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The PDF Association celebrates its members’ public statements
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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!

DoJ reposts the Mueller Report

April 2019 by Duff Johnson
Article


As reported within hours by Quartz, four days after its initial release and fanfare-free, the US Department of Justice re-posted the Mueller Report PDF with a few improvements. They also … Read more

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April 2019 by Duff Johnson
Duff Johnson
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On April 19 we published an analysis of the Mueller report PDF released by the US Department of Justice. Further analysis … Read more

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April 2019 by Duff Johnson
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It’s too bad that such important historical documents are nonetheless posted as such low-quality PDF files. We provide commentary.

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April 2019 by Duff Johnson
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Author of over 15 books and a guru to generations of graphic designers, David Blatner is a legend in digital … Read more

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April 2019 by PDF Association staff
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The sessions at #EDCSEATTLE2019 may be interesting and relevant, but you still have to convince your boss to let you … Read more

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April 2019 by PDF Association staff
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The educational sessions at #EDC2019 will be led by a wide range of experts from a variety of sectors. From … Read more

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April 2019 by Duff Johnson
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When I’m not working for the PDF Association I still do some consulting in the document management space. Some recent … Read more

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March 2019 by Dietrich von Seggern (callas software GmbH)
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There are numerous tools on the market, including freeware, with which users can create PDFs. But are the results of … Read more

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March 2019 by David Blatner
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This year, the Electronic Document Conference (EDC) is being held in the same city and only days after CreativePro Week … Read more

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March 2019 by Duff Johnson
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On February 25, 2019, researchers from Ruhr University Bochum  and Hackmanit GmbH published pdf-insecurity.org, a detailed explanation of several vulnerabilities they … Read more

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February 2019 by PDF Association staff
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The Electronic Document Conference is a do-not-miss event for developers,  product managers and technical users creating and leveraging electronic document … Read more

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