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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!

Modernizing PDF Techniques for Accessibility

August 2018 by PDF Association staff
Article


The PDF Techniques Accessibility Summit will identify best-practices in tagging various cases in PDF documents. Questions to be addressed will likely include: the legal ways to tag a nested list, … Read more

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August 2018 by PDF Association staff
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The US Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is launching a SafeDocs project to develop methods and tools … Read more

News

July 2018 by Duff Johnson
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My hospital emailed me a medical records release form as a PDF. They told me to print it, fill it, … Read more

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July 2018 by PDF Association staff
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On July 23, 2018 alone, three distinct announcements of PDF 2.0 support from Adobe, Agfa and OneVision appeared in your … Read more

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June 2018 by PDF Association staff
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You missed the PDF Days Europe 2018? Never mind! Here you can find the slides and video recordings of all … Read more

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June 2018 by PDF Association staff
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The world has changed since 1993. PDF, introduced 25 years ago today, has become the dominant final-form electronic document format … Read more

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June 2018 by PDF Association staff
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The ISO committee for PDF/A committee could see into the future. 5 years into the future, to be exact.

News

June 2018 by Duff Johnson
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PDF/UA, like PDF itself, is internally complex, but used correctly, actually makes things easier.

Article

June 2018 by PDF Association staff
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Catherine Andersz of PDFTron Systems, Alaine Behler of iText Software and Peter Wyatt, ISO Project Leader for ISO 32000 enrich … Read more

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May 2018 by PDF Association staff
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“PDF Products & Services 2018” is now available for download! This volume showcases PDF Association members highlighting the diversity of … Read more

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May 2018 by PDF Association staff
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Richard Cohn, Principal Scientist at Adobe and the co-author of PDF 1.0, gave the opening keynote at the PDF Days … Read more

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