PDF Fix for Manuscriptcentral (Latex papers)

by Martin Monperrus
There is currently a bug on manuscriptcentral. When one wants to upload a PDF file generated from a recent latex distribution, an error message as follows pops up:


Our apologies, but the file(s) main.pdf (PDF Copy) failed to convert to the appropriate pdf and/or html file for review. You may either try uploading the file(s) again in 20 minutes, or contact the Support Team for further assistance. The Support contact information can be found by clicking the "Get Help Now" link in the upper right corner of this page. Read More ...


This is due to the version of the uploaded PDF. My Latex produces version 1.5 (see below).

To generate PDFs that are acceptable by manuscriptcentral, the solution is to add:

\pdfminorversion 3
or
\pdfminorversion 4


in the preamble of your document in order to generate PDF 1.3 (resp. PDF 1.4).


Before:
$ pdfinfo main.pdf 
Creator:        TeX
Producer:       pdfTeX-1.40.13
CreationDate:   Fri Feb 15 16:27:21 2013
ModDate:        Fri Feb 15 16:27:21 2013
Tagged:         no
Pages:          19
Encrypted:      no
Page size:      612 x 792 pts (letter)
File size:      495414 bytes
Optimized:      no

After:
$ pdfinfo main.pdf 
Creator:        TeX
Producer:       pdfTeX-1.40.13
CreationDate:   Fri Feb 15 16:28:57 2013
ModDate:        Fri Feb 15 16:28:57 2013
Tagged:         no
Pages:          19
Encrypted:      no
Page size:      612 x 792 pts (letter)
File size:      502782 bytes
Optimized:      no
PDF version:    1.3
Tagged as: