PDF Association logo

Discover pdfa.org

Key resources

Get involved

How do you find the right PDF technology vendor?
Use the Solution Agent to ask the entire PDF communuity!
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 announces publication of ANSI/AIIM/ISO 14289-1:2016

March 2016 by Duff Johnson
News


PDF/UA is the newest US National Standard, and it’s available for only $15 from aiim.org!

Duff Johnson
Visit Duff Johnson's profile.

March 2016 by Duff Johnson
Duff Johnson
Visit Duff Johnson‘s profile.

It’s a milestone release for this open source, permissively-licensed Java software for PDF creation and processing.

News

March 2016 by PDF Association staff
PDF Association logo
Visit PDF Association staff‘s profile.

June is the best time of the year to visit Berlin. The air is sweet, the trees are in bloom … Read more

Article

March 2016 by Duff Johnson
Duff Johnson
Visit Duff Johnson‘s profile.

The Nordic Council of Ministers adopts PDF/UA for a key publication series.

News

March 2016 by PDF Association staff
PDF Association logo
Visit PDF Association staff‘s profile.

This year, the successful PDF Days Europe will be held in Berlin. Across two days, you’ll be able to choose … Read more

Article

March 2016 by PDF Association staff
PDF Association logo
Visit PDF Association staff‘s profile.

This year, the established and popular PDF Days Europe will be held on June 14 and 15, 2016, in the … Read more

Article

March 2016 by Duff Johnson
Duff Johnson
Visit Duff Johnson‘s profile.

Release 0.10 includes a substantially improved CLI, an initial set of PDF/A-2 test files, and more.

News

March 2016 by Duff Johnson
Duff Johnson
Visit Duff Johnson‘s profile.

The latest Quark Xpress will be able to repurpose PDF page content into its own object and layout model.

News

March 2016 by Duff Johnson
Duff Johnson
Visit Duff Johnson‘s profile.

A world-leading chat application adds PDF support before any other.

News

February 2016 by PDF Association staff
PDF Association logo
Visit PDF Association staff‘s profile.

The new Chairman of the PDF/E Competence Center discusses the origin of the new organization in support of engineering applications … Read more

Article

February 2016 by Duff Johnson
Duff Johnson
Visit Duff Johnson‘s profile.

Among many other accessibility-related enhancements to its Office products in 2016, Microsoft plans to improve support for PDF/UA.

News

Member News

WordPress Cookie Notice by Real Cookie Banner