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Updated collection of blog posts on Understanding the PDF File Format

October 20, 2022
We have spent 23 years (so far) understanding the PDF file format. During that time, we have been documenting PDF features and how to work with PDF documents on our blog to create this collection.
Mark Stephens
About Mark Stephens

Mark Stephens founded IDRsolutions in 1999 to develop innovative PDF software in Java. He has been a key technical developer on the core libraries to parse PDF files and has documented much of what he has learnt on the Company blog. He is also a keen speaker and regular attendee … Read more


We have spent 23 years (so far) understanding the PDF file format. During that time, we have been documenting PDF features and how to work with PDF documents on our blog. We have compiled the best of these posts into a single index and I have spent the last 3 months reviewing and updating all the articles.

We hope you find our post a useful resources and we would love your feedback or suggestions on what we can improve or add.


Founded in 1999, IDRsolutions is a small, dynamic UK based company which specialises in software to solve PDF problems for other developers in their own applications. We develop JPedal (convert PDF to image or view PDF files in Java Applications), BuildVu (view or parse PDF as HTML5/SVG), FormVu (convert PDF…

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