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

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Twenty Years of Trust: Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of PDF/A-1

November 2025 by PDF Association staff

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!

Rules for Accessible PDF: Matterhorn Protocol 1.1 is now available

April 2021 by PDF Association staff
PDF Association news


The document promotes adoption of the ISO standard for accessible PDF by software developers, service bureaus and others interested in validating accessibility in PDF documents.

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April 2021 by PDF Association staff
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The PDF community was saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. Chuck Geschke, one of the visionaries who helped … Read more

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April 2021 by PDF Association staff
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A domain-specific subset of PDF, PDF/R is simple to generate and interpret, allowing it to replace the TIFF and JPEG … Read more

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April 2021 by Duff Johnson
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Standards development works best when the expert community is open to diverse and dissenting views. The door is already open … Read more

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April 2021 by Patrick Gallot
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A new Technical Working Group will develop guidance and best-practices for the RichMedia annotation defined in PDF 2.0.

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April 2021 by Peter Wyatt
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This PDF file tests parsing valid combinations of adjacent PDF tokens both in the body of a PDF as well … Read more

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March 2021 by Thomas Zellmann
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Thomas Zellmann, evangelist from the PDF Association, explains why PDF is not only “digital paper” but also one of the … Read more

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March 2021 by PDF Association staff
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The Technical University of Dresden has created very compact and clear instructions that describe in an easy-to-understand manner how to … Read more

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March 2021 by PDF Association staff
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PDF 2.0 Application Note 003 identifies precise locations for PDF objects’ XMP metadata to help drive interoperability across all PDF … Read more

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March 2021 by PDF Association staff
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PDF Days Europe 2021 is coming in September, 2021! Join us for a hybrid online / in-person event that allows … Read more

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February 2021 by Dietrich von Seggern (callas software GmbH)
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The ISO-standardized PDF format and subset formats facilitate digital document solutions for today and tomorrow.

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