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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!

PDF-UX: Collections

January 2025 by Peter Wyatt
Article


Triggered by our own experience in preparing the cheat sheet collection, this article explores the capabilities of PDF collections and strengthens the case for all PDF implementations to do a … Read more

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January 2025 by PDF Association staff
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A list of PDF Association members’ free and commercial software that exposes the relationship between a PDF’s page content and … Read more

PDF Association news

January 2025 by PDF Association staff
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These new Techniques for Accessible PDF are designed to help software developers, document authors, and remediators create accessible PDF files … Read more

PDF Association news

December 2024 by PDF Association staff
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We’re bringing back PDF Days by popular demand! Join the world’s PDF experts in Berlin this coming September for two … Read more

PDF Association news

December 2024 by PDF Association staff
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The PDF Association is now recognizing, on an annual basis, a single volunteer who has made major contributions to the … Read more

PDF Association news

December 2024 by Duff Johnson
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Most people searching for “pdf” are interested in a document, not the file format. Google Trends data offers a window … Read more

Article

December 2024 by PDF Association staff
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A close-up look at how PDF does text | What would Patton think? | Word bug blocks PDF/UA validators, Happy … Read more

PDF in the Wild

December 2024 by Duff Johnson
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The PDF Association looks back at industry activities, events and accomplishments in 2024.

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November 2024 by PDF Association staff
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We’ve established a new public GitHub repository to allow anyone to log and discuss issues and requests against PDF Association … Read more

Article

November 2024 by Melina Tusch
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Use the PDF Association’s free XML invoice viewer and find our members’ e-invoicing solutions.

PDF Association news

November 2024 by Peter Wyatt
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In 2021, not a single tested implementation passed this test. 3 years later about three-quarters of viewers we checked now … Read more

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