Adobe PDF Converter SDK is a flexible toolkit designed for automation, integration, and fine-grained control over the PDF creation process. 

While both Adobe PDF Converter and Distiller are tools that convert PostScript to PDF, Converter is built for OEMS who need more control, more integration options, and more file format support. 

Here are the most important differences: 

1. Customizability 

Adobe PDF Converter lets developers manipulate how jobs are processed, from injecting PostScript segments to customizing file I/O libraries. Distiller is primarily user-UI and hot-folder driven. 

2. More Input and Output Options 

Distiller only accepts PostScript files and outputs full PDFs. PDF Converter accepts PS, EPS, images, and PPML, and can produce PDFs at the page, multi-page, or full-document level. 

3. Advanced Font Control 

PDF Converter supports: 

• CJK font downloading 
• Host font cache sharing across processes 
• Customizable fallback font policies 
• Distiller provides fewer controls and synthesizes missing fonts automatically. 

4. Parallel Conversion 

PDF Converter allows multiple instances to process pages in parallel—for example:  One instance handles odd pages  Another handles even pages  This dramatically boosts throughput in high-volume environments. 

5. Comment Substitution & DSC Control 

With PDF Converter, developers can: 

• Intercept PostScript DSC comments 
• Replace them 
• Ignore PostScript between comments 
• Insert new segments dynamically 

Distiller does not support this level of interaction. 

6. Support for PDF/X-4 

• PDF Converter supports PDF/X-4 compliance; Distiller does not. 

The Adobe PDF Converter SDK is a powerful, flexible, and customizable tool for organizations that need high-performance PDF generation at scale. Unlike Distiller, it opens the hood and gives developers complete control over how PostScript, image, and PPML data become PDF while maintaining Adobe’s gold-standard fidelity and compliance.