How to Check a PDF's Page Size, Fonts and Security Settings

To check a PDF's page size, fonts and security settings, open it in a PDF inspector that reads the file's internal properties. Docmint's Inspect PDF shows the version, page count, the size and orientation of every page, metadata, encryption and permissions, embedded fonts, form fields and word count in one report, without uploading the file.

Why check a PDF before you print or submit it?

Print shops, government portals, journal submission systems and court e-filing systems often have rules about the files they accept: a specific page size, all fonts embedded, no password, a maximum number of pages, sometimes a particular PDF version. A file that breaks a rule may be rejected, or worse, accepted and printed wrong. Checking takes a minute and can save a resubmission.

It is also worth checking files you are about to send outside your organization. Metadata can contain an author's name, a company name or the software that produced the file, which you may not want to share.

How to inspect a PDF with Docmint

1. Open Inspect PDF and drop in the file. Analysis starts immediately.
2. Read the report: general properties, per-page sizes and orientation, metadata, security settings, the list of fonts and whether each is embedded, form fields and text statistics.
3. Copy the report, or download it as JSON to keep with your records.

What do page size and orientation tell you?

Inside a PDF, page sizes are measured in points, with 72 points to the inch. US Letter is 612 × 792 points (8.5 × 11 inches) and A4 is about 595 × 842 points (210 × 297 mm). If a portal or printer expects Letter and your file is A4, or the reverse, pages may be scaled or clipped when printed.

The page table highlights any page whose size differs from the first page. Mixed sizes are common when a PDF was assembled from several sources, such as a Letter-size form merged with an A4 attachment and a landscape spreadsheet. If every page must be the same size, Resize Pages can scale them all to A4, Letter or another size. Orientation shows which pages are landscape, which matters for double-sided printing and for portals that display page previews.

Are the fonts embedded, and why does it matter?

An embedded font travels inside the PDF, so the document looks identical on every computer and printer. A font that is not embedded is only referenced by name, and the viewer is expected to have it installed. If it does not, it substitutes another font and the layout can shift: lines rewrap, text overflows boxes, and special characters turn into blanks.

Print shops almost always want every font embedded, and some archiving and submission standards require it. The inspector lists each font in the file and whether it is embedded. If some are not, the most reliable fix is to export the PDF again from the original application with font embedding turned on.

What do the PDF security settings mean?

The security section tells you whether the file is encrypted and what it permits. There are two kinds of protection. An open password means nobody can view the document without it. Permission restrictions let anyone open the file but limit actions such as printing, copying text or editing.

Many upload portals reject encrypted PDFs, sometimes even ones that open without a password, because their systems cannot process restricted files. If the report shows encryption and you have the right to remove it, Unlock PDF can produce an unprotected copy. Going the other way, if you add a password with Protect PDF, Docmint uses AES-256 encryption.

What else is in the report?

1. PDF version: the specification version the file declares, such as 1.4 or 1.7. Newer versions support more features, such as transparency and AES-256 encryption, and a few older systems ask for a particular version.
2. Page count: useful when a portal caps the number of pages, or to confirm that a merge or split produced what you expected.
3. Metadata: title, author, the software that created the file and its dates. This is where names and software versions you may want to remove show up; Edit Metadata can change or strip them.
4. Form fields: whether the PDF contains fillable fields. If a recipient needs the entered values fixed in place, Flatten PDF turns fields into static content.
5. Text statistics: word count and related figures. If a many-page document reports almost no words, it is probably made of scanned images and needs OCR to become searchable.

Other ways to check PDF properties

Most PDF viewers have a properties panel. In Adobe Acrobat Reader it is under File > Properties, which also lists fonts; in macOS Preview it is Tools > Show Inspector. These are fine for a quick look at one or two details. An inspector is handier when you want everything at once, need the size of every page rather than just the first, or want to save the results alongside the file.