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PDF/A and external references

November 2025 by Peter Wyatt

PDF/A ensures reliable long-term rendering by embedding fonts, images, and color profiles, but URLs can still appear in text, hyperlinks, bookmarks, annotations, metadata, and embedded files.

Link annotations and URI Actions define clickable destinations, but PDF/A restricts certain action types to prevent external dependencies.

Guided by clear policies, comprehensive audits of both visible and hidden references help maintain authenticity, accessibility, and long-term integrity of PDF/A documents and digital collections.

PDF/A ensures reliable long-term rendering by embedding fonts, images, and color profiles, but URLs can still appear in text, hyperlinks, bookmarks, annotations, metadata, and embedded files.

Link annotations and URI Actions define clickable destinations, but PDF/A restricts certain action types to prevent external dependencies.

Guided by clear policies, comprehensive audits of both visible and hidden references help maintain authenticity, accessibility, and long-term integrity of PDF/A documents and digital collections.

Adobe: “Acrobat DC” is coming in April

March 2015 by Duff Johnson
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Adobe Systems announces Acrobat DC as its replacement for Acrobat XI.

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March 2015 by PDF Association staff
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Building on the previous success of last year’s event, PDF Days Europe 2015 will begin with “Educational Day”. Assemble your … Read more

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March 2015 by PDF Association staff
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Videos from the December, 2014 PDF Day events in Washington DC and New York City.

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March 2015 by PDF Association staff
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Nitro partnered with the PDF Association to conduct a survey of 1,200+ knowledge workers to learn more about the ways … Read more

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February 2015 by 1,200 users surveyed about document productivity views

The PDF Association teamed up with Nitro to get as many respondents as possible to a survey of knowledge workers.

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February 2015 by Duff Johnson
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PDF/UA is featured in the US Access Board’s 2015 Notice of Public Rule Making for the Section 508 refresh.

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February 2015 by Olaf Drümmer
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Karen McCall will be speaking at this year’s CSUN conference about “The Implementation of PDF/UA and Standardized Access to PDF … Read more

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February 2015 by Thomas Zellmann
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Apache PDFBox becomes a Partner Organization of the PDF Association.

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January 2015 by Duff Johnson
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The Open Preservation Foundation and the PDF Association have signed an agreement to formally recognize their on-going collaborative partnership.

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January 2015 by PDF Association staff
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The ability to embed any file format into a PDF/A-3 file makes use of PDF’s ‘container’ principle. This feature also … Read more

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January 2015 by PDF Association staff
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The main challenge when archiving emails is the absolute menagerie of different file formats a business has to deal with.

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