Preparing the source annual financial statements (AFS) for conversion
Report Authority can be used to both;
- prepare the AFS and export to ESEF format; and
- convert an already prepared document to ESEF format.
This section of the documentation assumes the latter. To understand how to use Report Authority to prepare AFS, please view the help documentation here.
Required format of AFS
Report Authority requires the source AFS to be in Microsoft Word format (*.docx). If the AFS are in PDF format, they will first have to be converted from PDF to Docx format. There are many ways to achieve this - we recommend one of the following:
- Using Adobe Acrobat
- Using a free online conversion service such as pdf2docx.com.
In our experience, pdf2docx.com is by far the superior option - even better than Adobe tools. It does a very good job at converting the PDF as well as retaining tabular information within Word tables which help with the tagging process.
If uploading the unpublished document to this internet service is forbidden by corporate policies, we can recommend licensing BCL All PDF Converter which can be purchased from BCL for a one-time licence fee of about $99. pdf2docx.com utilises the exact same libraries as BCL All PDF Converter so the result should be identical.
Addressing formatting issues
It cannot be guaranteed that no formatting inconsistencies would be introduced when converting a document from one format to another. This is a fact understood and accepted by the wider XBRL community. For this reason, it is recommended that the designers take some responsibility for the conversion process. Conversion issues can arise, for example, due to complex layering of graphical elements. This can be easily resolved by the designer by flattening some of these complex layerings into single images.
Furthermore, if it is not possible to get designer cooperation - for example, if the accounts are being converted on behalf of another company, it is still possible and often very easy to resolve these issues by a user without any design tools experience, to open the pdf document in Adobe Acrobat, Adobe In Design or or a very cost-effective In Design clone available on a Mac and PC - Affinity Publisher by Seriff, and make basic edits such as:
- Flattening complex overlapping arrangements of images, text, and tables.
- Converting problem diagrams/text boxes into images.
- Any other technique that is available in the software to simplify the structure of the content causing the issue.
Making these edits before converting to Word should resolve most issues.
NB! If the Word document contains formatting issues - so will the ESEF document.
Vertically aligned text
Report Authority's editor does not currently does not support displaying text which is aligned vertically. It will be displayed in the editor as being aligned horizontally. However, the information is still in the document it should be aligned vertically, and our xHTML exported will render it correctly. We hope to support the correct rendering in the UI in an upcoming release.