Previewing PDF Days Online 2021

The PDF Association's Board of Directors has determined that PDF Days will go entirely online for 2021. A revised agenda is available and registration is open. All sessions are free!

PDF Days Online 2021 is an event for those professionally concerned with PDF technology. The agenda is packed with informative sessions presented by recognized experts from around the world.

Technical Days

As the world’s chosen digital document format, PDF covers a vast range of applications. PDF Days events provide a sampling of applications and interests but cannot begin to fully cover it all. Accordingly, at each event we select a few key areas of focus. For 2021 these are: PDF production, security and authentication, accessibility and core PDF technology.

PDF production

Among the most typical of document workflows is the process of generating PDF documents from source files, imaging systems, web-pages, databases or other PDF documents. These sessions offer perspectives on various aspects of PDF production, including:

Create PDFs using HTML by Francois Fernandes of Digital Frontiers
PDF/A Conversion and Validation Challenges by Elodie Tellier of Orpalis
Two Standards. One Goal. Modernizing Print Communication Production by Mary Ann Rowan of Solimar Systems
STOP PRESS! Or how to avoid it! By David Stevenson of Global Graphics
Archiving email – as PDF? by Dietrich von Seggern of callas software
PDF/R revisions and new, highly compressed image formats by Rene Rebe, TWAIN Working Group

Security and Authentication

Cybersecurity, and associated rigorous understandings of integrity are major subjects across every computing domain, including digital documents. The world runs on PDF documents, so even prospective vulnerabilities matter. PDF Days sessions focusing on various aspects of securing or authenticating PDF content include:

How to make e-Signing interoperable by Carsten Heiermann of Foxit Corporation
Validating digital signatures in PDF by Bernd Wild of intarsys
Cryptography in PDF: future perspectives by Matthias Valvekens of iText
Content Authenticity and PDF by Leonard Rosenthol of Adobe
SafeDocs – towards a more secure future by Peter Wyatt, PDF Association CTO
Making sense of PDF structures in the wild at scale by Tim Allison of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Accessibility

Governments and enterprises alike are increasingly requiring that digital document content be accessible to all users. Due to PDF’s inherent flexibility, the nature of authoring software and the variability in author awareness and skills, achieving accessibility presents challenges for software developers and authors alike. PDF Days includes several sessions directly pertaining to accessibility:

WCAG or PDF/UA: what’s the difference by Boris Doubrov of Dual Lab
Accessible PDF – How to tag content the right way by Klaas Posselt of Einmanncombo
What makes a tagged PDF a proper tagged PDF/UA document? by Rene Treuber of axaio software
Lessons from implementing a PDF/UA-centric mobile reader by Matt Kuznicki of AbleDocs
Content accessibility for all screen sizes by Andrey Safonov of PDFTron
Deriving HTML from PDF – lessons learned by Roman Toda of Normex

PDF technology

The core value proposition for PDF was established in the 1990s and remains fully operative today. End users continue to depend on PDF fundamentals: reliable, self-contained and precise representations of an author’s intent. The PDF technology space continues to evolve and grow as current marketplace demands are felt. PDF Days sessions focussed on the future of PDF technology and PDF implementations include:

The Low Code Revolution and PDF by Neil Pitman of Aquaforest (read the interview)
Future of Traversing PDF Files by Michael Demey of iText
OpenType color fonts in PDF by Thomas Merz of PDFlib
3DPDFs + the future by Andrey Safonov of PDFTron (read the interview)
The Arlington PDF Model by Peter Wyatt, PDF Association CTO
Survey of open source PDF solutions by Michael Vrhel of Artifex Software

Solution Days

Solution Days sessions are intended to inform end users of PDF technology software and applications of the latest offerings and other development by the companies that make PDF Days possible. The Solution Days will feature informative presentations on:

accessibility from AbleDocs and axaio software
archiving from callas software, Orpalis, Datalogics and SEAL Systems
PDF creation from Solimar Systems and Actual Reports
PDF processing from Foxit, PDFTron, iText and Aquaforest

Interviews with PDF Days speakers

Over the next month we’ll be publishing short previews of Technical Days sessions with each of the speakers. Three are already posted:

Neil Pitman of Aquaforest will discuss how the Low Code / No Code movement pertains to PDF.
Andrey Savonov of PDFTron covers content accessibility for all screen sizes.
René Treuber of axaio reviews the differences between merely tagged PDF and PDF/UA conformance.

PDF Days Online 2021 sponsors

Gold sponsors

Adobe

Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences. Our creative, marketing, and document solutions empower everyone — from emerging artists to global brands — to bring digital creations to life…

callas software GmbH

callas software finds simple ways to handle complex PDF challenges. As a technology innovator, callas software develops and markets PDF technology for publishing, print production, document exchange and document archiving….

Foxit Corporation

Foxit is a leading provider of innovative PDF products and services, helping knowledge workers to increase their productivity and do more with documents. Foxit addresses the needs of three distinct…

PDFTron

PDFTron Systems Inc. is a global provider of industry-leading, high-performance document processing and conversion technology related to PDF, XPS, SVG, and other graphic file formats. Our flagship cross-platform PDF library,…

Solimar Systems Inc.

Solimar Systems enables organizations around the globe to onboard, make ready, enhance, manage and deliver print and digital communications. As an early adopter of the PDF output format, our Chemistry™…