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PDF Now an ISO Standard

by , 10:55 AM EDT, July 2nd, 2008

Adobe's PDF, or Portable Document Format, has moved beyond its ubiquitous status and is now also an ISO standard. The change means that government agencies and other organizations that require open formats for electronic documents can consider using the cross-platform standard for digital file storage and archiving.

Kevin Lynch, Chief Technology Officer at Adobe, commented "As governments and organizations increasingly request open formats, maintenance of the PDF specification by an external and participatory organization will help continue to drive innovation and expand the rich PDF ecosystem that has evolved over the past 15 years."

As part of the agreement to migrate PDF to an open standard, Adobe agreed to relinquish control to ISO. The standards organization will now be responsible for publishing information about the format standard, and will also be responsible for updating and developing future versions of the standard.

The new standard has been dubbed ISO 32000-1, Document management - Portable document format - Part 1: PDF 1.7, and is based on the current PDF 1.7 version.

ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden added "As an ISO standard, we can ensure that this useful and widely popular format is easily available to all interested stakeholders. The standard will benefit both software developers and users by encouraging the propagation and dissemination of a common technology that cuts across systems and is designed for long term survival."

Observer Comments

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Close Name:Tiger Posts: 1016 Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Wed Jul 02, 2008 12:36 pm Subject: way to go

Wow. Nothing like playing catch up with the reality of daily use. PDF has been the standard in shareable documents for more than a decade. Glad the ISO finally caught up.


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Close Name:rpaege Posts: 96 Joined: 16 Dec 2005
Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:42 pm Subject:

PDF has been A standard, not THE standard for more than a decade.

It's a case of Adobe catching up to ISO, not the other way around.


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Close Name:xmattingly Posts: 266 Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Wed Jul 02, 2008 7:46 pm Subject: "A" standard...?

Quote
rpaege wrote:
PDF has been A standard, not THE standard for more than a decade.

It's a case of Adobe catching up to ISO, not the other way around.
Not even close, rpaege. I have to ask, what are these alleged competing formats that fit PDF's niche? Maybe the .doc format, where you're essentially forced to buy a copy of Word, or web pages (which can neither be used on a commercial press or support resolution-independent graphics?

So that's the other question: what exactly did Adobe have to change about the PDF format to make it ISO compliant?


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Close Name:iJack Posts: 313 Joined: 13 Jun 2001
Thu Jul 03, 2008 1:28 am Subject:

Quote
xmattingly wrote:
Quote
rpaege wrote:
PDF has been A standard, not THE standard for more than a decade.

It's a case of Adobe catching up to ISO, not the other way around.
Not even close, rpaege.

...what exactly did Adobe have to change about the PDF format to make it ISO compliant?

Man, that's really dumb. The answer is right in the article:
"As part of the agreement to migrate PDF to an open standard, Adobe agreed to relinquish control to ISO."
It's not THE Standard until the ISO says it is. rpaege was not only close, he/she was right on the money.


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Close Name:xmattingly Posts: 266 Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Thu Jul 03, 2008 7:25 am Subject:

Quote
iJack wrote:
Man, that's really dumb. The answer is right in the article:
"As part of the agreement to migrate PDF to an open standard, Adobe agreed to relinquish control to ISO."It's not THE Standard until the ISO says it is. rpaege was not only close, he/she was right on the money.
From the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
standard: something established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example

Dumb is when you read one thing and reinterpret it to mean something else entirely. ISO may set standards for certain types of media/technology, but they do not automatically control over what is already in majority use. So I'll ask one more time: what exactly did Adobe have to change to migrate to an ISO standard? Nothing. What product existed with even remotely similar capabilities for file sharing as the PDF format? Nothing. All they did was turn over control of the technology to them. It's right there in the article. ISO did not make the PDF format a file sharing standard - that has been the case for at least a decade, regardless of their approval or involvement.

What, you've never created or opened a PDF before, because until now it wasn't an ISO standard??

ISO may be beneficial in some ways to the tech sector, but it's also a highly political organization and some cases what becomes a standard is brought forth by dubious practices. Your argument is as good as saying, "I do what my government says I should do because my government knows what's best for me." Dumb can also be walking through life with a sheep mentality.


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Close Name:Guest
Thu Jul 03, 2008 10:52 am Subject: the ISO slowdown

My concern is the ISO will have it's standard effect on PDF and all new development slows to a painful crawl while they fight about the minutia.


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