Annexe B — PDF/A-1b validation

B.1 Final deposit on theses.fr

The French national thesis repository theses.fr requires a PDF/A-1b file (ISO 19005-1). The PDF produced by this template is designed to meet the criteria used by CINES — the body responsible for institutional archiving of French doctoral theses.

B.2 Official validator: facile.cines.fr

facile.cines.fr (CINES) is the reference validator for deposit on theses.fr. It — not third-party tools — determines whether your PDF will be accepted. Simply upload the PDF to obtain an immediate report.

B.3 Automated check from the post-render script

The post-render script can query the CINES web service automatically. Simply set validate: true in _quarto-en.yml:

# In _quarto-en.yml — before depositing to theses.fr:
validate: true

Then render as usual:

quarto render --profile en --to cnam-thesis-pdf

The script sends the PDF to the CINES web service and displays the result:

Validating PDF/A on facile.cines.fr (CINES)...
[OK]  PDF/A-1b valide -- archivable sur theses.fr.

If the PDF fails:

[!!]  PDF/A-1b non valide.
      -> Corriger via : https://facile.cines.fr/#correction

After validation

Set validate: false back in _quarto-en.yml for day-to-day builds — the web service call is only needed before the final deposit.

B.4 If validation fails

Use the official correction service: facile.cines.fr/#correction. It automatically corrects the most common non-conformities with no additional software to install.