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The PDF Association celebrates its members’ public statements
of support
for ISO-standardized PDF technology.

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PDF Champion 2025

October 2025 by PDF Association staff

This year’s PDF Champion is the man who, as much or more than anyone else, is responsible for launching the institutions that undergird the modern PDF technology industry: Thomas Zellmann.

Thomas has been a steady, energizing presence from the earliest days of the PDF/A Competence Center, which he helped to found in 2006. That organization is now today’s PDF Association thanks a large part to his committment.

In the Competence Centre era Thomas was one of the most visible ambassadors of that mission, speaking and teaching across Europe to help make long-term digital preservation a practical reality for institutions and enterprises. Thomas championed “anything to PDF/A” workflows and promoted archival quality as a first-class requirement, not an afterthought. Our community is stronger because of his work.

On this basis, and as approved by the Board of Directors of the PDF Association, we send our congratulations – and a cube of engraved aluminum – to Thomas Zellmann, PDF Champion for 2025!

This year’s PDF Champion is the man who, as much or more than anyone else, is responsible for launching the institutions that undergird the modern PDF technology industry: Thomas Zellmann.

Thomas has been a steady, energizing presence from the earliest days of the PDF/A Competence Center, which he helped to found in 2006. That organization is now today’s PDF Association thanks a large part to his committment.

In the Competence Centre era Thomas was one of the most visible ambassadors of that mission, speaking and teaching across Europe to help make long-term digital preservation a practical reality for institutions and enterprises. Thomas championed “anything to PDF/A” workflows and promoted archival quality as a first-class requirement, not an afterthought. Our community is stronger because of his work.

On this basis, and as approved by the Board of Directors of the PDF Association, we send our congratulations – and a cube of engraved aluminum – to Thomas Zellmann, PDF Champion for 2025!

Discovering PDF metadata

March 2024 by Peter Wyatt
Article


Peter Wyatt shares his custom metadata panels – very useful for discovering ISO standards and PDF Declarations metadata! (until vendors catch up!)

Peter Wyatt
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February 2024 by Duff Johnson
Duff Johnson
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It’s time for AI integrators to help authors make semantically rich documents… and step up their game on PDF inputs.

Article

January 2024 by PDF Association staff
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A major focus of the PDF Association’s work is to increase awareness and adoption of standards and best practices for … Read more

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January 2024 by PDF Association staff
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The PDF, ICC, NITF and video datasets used in SafeDocs’ performer hackathons and evaluations are now available for download from … Read more

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December 2023 by PDF Association staff
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In 2023, the volunteers and staff of the PDF Association were busier than ever, with new working groups, resources, and … Read more

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December 2023 by Duff Johnson
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It’s difficult to find other search terms that share PDF’s continuous upwards trend. Few technologies show this resilience, especially over … Read more

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December 2023 by PDF Association staff
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Join this webinar to learn why PDF/X-1a was a good idea 20 years ago, but no longer today and find … Read more

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December 2023 by PDF Association staff
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The Imaging Model Technical Working Group (TWG) will now focus on the research, specification, and prototyping at the very core … Read more

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November 2023 by Dietrich von Seggern (callas software GmbH)
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Callas software’s Dietrich von Seggern describes a few of the innovative technologies under consideration for PDF as discussed at the … Read more

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October 2023 by Peter Wyatt
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Although PDF is commonly understood as a single holistic file format, in reality, PDF comprises a number of distinct dialects, … Read more

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October 2023 by PDF Association staff
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5 years ago the PDF Accessibility LWG began a project to develop a set of accessibility techniques for PDF files. … Read more

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