KB80741810: Automation Engine - How to let SmartNames look at rounded values for page box sizes?

Summary

Page box sizes in the normalized PDF's metadata are often defined with up to 8 decimals, to snap to the nearest available internal value of the application which creates the file. You don't have control over this.

E.g.: When you originally define a trim box height of 90mm, it gets saved as 89.99995978 mm.

Use case: You want to verify that the file which was submitted to the Automation Engine workflow, matches the expected size which is defined in your MIS or ERP system. The MIS or ERP system typically define a whole number value and not a number with many decimals.

This means you need to round the actual size value from the file's XMP metadata to zero decimals. If not rounded, the SmartName will not find a match.

In this example, the Automation Engine Job Parameters (expected values taken from the MIS or ERP system) look like this:

But the value saved in the file is defined as this:

Symptoms

If your SmartName value is not rounded, a SmartName which checks if the normalized PDF's metadata, egGr:vsize is equal to your job's Height parameter, will return that the values are not equal.

Because 89.99995978 is not equal to 90.

Solution

In your XMP XPath SmartName definition, set the Format: option to As Number: No Decimals. This will round the value to the nearest whole number. So, 89.99995978 will be rounded to 90 and that matches with the value 90 from the job info.

The default format value is None, which will keep the value as available in the normalized PDF's XMP metadata. A SmartName with the format None will return the non-desired value as shown next to Result: in this screenshot:

When you change the Format to As Number, no decimals, the result will be rounded to 90:

Use the above SmartName in your router task which verifies if the value equals the job parameter.