A Factur-X electronic invoice

An electronic invoice: a PDF/A-3 file carrying its own XML.

This is what the whole library is for. A person opens the file and sees an invoice; an accounting system opens the same file and reads the same amounts in a form it understands. Neither can be separated from the other, which is the point: the page and the data are one document and cannot disagree.

The file is PDF/A-3, with the invoice XML attached under the relationship Factur-X requires and the metadata that names it. Whether the result is really PDF/A-3 is not for the library to say: veraPDF says, and the team asks it before publishing any sample here.

What this example shows

  • Invoice XML attached to a PDF/A-3 file under the right relationship.
  • The metadata a Factur-X reader looks for, written into the file.
  • Validated as PDF/A-3 by veraPDF before publication.

The code, in full

The same document is written twice, once in each language. Both files are shown in full, with the code coloured on the server, and can be copied in one click.

The document itself

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First page of A Factur-X electronic invoice

What this document weighs

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Examples near this one

A sheet that measures what it says

Three rules — centimetres, inches and points — on a page that states it must print at exactly the size it was drawn, and that the reader is to offer nothing else. That second request only exists from PDF 2.0 on, so the file declares 2.0 rather than changing version without you knowing.

A register whose every part says where it came from

Two sittings bound into one file. Each page carries a record of its own — what it is, whose hand wrote it, when — the photograph on the second page carries one too, and each transcription is tied to the page it transcribes rather than to the file at large. Tying an attached file to anything but the whole document only exists from PDF 2.0 on, so the file declares 2.0.

An archival sheet carrying fields of its own

A records office's reference, the department it came from, the date until which the document must be kept and its classification, in a PDF/A-3 file. No standard knows what a retention date is, so each field arrives with a description of itself — its type, who it is written for, what it means — which is what makes a checker accept information you invented. The page prints the same list, so what a person reads and what a machine reads cannot drift apart.

A tagged, accessible document

A document that says what each run of ink stands for, and which runs are only trimmings. Its text and its table describe themselves, a paragraph and a cell at a time. Validates as PDF/A-3a and PDF/UA-1.

A tagged list whose column is a picture

A parts list whose first column is a picture rather than a word. Each picture is marked as one and carries the words a reader hears in its place, so nothing in the list is lost on somebody who cannot see it. Validates as PDF/A-3a and PDF/UA-1.

A pack built on three supplied sheets

A supply agreement standing on three PDF files the customer sent: a headed sheet under the front page, a plain sheet under every page the schedule runs to, and a page of conditions that goes in whole.

Every example, by subject

Glossary

PDF/A
A PDF made to be readable in twenty years' time. Everything it needs is inside the file — the fonts, the colours, the description of what it is — so nothing it depends on can go missing later. Public bodies and archives ask for it by name.
veraPDF
A free program that checks whether a file really is what it claims to be, against the published rules. It is the tool archives use, so it is the one used here: a document is not called compliant because we say so, but because veraPDF passed it.
Factur-X
An invoice that is a page for a person and a data file for a machine, in one document. The page looks like any invoice; inside, the same amounts are attached in a form accounting software reads without anybody retyping them. French law requires this exchange between companies.
XMP
The block inside a file that says what the file is: its title, who made it, when, and which rules it follows. Search engines and archives read it; a reader never sees it.