Report from Incheon

During PDF Week Incheon 2026, held recently in South Korea, several PDF-related ISO TC 171 SC 2 working groups met to progress related work. Constrained by ISO’s policy on reporting committee work and ISO copyright, this post summarizes the key outcomes of each ISO meeting.

ISO TC 171 SC 2 Opening Plenary

Development of all ISO publications operate under the ISO Directives and ISO House Style rules and procedures. On October 5, 2026, new ISO/IEC Directives came into effect, significantly changing how future ISO work must be organized and conducted. During this special meeting, the ISO Technical Program Manager from BSI explained the latest ISO/IEC Directives.

ISO TC 171 SC 2 WG 5 (Archiving)

This working group is responsible for the dated revision of PDF/A-4 (ISO 19005-4:202x). Now completed and aligned with PDF/X-6, the dated revision of PDF/A-4 will have a final review by the PDF Association’s PDF/A TWG before moving to DIS (Draft International Standard) status.

Peter Wyatt takes over from Leonard Rosenthol as ISO Project Leader, with Boris Doubrov assisting as ISO Project Editor.

ISO TC 171 SC 2 WG 7 (Engineering)

This working group is responsible for the ongoing dated revision of PRC (ISO 14739-1:202x). Overseen by the PDF Association’s 3D PDF TWG and leveraging the PDF Association’s GitHub errata repository to track the many technical PRC issues, the updated PRC specification will publish another committee draft (CD) document as the team works towards a draft standard in early 2027.

We also congratulated Patrick Gallot, who volunteered to assist Stuart Galt (ISO Project Leader) as ISO Project Editor on PRC.

ISO TC 171 SC 2 WG 8 (PDF specification)

Three documents are currently in ISO awaiting final publication; these publications are delayed due to the new Directives and recent accessibility validation failures. ISO has not yet publication dates for these documents:

• ISO 32000-2:2020 (PDF 2.0) Amendment 1, supporting a subset of industry errata corrections required by the forthcoming dated revisions of PDF/A-4 and PDF/X-6.
• ISO/TS 32004 (Integrity protection in encrypted documents in PDF 2.0) dated revision, correcting some errata.
• ISO/TS 32009 Extension to support language identification in multilingual strings in ISO 32000-2 (PDF 2.0) is a new Technical Specification on how to extend PDF 2.0 by adding support for multi-lingual text strings for all text strings defined in PDF.

ISO TC 171 SC 2 WG 9 (Accessibility)

This working group is responsible for the dated revision of ISO/TS 32005:202x.

The dated revision of ISO/TS 32005 has been ongoing for several years and, with recent contributions from various PDF Association TWGs and LWGs, further updates and clarifications were requested. As a result of ISO processes, this ISO project was restarted and will continue with a new committee draft.

ISO TC 171 SC 2 WG 12 (XMP)

ISO TC 130 WG 2 originally standardized the ISO 16684 series of XMP standards, which was transferred to ISO TC 171 SC 2 WG 12 several years ago, where it later developed other parts. 

ISO 16684-3:2021 currently defines the JSON-LD serialization of XMP used by C2PA and other technologies. In January this year, the W3C re-established its JSON-LD Working Group, which has since published early drafts of JSON-LD 1.2. As a result, stakeholders agreed to commence a dated revision of ISO 16684-3 in collaboration with the W3C working group. Leonard Rosenthol will lead this new work item, with Roman Toda assisting as the ISO 16684 Project Editor.

ISO TC 171 SC 2 WG 13 (Content Provenance)

This working group's primary activity is the ISO standardization of C2PA Content Credentials. Because of several external factors, the standardization of C2PA (as ISO 22144) is switching to the new “Adoption” process defined in the latest 2026 ISO Directives.

This working group is also developing a new ISO Technical Specification, ISO/TS 32008 Authenticity of information - Extensions to Content Credentials for ISO 32000 (PDF), which defines various PDF-specific operations that can be recorded in C2PA content credentials.

We also congratulate Kevin De Vorsey, who takes over from Duff Johnson as Convener for TC 171/SC 2/WG 13 Content Provenance beginning January 1, 2027.

ISO TC 171 SC 2 JWG 14 (Graphic arts)

This joint working group with ISO TC 130 WG 2 is responsible for the PDF/X series of standards and the current dated revision of PDF/X-6 (ISO 15930-9:202x). Now completed and fully aligned with the PDF/A-4 dated revision, the PDF/X-6 dated revision will also move to DIS (Draft International Standard) status.

Peter Wyatt takes over from Leonard Rosenthol as ISO Project Leader, with Roman Lasskii assisting as ISO Project Editor.

ISO TC 171 SC 2 Closing Plenary

After 9 years as the Chair of ISO TC 171 SC 2, Leonard Rosenthol has reached the maximum term allowed by ISO. His replacement will be Peter Wyatt, CTO of the PDF Association, who has been actively involved with ISO for many years and is globally recognized as a PDF champion.

Conclusion

We congratulate the PDF Association members who’ve stepped up to help with their first ISO projects! Your contributions will greatly assist the global PDF industry. On behalf of the global PDF industry, all PDF stakeholders, and the ISO TC 171 SC 2 members, we also sincerely thank Leonard Rosenthol for his hard work over the last 9 years as outgoing Chair of SC 2.

All PDF Association members may attend ISO TC 171 SC 2 meetings virtually or in-person by pre-registering via the formal Category A Liaison relationship. This relationship allows PDF Association members to participate in the ISO process, access detailed technical information, and understand forthcoming changes in the PDF standardization landscape. 

The PDF Association maintains an ISO status page listing the current status of each PDF-related ISO standard.