Twenty Years of Trust: Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of PDF/A-1
This month the PDF industry is celebrating the 20th anniversary of PDF/A-1 (ISO 19005-1:2005), the publication of which revolutionized digital preservation.
Before this standard, archiving suffered from dependency issues. PDF/A-1, based on a constrained subset of PDF 1.4, mandated self-contained, device-independent documents. These rules ensure that a PDF/A document’s appearance can be reliably maintained over centuries, regardless of viewing software.
Rapidly adopted globally, the principles established in PDF/A-1 persist in later standards like PDF/A-4, which is based on PDF 2.0, the latest ISO standard for PDF.
Happy 20th, PDF/A! We (ok, not us personally) fully expect to be celebrating your 200th anniversary in November 2225!
This month the PDF industry is celebrating the 20th anniversary of PDF/A-1 (ISO 19005-1:2005), the publication of which revolutionized digital preservation.
Before this standard, archiving suffered from dependency issues. PDF/A-1, based on a constrained subset of PDF 1.4, mandated self-contained, device-independent documents. These rules ensure that a PDF/A document’s appearance can be reliably maintained over centuries, regardless of viewing software.
Rapidly adopted globally, the principles established in PDF/A-1 persist in later standards like PDF/A-4, which is based on PDF 2.0, the latest ISO standard for PDF.
Happy 20th, PDF/A! We (ok, not us personally) fully expect to be celebrating your 200th anniversary in November 2225!
Translating PDF 2.0 into Chinese
An initiative to translate PDF 2.0 (ISO 32000-2) into Chinese aims to expand digital document interoperability and advance the PDF ecosystem with developers whose first language is Chinese.
November 2025 by Peter Wyatt
Understanding how URLs can exist and behave in PDF/A files is critical to preservationists who need to identify, audit, and … Read more
October 2025 by PDF Association staff
Milestones in the History of PDF | Chrome’s newest feature | JPEG 2000 turns 25 | Windows 11 October 2025 … Read more
