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New Application Note Illuminates PDF’s Flexible Options for Custom Metadata

October 2025 by PDF Association staff

The PDF Association has released a new Application Note titled “Including Custom Metadata Structures in PDF.”

This document addresses the need for organizations to use custom metadata beyond standard XMP schemas in their PDF workflows. It provides guidance on designing custom metadata schemas, embedding them interoperably, best practices for versioning and extensibility, and strategies for exposing metadata to applications and tools.

The document’s objective is to enhance interoperability and efficiency by allowing custom metadata to travel seamlessly within PDF documents, eliminating the need for separate “sidecar files.”

The Note is now available on the PDF Association website.

The PDF Association has released a new Application Note titled “Including Custom Metadata Structures in PDF.”

This document addresses the need for organizations to use custom metadata beyond standard XMP schemas in their PDF workflows. It provides guidance on designing custom metadata schemas, embedding them interoperably, best practices for versioning and extensibility, and strategies for exposing metadata to applications and tools.

The document’s objective is to enhance interoperability and efficiency by allowing custom metadata to travel seamlessly within PDF documents, eliminating the need for separate “sidecar files.”

The Note is now available on the PDF Association website.

The U.S. Government’s Transition to All-Digital Government

October 2023 by National Archives and Records Administration
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New federal regulations set digitization standards for permanent records and require agencies to manage their permanent records in digital format.

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October 2023 by PDF Association staff
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PDF Week Fall 2023 in San Francisco covered subjects ranging from HDR to compression, color fonts, animation, accessibility and (much!) … Read more

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October 2023 by PDF Association staff
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The PDF Association is perhaps DARPA’s smallest-ever prime contractor. For DARPA’s SafeDocs program, however, it’s also the biggest success story.

PDF in the Wild

September 2023 by Thomas Zellmann
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To encourage marketing staff to sign up for the PDF Technology Marketing Working Group we decided to record a recent … Read more

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September 2023 by PDF Association staff
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PDF Week in San Francisco this October is hosting a free industry Symposium on Advancing the PDF Imaging Model! There’s … Read more

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September 2023 by Apryse
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Read Riley Kooh’s vision for the future of PDF technology over the next 25 years.

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September 2023 by Peter Wyatt
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PDF developers everywhere have a new resource; targeted test cases highlighting differences between implementations.

PDF Association news

September 2023 by PDF Association staff
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Funky (but legit!) PDF, sneaky malware PDF, poisoned PDF, PDF for LEGO, NASA does PDF… it’s a wild PDF world … Read more

PDF in the Wild

August 2023 by Peter Wyatt
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The PDF Association’s PDF cheat sheets are designed to help developers work more efficiently. They are highly condensed summaries, with … Read more

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August 2023 by Duff Johnson
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The PDF industry mourns the passing of the Adobe founder and visionary whose inventions and insights led to the creation … Read more

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August 2023 by Peter Wyatt
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PDF is a large, complex specification! Developers often look for first steps in its implementation. This article offers some suggestions.

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