PDF Document Submittal Checklist

To minimize the possibility of rejecting an application, or related documentation, when it is 

submitted electronically, the applicant should open the PDF document and may use the following 

process to verify if the PDF document meets NRC’s submission requirements:

I. Check for Searchable Text (Hidden Text)

Make sure you’re in the “Scrolling pages” view and not the “One full page” view.

1. From the main menu, select Edit > Select All (Ctrl+A) to select all the text on all pages. 

Another way is to click the Select button on the Tools menu and place the mouse cursor on 

the first character of the very first page. With the left-mouse button pressed, drag downward 

through the pages until you get the last character.

If the text is highlighted, it means that Optical Character Recognition (OCR) process ran

correctly and that there is searchable text (hidden text). If, however, the whole page has a 

blue box, this means the OCR process has not been run (no searchable/hidden text), hence

the OCR process needs to be run.

Acceptable: Not Acceptable:

A warning message will appear if OCR process has never been run. At this time, you have 

the option of running the OCR process. Click the OK button to start the OCR process. In the

Recognize Text window, choose one of the options, i.e. All pages/Current pages/From page 

x-x.

• The OCR process may also be started manually by going to the Tools menu and 

selecting Text Recognition > Aa In This File
• In the Recognize Text window, verify that PDF Output Style is set for “Searchable Image 

(Exact)” and Downsample To is set to “No Downsampling”

• Click OK to start the OCR process.

After running OCR, Preflight will introduce an error of “Fonts Not Embedded”. This is 

normal and can be ignore since the error is on the scanned source image(s).

II. Check for 300dpi on scanned pages

1. From the main menu, click Advanced > Preflight. 

2. Select the right profile, i.e., NRC-10CFR1_9 (pre-configured Distiller profile can be 

downloaded from http://www.nrc.gov/site-help/electronic-sub-ref-mat.html), or create profiles 

manually by following instructions in the “Desk Reference Guide for PDF Document 

Generation”.

3. Click Execute to start checking the document for errors, if any

4. Make note of any scanned image(s) that is < 300 dpi and re-scan them at 300 dpi or greater.

Note: 299.99dpi is acceptable due to round off.

III. Check for “No Security”

1. From the main menu, select File > Properties or press Ctrl+D to bring up the Document 

Properties window.

2. Under the Security tab, verify that Security Method of the Document Security is set to “No 

Security”. If there is password security set, it must be reset to “No Security”.
3. Click OK to close Document Properties window.

IV. Check for Embedded Fonts

The “Fonts Not Embedded” error in Preflight is acceptable for scanned images that have 

been OCRed.

1. From the main menu, select File > Properties or 

press Ctrl+D to bring up the Document Properties

window.

2. Click the Fonts tab and verify that all fonts in the 

‘Fonts Used in this Document section’ include 

“Embedded Subset” at the end. You can also run

Preflight function and see if Preflight reports any 

errors relating to Embedded Fonts.

3. Click OK to close Document Properties window.

If the fonts are not embedded, verify the Distiller Job Options used to generate the file has 

the correct settings. To correct the fonts not embedded issue, use one of the following three

options........

1. Open the document in its native application and re-PDF the document by following 

examples in the “Desk Reference Guide for PDF Document Generations,” i.e. 

“Create PDF” or “Print to PDF” method. 

2. Print to PDF inside Acrobat 9.0 Professional following the “Print to PDF” examples in 

the “Desk Reference Guide for PDF Document Generations.”

3. In Adobe Acrobat 9.0 Pro, launch 

Preflight by going to the main menu and

click on Advanced and select Preflight.

a) Select the NRC’s recommended 

Preflight Profile, NRC-10CFR1_9

b) Click on to embed 

all the Fonts (will also Optimize 

Fast Web View).

V. Check for Fast Web View Enabled

1. From the main menu, select File > Document 

Properties or press Ctrl+D to bring up the 

Document Properties window.

2. Under the Description tab, on the lower right 

corner, verify Fast Web View is set to ‘Yes’. If not, 

enable it by selecting File > SaveAs, or by running 

one of the batch sequences from Advance > Batch 

Processing (Advance > Document processing > 

Batch Processing, or just re-PDF the document.

3. Click OK to close Document Properties window.
Remember to perform File > SaveAs if changes are made to the document, because a 

typical File >Save will revert Fast Web View to “No”.