In order to use my university's printing shop, they said they need a PDF x-1a format.
I noticed in Pages that I can print as "Save as PDF-X" but a little googling says this is not exactly the PDF x1a format, but another one. Googling did not turn up exactly how to get the x-1a format.
How to print a PDF X-1A from a iWork Pages document
pagespdf
Related Solutions
The state of the file you see might be the result of the use of a new function introduced with version 5.2 of Pages: the view only mode. See the official documentation here:
Share and edit a document with others.
The original file on the Mac of your grandfather is still fully editable. The view-only mode does only restrict modification upon the shared version on iCloud. If your grandfather want to make the shared version fully editable by others (sharing the iCloud version),
then he should modify this setting on the original file and afterward resend a link toward this document.
Try these 2 documented functions on a new empty document to avoid errors.
I would recommend NOT to use the Pages "Export as PDF" file, since there might be inconsistencies with Adobe PDF format.
I would recommend you use the Pages- Print- PostScript.
Now open that file in Preview and save as PDF.
Best Answer
If they can take PDF-X1/a, then they can take any of the others as well; you shouldn't have any problems.
PDF-X1/a was simply the first in a long line of iterations of a new PDF schema that basically does a lot of preflighting for you (it's one of the best things to happen in the printing industry in a long time). It means your document is "press ready", which mainly applies to SWOP presses but can apply to small printers as well.
As a footnote to all of that... You can also output press-ready PDFs using the Mac OS X-supplied "Save as PDF" button in the print dialog box from just about any application.