Chapter 40 - Portable Document Format (PDF)

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the Portable Document Format (PDF), which was invented by Adobe Systems Incorporated in 1993 and which is the most widely used file format for general electronic documents. The two advantages that PDF has over other electronic document formats are free viewing software for Windows, Mac, Linux, and other operating systems and the ability to capture any print image in an electronic version as a PDF file. PDF became a de facto standard as it was widely used and as Adobe Systems did not put any restrictions on other organizations regarding developing software that use PDF files. All they did was retain ownership of the PDF Reference Manual that defined the standard. Adobe Systems asked the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), also known as the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Association, to work together with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to submit PDF to ISO, and thus make it from a de facto to a de jure international standard. In January 2008, the project was approved by ISO and the completed specification was published a few months later as ISO 32000-1:2008, Document management—Portable document format—Part 1: PDF 1.7. ISO standardization guarantees far more stability and openness than proprietary standards. The ISO 32000-1 standard has references to 79 standards that are used in defining PDF, including standards such as JPEG, JPEG2000, and JBIG2 image formats and ICC Profile formats.