The PDF Association at 20
Founded as the PDF/A Competence Center in 2006, in 2026 the PDF Association is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
Over the past two decades it has grown into a global, vendor-neutral organization with over 150 members from 30 countries. Its mission is to advance ISO standards for PDF technology, facilitate technical working groups across various domains (like accessibility and cryptography), and host international events.
The PDF Association’s work ensures that PDF remains an open, interoperable, and continuously evolving document format.
The PDF Association at 20
Founded as the PDF/A Competence Center in 2006, in 2026 the PDF Association is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
Over the past two decades it has grown into a global, vendor-neutral organization with over 150 members from 30 countries. Its mission is to advance ISO standards for PDF technology, facilitate technical working groups across various domains (like accessibility and cryptography), and host international events.
The PDF Association’s work ensures that PDF remains an open, interoperable, and continuously evolving document format.
By Duff Johnson
February 2026
Featured articles
What you need to know today.
February 2026 by PDF Association staff
PDF’s stakeholders and developers span the globe. Here, we visualize the community’s reach.
Recent articles
Informative (non-commercial) articles by PDF Association members and staff.
December 2025 by Diana Kosovac (PDFix)
We analyzed PDF/UA-1 validation results across multiple commonly used tools using 155 reference files. This article shares key observations to … Read more
December 2025 by Duff Johnson
I asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and CoPilot about PDF’s future. They agree that PDF isn’t fading – it’s becoming infrastructure.
News from the PDF Association
Announcements, publications, events and other updates.
February 2026 by PDF Association staff
Adobe has renewed its Standards Support Endowment for 2026, marking the 8th year of this program.
January 2026 by PDF Association staff
The new product showcase helps users explore the variety of products and services provided by PDF Association members!
News from PDF Association members
PDF Association members post updates on their software and services.
February 2026 by Eric Shore (Datalogics)
For organizations where compliance, privacy, and data control are non-negotiable, sending documents to external cloud services is often not viable. … Read more
February 2026 by Continual Engine
Learn how poorly structured tables impact PDF accessibility, screen reader navigation, and compliance with accessibility standards.
February 2026 by Continual Engine
Learn what a scanned PDF is, why it is inaccessible, and how to convert it into an accessible PDF using … Read more
PDF in the Wild
Our (occasionally lighthearted) monthly post covering items of interest to PDF’s technical community.
July 2025 by PDF Association staff
Browsers battle over PDF capabilities | ISO’s “Publicly Available Standards” page is gone | PDF to Brainrot | JHOVE update … Read more
April 2025 by PDF Association staff
AI’s Pirated-Books Problem | Correcting US financial regulations referencing PDF | New crawl limit improves CC’s capture of PDF | … Read more
PDF Association news for members
May 2025 by PDF Association staff
Submit a Technical Poster to showcase your ideas at PDF Days Europe 2025!
September 2024 by PDF Association staff
PDF Association members – especially those working on PDF’s imaging model – can now access TC 42 WG 23 resources … Read more
