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PDF/A and external references

November 2025 by Peter Wyatt

PDF/A ensures reliable long-term rendering by embedding fonts, images, and color profiles, but URLs can still appear in text, hyperlinks, bookmarks, annotations, metadata, and embedded files.

Link annotations and URI Actions define clickable destinations, but PDF/A restricts certain action types to prevent external dependencies.

Guided by clear policies, comprehensive audits of both visible and hidden references help maintain authenticity, accessibility, and long-term integrity of PDF/A documents and digital collections.

PDF/A ensures reliable long-term rendering by embedding fonts, images, and color profiles, but URLs can still appear in text, hyperlinks, bookmarks, annotations, metadata, and embedded files.

Link annotations and URI Actions define clickable destinations, but PDF/A restricts certain action types to prevent external dependencies.

Guided by clear policies, comprehensive audits of both visible and hidden references help maintain authenticity, accessibility, and long-term integrity of PDF/A documents and digital collections.

TWAIN Working Group and PDF Association Announce PDF/raster: The Next-Generation Format for Imaging

August 2017 by PDF Association staff
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PDF/raster, a strict subset of the PDF format, was designed for storing, transporting and exchanging multi-page raster-image documents, especially scanned documents. PDF/raster provides the portability of PDF while offering the … Read more

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August 2017 by Duff Johnson
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The Portable Document Format is perhaps the most common example of a de facto standard, so much so that Wikipedia … Read more

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August 2017 by PDF Association staff
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The latest release of veraPDF, the industry-supported PDF/A validator, is now available for download.

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August 2017 by Matt Kuznicki
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The PDF Association is proud to present the first PDF 2.0 example files made available to the public. Created and … Read more

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August 2017 by PDF Association staff
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The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has announced the publication of ISO 32000-2 (PDF 2.0), the latest version of the … Read more

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July 2017 by PDF Association staff
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Replacing AIIM at the US TAG Administrator and secretary for ISO TC 171 SC 2, the 3D PDF Consortium, a … Read more

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July 2017 by PDF Association staff
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The Portable Document Format (commonly known as “PDF”) is a file format developed in the early 1990s as a way … Read more

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July 2017 by PDF Association staff
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The PDF Association, a not-for-profit organization designed to foster universal public standards for PDF technology, today announced the publication of … Read more

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July 2017 by PDF 2.0 interops help vendors

The PDF 2.0 interop workshops included many vendors with products for creating, editing and processing PDF files. They came together … Read more

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June 2017 by PDF Association staff
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2017 marks a record number of attendees / Experts shared fully-grounded wisdom on PDF standards across the two-day event Berlin. … Read more

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June 2017 by PDF Association staff
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Version 1.6 features the ability to check for updated software, among other enhancements and corrections.

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