades from Now The Print Standard the Document Claims The Password That Opens It, and What May Be Done with It An Invoice a Person and a Machine Both Read The Address Relative Links Are Read Against The PDF Version the File Declares The Extensions to PDF the File Says It Uses What a Picture Says about Itself, and How It Is Read The Attachments the Document Carries Beside Its Pages Files the Document Names without Carrying The Attachments Shown as a Portfolio Which Attachments a Page Claims Which Attachments a Font Claims The Identity Card a Single Font Carries Which Attachments the Document's Card Claims A Document Card Written Elsewhere The Areas of a Page a Reader Measures In The Identity Card a Single Page Carries The Accessibility Standard the Document Claims The Standards the Finished Document Is Measured Against
Where to Go Next
Every JSON key of a request, in one page The other forty-one settings of a request