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

Member Area

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!

AIIM’s Standards Award goes to PDF Association Executive Director

April 2016 by Duff Johnson
News


PDF Association Executive Director Duff Johnson wins the Thomas Bagg Standards Award.

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April 2016 by PDF Association staff
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Matt Kuznicki, Chief Technical Officer at Datalogics, tells us about his plans for the PDF Days Europe 2016 conference in … Read more

Article

April 2016 by Matthias Wagner
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The 2016 PSD handbook version is published – German version will be provided soon.

News

April 2016 by PDF Association staff
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iText creator Bruno Lowagie tells us about his plans for the PDF Days Europe 2016 conference in Berlin.

Article

April 2016 by PDF Association staff
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For ECM professionals, PDF deserves your attention to maximize utility… and minimize risk.

Article

April 2016 by Duff Johnson
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PDF’s value-proposition is exemplified by a USB key developed to monitor temperatures in shipping containers.

News

April 2016 by PDF Association staff
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As in previous years, the PDF Days Europe will act as a link between users and developers.

Article

April 2016 by PDF Association staff
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The scale of this year’s PDF Days Europe event allows us to focus on several distinct areas of interest.

Article

March 2016 by Duff Johnson
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veraPDF 0.12 features improved PDF/A-2b and PDF/A-3b validation and a complete REST API.

News

March 2016 by Duff Johnson
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An optional PDF/UA conversion add-on will soon allow users to create PDF/UA documents from Google Docs.

News

March 2016 by PDF Association staff
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The ISO standard for accessible PDF files costs 88 Swiss Francs. As of March 25 it’s also available from AIIM … Read more

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