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New Application Note Illuminates PDF’s Flexible Options for Custom Metadata

October 2025 by PDF Association staff

The PDF Association has released a new Application Note titled “Including Custom Metadata Structures in PDF.”

This document addresses the need for organizations to use custom metadata beyond standard XMP schemas in their PDF workflows. It provides guidance on designing custom metadata schemas, embedding them interoperably, best practices for versioning and extensibility, and strategies for exposing metadata to applications and tools.

The document’s objective is to enhance interoperability and efficiency by allowing custom metadata to travel seamlessly within PDF documents, eliminating the need for separate “sidecar files.”

The Note is now available on the PDF Association website.

The PDF Association has released a new Application Note titled “Including Custom Metadata Structures in PDF.”

This document addresses the need for organizations to use custom metadata beyond standard XMP schemas in their PDF workflows. It provides guidance on designing custom metadata schemas, embedding them interoperably, best practices for versioning and extensibility, and strategies for exposing metadata to applications and tools.

The document’s objective is to enhance interoperability and efficiency by allowing custom metadata to travel seamlessly within PDF documents, eliminating the need for separate “sidecar files.”

The Note is now available on the PDF Association website.

PDF 2.0 support gets top billing in coverage of LibreOffice 25.8

September 2025 by PDF Association staff
PDF in the Wild


Thank you Berlin | PDF 2.0 support gets top billing in coverage of LibreOffice 25.8 | Now Tagged PDF and PDF/UA-2 from ConTeXt | Visual AI is not “parsing” | … Read more

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September 2025 by Peter Wyatt
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ISO standardized subsets of PDF, such as PDF/UA, enable files to claim conformance to a specific version of PDF/UA using … Read more

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September 2025 by PDF Association staff
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According to Board chair Raf Hens: “The event showcased what makes the PDF ecosystem unique: a standards-driven, industry-wide collaboration where … Read more

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September 2025 by PDF Association staff
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Communities shaping the future of PDF.

PDF Association news

September 2025 by PDF Association staff
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We’re proud to celebrate the PDF Association members who help make ISO standards for PDF available at no cost!

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August 2025 by Jacob Mellor (Iron Software)
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This article is written from my perspective as a lifelong software engineer and current CTO who codes differently – first … Read more

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August 2025 by PDF Association staff
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For organizations that depend on trust, efficiency, and long-term information integrity, PDF Days Europe is a strategic investment.

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August 2025 by PDF Association staff
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Encoding multilingual content | The US Library of Congress recognizes individual PDF/A-4 conformance levels | “There was no book” | … Read more

PDF in the Wild

August 2025 by PDF Association staff
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In the context of the European Accessibility Act (EAA), accessible PDFs are shifting from a “nice to have” to a … Read more

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August 2025 by PDF Association staff
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The PDF Research Portal supports and encourages research into the PDF format and its broader role in modern economies.

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July 2025 by Peter Wyatt
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We were asked to investigate non-functional internal document (intra-document) hyperlinks in PDFs stored on Google Drive and viewed with Google’s … Read more

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