PDF doesn't have to mean 'pretty darned frustrating'
December 15, 2009 —
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The world has awakened to the power of portable document readers. Devices like Amazon's Kindle and the Barnes & Noble's Nook have put portable documents into the pockets and purses of bookworms. With these new devices has come a wave of new document formats, but it is the PDF that remains the most important document format for business.
Last year, PDF became an ISO standard, and in the process, moved away from its past of evolution and change. While the ISO will certainly keep PDF up-to-date over time, the day-to-day stresses placed on the format by the needs of Adobe are no longer an issue.
In the past, PDF belonged entirely to its creators, Adobe Systems. Originally created in 1993, it's been a bumpy road for this document format. Along that road, Adobe has repeatedly changed the specifications for PDF, including one wholesale break with the past that left non-Adobe software out in the cold for a time. But now, thanks to the ISO, PDF is destined to remain static. Developers will no longer have to hit a target in motion.
That's not to say that there won't be changes to the specification, or even new types of PDFs to deal with. The ISO will be seeing a lot of PDF activity next year as new standards, such as PDF/E, PDF/E-2 and PDF 2.0, wind their way through the standards processes.
Betsy Fanning, of AIIM International, is the secretary for a number of PDF committees, all of which are working on new or updated standards for PDF. She said that the PDF/E team has been busy working on new standards for storing engineering documents inside of PDF. This engineering standard includes support for 3D models, allowing product-engineering documents to include renderings of the final product or pieces.
PDF/E-2, on the other hand, is an effort to build PDF/A for engineers. PDF/A is for archiving documents, but as a stripped-down standard designed for saving space, PDF/A can't handle those 3D renderings.
Related Search Term(s): Adobe, ISO, PDF
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