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org/isofocus

Main Focus

Long live
ISO 32000-1

The PDF standard

by James C. King,
Adobe Systems
Incorporated

T
he portable document format (PDF) In January 2007, Adobe decided owned by ISO. Adobe is just one organ-
was invented by Adobe Systems to change that, and asked the Association ization that builds PDF products based
Incorporated in 1993. Since that time, for Information and Image Management upon the ISO standard. This removes
it has become the predominant file format (AIIM), also known as the enterprise con- any risk that Adobe might move PDF in
for general electronic documents. tent management (ECM) association, to a direction that could be harmful to other
The success of this format is due work together with the American Nation- organizations. It is not that Adobe is not
to two facts  :   al Standards Institute (ANSI) to submit trustworthy, but that ISO, being a neutral
PDF to ISO, with a view to its becoming public organization, can be regarded as
• Any computer application that can
a publicly-available International Stand- more trustworthy.
print to paper can also create an elec-
ard. By January 2008, the project had been
tronic version as a PDF file
• Free PDF viewing software for Win-
approved by the ISO membership, and the
completed specification was published a
“  The answer has to do
dows, Mac and Linux computers is few months’ later as ISO 32000-1:2008, with trustworthiness,
readily available. Document management – Portable docu- stability, change
ment format – Part 1: PDF 1.7.
Today, billions of PDF files exist, and responsibility.”
as do thousands of applications written by
hundreds of organizations. PDF became Trustworthiness and Once published by ISO, the stand-
a de facto standard because it was so stability ard is stable. Small mistakes and errors
widely used. may be corrected but ISO 32000-1 as a
So what difference has it made  ?
The answer has to do with trustworthiness, whole cannot be changed. This brings a
stability, change and responsibility. strong level of stability to PDF that frees
Changing the status quo If an organization is going to people and organizations to invest in PDF
Even though Adobe did not put invest in a given technology, it wants documents and PDF software. It also ena-
any restrictions on other organizations to be assured that its investment will be bles exchange and interchange since eve-
with respect to creating software that valuable in the future and not subject to ryone is working from the same common
views, creates or modifies PDF files, it the proprietary interests of some other specification. A file either is, or is not, a
kept ownership of the PDF Reference organization.
Manual 1) that defined the standard. Ado- Today, the PDF technology is cap- 1) www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_
be “ owned ” PDF. tured in the ISO 32000-1 standard that is reference.html

24 ISO Focus April 2009

ISO
and the
Media

PDF file according to ISO 32000-1:2008. Given the size and complexity of paper documents are, it is essential to
Software is compatible with the standard the standard, 756 pages of slow reading, have an electronic analogue. PDF serves
if it can process PDF files correctly. this is no small undertaking. On the plus that purpose.
There are established and well- side, the “ ISO ” that now owns PDF, is
known procedures for introducing revi- not a faceless organization, but one com-
sions and new editions of ISO standards. posed of bright, technical people who Advanced capabilities
Open contributions from the member are willing to spend time to understand, But once a document is available
countries are solicited. Draft standards are discuss, look at alternatives and help in an electronic form, there is an imme-
created and circulated for review. Votes decide where PDF goes next. diate desire to do more with it than could
are taken. It is an open and transparent be done with the paper version. For exam-
process. Anyone with a vested interest ple, electronically searching the docu-
should be able to become a member of A standard among ment for particular words is more effec-
their national organization and take an standards tive than scanning pages with our eyes.
active role in establishing a new direc- The ISO 32000-1 standard makes The introduction of hyperlinks that can
tion for PDF. use of many other standards. Its norma- immediately carry us from one page/view
tive reference section lists 79 standards of a document to another, and back again,
“  Once published documents upon which PDF is built, gives us a function that is unavailable or
very clumsy with paper.
by ISO, the standard including eleven ISO standards such
as JPEG, JPEG2000 and JBIG2 image Conversely, since people make
is stable.” formats (see page 15), ICC Profile for- notes on documents published on paper,
mats and ASN.1 notation. Other notable they similarly need to be able to anno-
The other side of the coin of “ own- standards used directly by PDF include tate electronic documents. Functionality
ership ” is responsibility. From June 1993 the OpenType font format, XML (see to support these examples – word/phrase
until January 2008, Adobe was responsi- page 27) and Unicode. When PDF was search, annotations, hyperlinks – was add-
ble for PDF. Today, PDF is ISO’s respon- being developed, every effort was made ed to PDF from an early date.
sibility. That means that if a revision is to use existing standards. Advanced capabilities, well beyond
needed to change or add some new func- Some ISO standards have been these more obvious examples, are also part
tion to PDF, it is up to the relevant ISO developed to define constrained PDF of ISO 32000-1. They include  :
technical committee – ISO/TC 171, Doc- subsets for special applications. These • Forms for interactive completion and
ument management applications, sub- include PDF/A for document archiving submission
committee SC 2, Application issues – to (ISO 19005-1:2005), PDF/X for profes-
propose and develop those changes, get sional publishing (ISO 15930 series) • Multimedia content, including vid-
them thoroughly reviewed, approved and and PDF/E for engineering documents eo, Flash and sound
published. (ISO 24517-1:2008). All of these stand- • Portfolios of files of any kind stored,
ards actually pre-date the publication of indexed and accessible from within
ISO 32000-1. one PDF file
• Content layers
About the author “  ISO is not a faceless • 3D interactive rendering
Dr. James C. organization, but one
• Digital signatures and digital rights
King is a Senior composed of bright, management.
Principal
Scientist at technical people.”
Adobe Systems
Incorporated
PDFs initial strength comes from
Documents plus
and works in the
its ability to capture digitally an exact So not only does PDF allow us to
San Jose,
replica of the document as it would have the exact representation of a docu-
California, USA,
have printed onto paper. This means ment in electronic form, it also allows
Headquarters of
Adobe as the that material that would invariably end us to exploit the power of the compu-
PDF Architect. He has worked at Adobe up as some kind of paper document can ter to extend what we can do with those
for over 20 years starting the Advanced instead be represented as a computer documents.
Technology Group in 1988. Before that, file and printed later or at some distant Long live ISO 32000-1  !
he was at IBM Research, both in York- place. Or better yet, it can be viewed on
town Heights, New York, and San Jose a screen and never require paper.
California. He is a member of ISO/TC This is one of the best exam-
2) Author of the book Being digital (1995) ;
171/SC 2. Dr. King received a Ph.D. in ples of moving bytes instead of atoms known for his forecasts on how the interactive
Computer Science from Carnegie as promoted by Nicholas Negroponte 2). world, the entertainment world and the
Mellon University. As useful and well-loved as paper and information world would eventually merge.

ISO Focus April 2009 25