The Portable Document Format (PDF) was created by Adobe Systems, introduced at the Windows and OS/2 Conference in January 1993 and remained a proprietary format until it was released as an open standard in 2008. Since then, it has been under the control of an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) committee of industry experts.
Development of PDF began in 1991 when Adobe's co-founder John Warnock wrote a paper for a project then code-named Camelot, in which he proposed the creation of a simplified version of Adobe's PostScript format called Interchange PostScript (IPS). [1] Unlike traditional PostScript, which was tightly focused on rendering print jobs to output devices, IPS would be optimized for displaying pages to any screen and any platform. [1]
PDF was developed to share documents, including text formatting and inline images, among computer users of disparate platforms who may not have access to mutually-compatible application software. [2] It was created by a research and development team called Camelot, [3] which was personally led by Warnock himself. PDF was one of a number of competing electronic document formats in that era such as DjVu, Envoy, Common Ground Digital Paper, Farallon Replica and traditional PostScript itself. In those early years before the rise of the World Wide Web and HTML documents, PDF was popular mainly in desktop publishing workflows.
PDF's adoption in the early days of the format's history was slow. [4] Indeed, the Adobe Board of Directors attempted to cancel the development of the format, as they could see little demand for it. [5] Adobe Acrobat, Adobe's suite for reading and creating PDF files, was not freely available; early versions of PDF had no support for external hyperlinks, reducing its usefulness on the Internet; the larger size of a PDF document compared to plain text required longer download times over the slower modems common at the time; and rendering PDF files was slow on the less powerful machines of the day.
Adobe distributed its Adobe Reader (now Acrobat Reader) program free of charge from version 2.0 onwards, [6] and continued supporting the original PDF, which eventually became the de facto standard for fixed-format electronic documents. [7]
In 2008 Adobe Systems' PDF Reference 1.7 became ISO 32000:1:2008. Thereafter, further development of PDF (including PDF 2.0) is conducted by ISO's TC 171 SC 2 WG 8 with the participation of Adobe Systems and other subject matter experts.
From 1993 to 2006 Adobe Systems changed the PDF specification several times to add new features. Various aspects of Adobe's Extension Levels published after 2006 were accepted into working drafts of ISO 32000-2 (PDF 2.0), but developers are cautioned that Adobe's Extensions are not part of the PDF standard. [8]
Version | Edition [9] | Year of publication | New features | Acrobat Reader version support |
---|---|---|---|---|
1.0 | First | 1993 | Text, images, pages, hypertext links, bookmarks, thumbnail sketches [10] | Carousel [11] |
1.1 | First, revised | 1994 | Passwords, encryption (MD5, RC4 40bit), device-independent color, threads and links, binary format for smaller files [12] | 2.0 |
1.2 | First, revised | 1996 | Interactive page elements (radio buttons, checkboxes &c); interactive, fill-in forms (AcroForm); Forms Data Format (FDF) for interactive form data that can be imported, exported, transmitted and received from the Web; mouse events; external movie reproduction; external or embedded sound reproduction; zlib/deflate compression of text or binary data; Unicode; advanced color features and image proxying [12] | 3.0 |
1.3 | Second | 2000 | Digital signatures; ICC and DeviceN color spaces; JavaScript actions; embedded file streams of any type (e.g. used for attachments); new annotation types; new features of the Adobe PostScript Language Level 3 imaging model; masked images; alternate representations for images; smooth shading; enhanced page numbering; Web capture, a facility for capturing information from World Wide Web and converting it to PDF; representation of logical structure independently of graphical structure; additional support for CIDFonts; data structures for mapping strings and numbers to PDF objects; information for prepress production workflows support; new functions for several function object types that represent parameterized classes of functions; [13] [14] Acrobat Forms JavaScript Object Specification Version 4.05 | 4.0 |
1.4 | Third | 2001 | JBIG2; transparency; RC4 encryption key lengths greater than 40 bits (40–128 bits); enhancements to interactive forms and Forms Data Format (FDF), XML form submissions, embedded FDF files, Unicode specification of field export values, remote collaboration and digital signatures in FDF files; accessibility to disabled users; metadata streams using Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP); tagged PDF; inclusion of printer's marks; display and preview of production-related page boundaries; new predefined CMaps; alternate presentations; importing content from one PDF document into another; EmbeddedFiles entry in the PDF document's name dictionary, a standard location for the embedded data.; [14] [15] Acrobat Forms JavaScript Object Specification Version 4.05 [16] | 5.0 |
1.5 | Fourth | 2003 | JPEG 2000; enhanced support for embedding and playback of multimedia; object streams; cross reference streams; XML Forms Data Format (XFDF) for interactive form submission (replaced the XML format in PDF 1.4); support for forms, rich text elements and attributes based on Adobe's XML Forms Architecture (XFA) 2.02 (which defines only static XFA forms); public-key security handlers using PKCS#7 (introduced in PDF 1.3 but not documented in the Reference until 1.5), public-key encryption, permissions, usage rights (UR) signatures (does not require document encryption), PKCS#7 with SHA-1, RSA up to 4096-bits; security handler can use its own encryption and decryption algorithms; document sections selectively viewed or hidden by authors or readers for items such as CAD drawings, layered artwork, maps, and multi-language documents; Alternate Presentations – the only type is slideshow – invoked by means of JavaScript actions (Adobe Reader supports only SVG 1.0); [14] [17] [18] Acrobat JavaScript Scripting Reference, Version 6.0; [19] support for MS Windows 98 dropped. | 6.0 |
1.6 | Fifth | 2004 | 3D artwork, e.g. support for Universal 3D file format; OpenType font embedding; support for XFA 2.2 rich text elements and attributes (XFA 2.1 and 2.2 defined for example the following features: dynamic XFA forms, W3C XML digital signatures for XFA, XFA support for Web Services, XFA 'doc-literal' SOAP operations over HTTP, the Web Service's WSDL defines SOAP binding operations, etc.); AES encryption; PKCS#7 with SHA256, DSA up to 4096-bits; NChannel color spaces; additional support for embedded file attachments, including cross-document linking to and from embedded files; enhancements and clarifications to digital signatures related to usage rights and modification detection and prevention signatures; [14] Acrobat JavaScript Scripting Reference, Version 7.0 [20] | 7.0 |
1.7 (ISO 32000-1:2008) [21] | Sixth | 2006 | Increased presentation of 3D artwork; XFA 2.4 rich text elements and attributes; multiple file attachments (portable collections); document requirements for a PDF consumer application; PKCS#7 with SHA384, SHA512 and RIPEMD160; JavaScript for Acrobat API Reference Version 8.0 (the documentation of the objects, properties and methods of the JavaScript extensions for Adobe Acrobat Professional, Acrobat Standard and Adobe Reader) [22] | 8 |
1.7 Adobe Extension Level 1 [23] | 2008 | XFA 2.5 (Extensions Level 1) and XFA 2.6 (Extensions Level 2) (XFA 2.6 defined for example the following features: XFA Secure submit, new profile - XFA Foreground (XFAF) - each page of the XFA form overlays a PDF background, etc.) [24] | 8.1 | |
1.7 Adobe Extension Level 3 | 2008 | 256-bit AES encryption; incorporation of XFA Datasets into a file conforming PDF/A-2; improved attachment of Adobe Flash applications (SWF), video (including Flash video with H.264), audio, and other multimedia, two-way scripting bridge between Flash player and conforming applications, navigator SWF file may be loaded as an Adobe Flex 2 module or as an ordinary SWF; XFA 2.5 and 2.6 rich text conventions, [24] XFA 2.7 and 2.8 [25] (XFA 2.7 and 2.8 defined for example the following features: Authentication policy for web services, Submit via WSDL/SOAP, locale set typefaces, etc.) | 9 | |
1.7 Adobe Extension Level 5 [26] | 2009 | XFA 3.0 | 9.1 | |
1.7 Adobe Extension Level 6 [27] | 2009 | XFA 3.1 | 9.1 | |
1.7 Adobe Extension Level 8 [28] | 2011 | XFA 3.3 (e.g. Flash/SWF integration in XFA), [29] AES-256 different password handling than in Extension Level 3, because of a weakness in the password checking algorithm. [30] [31] Specification not published as of November 2014. [21] | X (10) |
Adobe declared that it is not producing a PDF 1.8 Reference. Future versions of the PDF Specification will be produced by ISO technical committees. However, Adobe published documents specifying what proprietary extended features for PDF, beyond ISO 32000-1 (PDF 1.7), are supported in its newly released products. This makes use of the extensibility features of PDF as documented in ISO 32000–1 in Annex E. [21]
The specifications for PDF are backward inclusive. The PDF 1.7 specification includes all of the functionality previously documented in the Adobe PDF Specifications for versions 1.0 through 1.6. Where Adobe removed certain features of PDF from their standard, they are not contained in ISO 32000-1 [9] either. Some features are marked as deprecated.
On January 29, 2007, Adobe announced that it would release the full Portable Document Format 1.7 specification to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the Enterprise Content Management Association (AIIM), for the purpose of publication by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). [32] By virtue of this change, ISO produces versions of the PDF specification beyond 1.7, and Adobe will be only one of the ISO technical committee members. [21]
ISO standards for "full function PDF" [32] are published under the formal number ISO 32000. Full function PDF specification means that it is not only a subset of Adobe PDF specification; in the case of ISO 32000-1 the full function PDF includes everything defined in Adobe's PDF 1.7 specification. However, Adobe later published extensions that are not part of the ISO standard. [21] There are also proprietary functions in the PDF specification, that are only referenced as external specifications. [33] [34] These were eliminated in PDF 2.0, which includes no proprietary technology.
Version | Year of publication | New feature |
---|---|---|
1.7 (ISO 32000-1:2008) [21] | 2008 | The ISO standard ISO 32000-1:2008 and Adobe PDF 1.7 are technically consistent. [21] [35] [36] |
2.0 (ISO 32000-2:2017) [37] | 2017 | Elimination of all proprietary elements, updating, enhancing and clarifying the documentation, and the establishment of tighter rules. [38] PDF 2.0 also includes many new features. |
2.0 | 2020 | Clarifications, corrections and critical updates to normative references. [41] |
PDF documents conforming to ISO 32000-1 carry the PDF version number 1.7. Documents containing Adobe extended features still carry the PDF base version number 1.7 but also contain an indication of which extension was followed during document creation. [21]
PDF documents conforming to ISO 32000-2 carry the PDF version number 2.0, and are known to developers as "PDF 2.0 documents".
The final revised documentation for PDF 1.7 was approved by ISO Technical Committee 171 in January 2008 and published as ISO 32000-1:2008 on July 1, 2008, and titled Document management – Portable document format – Part 1: PDF 1.7.
ISO 32000-1:2008 is the first ISO standard for full function PDF. The previous ISO PDF standards (PDF/A, PDF/X, etc.) are subsets intended for more specialized uses. ISO 32000-1 includes all of the functionality previously documented in the Adobe PDF Specifications for versions 1.0 through 1.7. Adobe removed certain features of PDF from previous versions; these features are not contained in PDF 1.7 either. [9]
The ISO 32000-1 document was prepared by Adobe Systems Incorporated based upon PDF Reference, sixth edition, Adobe Portable Document Format version 1.7, November 2006. It was reviewed, edited and adopted under a special fast-track procedure, by ISO Technical Committee 171 (ISO/TC 171), Document management application, Subcommittee SC 2, Application issues, in parallel with its approval by the ISO member bodies.
According to the ISO PDF standard abstract: [42]
ISO 32000-1:2008 specifies a digital form for representing electronic documents to enable users to exchange and view electronic documents independent of the environment they were created in or the environment they are viewed or printed in. It is intended for the developer of software that creates PDF files (conforming writers), software that reads existing PDF files and interprets their contents for display and interaction (conforming readers) and PDF products that read and/or write PDF files for a variety of other purposes (conforming products).
Some proprietary specifications under the control of Adobe Systems (e.g. Adobe Acrobat JavaScript or XML Forms Architecture) are in the normative references of ISO 32000-1 and are indispensable for the application of ISO 32000-1. [32]
A new version of the PDF specification, ISO 32000-2 (PDF 2.0) was published by ISO's TC 171 SC 2 WG 8 Committee in July, 2017. [43]
The goals of the ISO committee developing PDF 2.0 include evolutionary enhancement and refinement of the PDF language, deprecation of features that are no longer used (e.g. Form XObject names), and standardization of Adobe proprietary specifications (e.g. Adobe JavaScript, Rich Text). [34] [44]
Known in PDF syntax terms as "PDF-2.0", ISO 32000-2 is the first update to the PDF specification developed entirely within the ISO Committee process (TC 171 SC 2 WG 8). Interested parties resident in TC 171 Member or Observer countries and wishing to participate should contact their country's Member Body or the secretary of TC 171 SC 2. [45] Members of the PDF Association may review and comment on drafts via that organization's Category A liaison with ISO TC 171 SC 2. [46]
In December 2020, the second edition of PDF 2.0, ISO 32000-2:2020, was published, including clarifications, corrections and critical updates to normative references. [47] ISO 32000-2 does not include any proprietary technologies as normative references. [40]
On April 5, 2023, the PDF Association and its sponsors, Adobe, Apryse and Foxit, made ISO 32000-2 available at no cost. [48]
Formed in 2008 to curate the PDF Reference as an ISO Standard, ISO TC 171 SC 2 Working Group 8 typically meets twice a year, with members from fifteen or more countries attending in person. Attendance is also possible via conference call.
Since 1995, Adobe participated in some of the working groups that create technical specifications for publication by ISO and cooperated within the ISO process on specialized subsets of PDF standards for specific industries and purposes (e.g. PDF/X or PDF/A). [32] The purpose of specialized subsets of the full PDF specification is to remove those functions that are not needed or can be problematic for specific purposes and to require some usage of functions that are only optional (not mandatory) in the full PDF specification.
The following specialized subsets of PDF specification has been standardized as ISO standards (or are in standardization process): [9] [49] [50] [51]
The PDF Association published a subset of PDF 2.0 called PDF/raster 1.0 in 2017. [53] PDF/raster is intended for storing, transporting and exchanging multi-page raster-image documents, especially scanned documents.
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. Based on the PostScript language, each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout flat document, including the text, fonts, vector graphics, raster images and other information needed to display it. PDF has its roots in "The Camelot Project" initiated by Adobe co-founder John Warnock in 1991. PDF was standardized as ISO 32000 in 2008. The last edition as ISO 32000-2:2020 was published in December 2020.
In digital printing, a page description language (PDL) is a computer language that describes the appearance of a printed page in a higher level than an actual output bitmap. An overlapping term is printer control language, which includes Hewlett-Packard's Printer Command Language (PCL). PostScript is one of the most noted page description languages. The markup language adaptation of the PDL is the page description markup language.
A de facto standard is a custom or convention that has achieved a dominant position by public acceptance or market forces. De facto is a Latin phrase, here meaning "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established".
A document file format is a text or binary file format for storing documents on a storage media, especially for use by computers. There currently exist a multitude of incompatible document file formats.
The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, standardized as ISO 26300, is an open file format for word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and graphics and using ZIP-compressed XML files. It was developed with the aim of providing an open, XML-based file format specification for office applications.
XFA stands for XML Forms Architecture, a family of proprietary XML specifications that was suggested and developed by JetForm to enhance the processing of web forms. It can be also used in PDF files starting with the PDF 1.5 specification. The XFA specification is referenced as an external specification necessary for full application of the ISO 32000-1 specification. The XML Forms Architecture was not standardized as an ISO standard, and has been deprecated in PDF 2.0.
Open XML Paper Specification is an open specification for a page description language and a fixed-document format. Microsoft developed it as the XML Paper Specification (XPS). In June 2009, Ecma International adopted it as international standard ECMA-388.
Office Open XML is a zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Ecma International standardized the initial version as ECMA-376. ISO and IEC standardized later versions as ISO/IEC 29500.
The Open Document Format for Office Applications, commonly known as OpenDocument, was based on OpenOffice.org XML, as used in OpenOffice.org 1, and was standardised by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) consortium.
PDF/A is an ISO-standardized version of the Portable Document Format (PDF) specialized for use in the archiving and long-term preservation of electronic documents. PDF/A differs from PDF by prohibiting features unsuitable for long-term archiving, such as font linking and encryption. The ISO requirements for PDF/A file viewers include color management guidelines, support for embedded fonts, and a user interface for reading embedded annotations.
Poppler is a free software utility library for rendering Portable Document Format (PDF) documents. Its development is supported by freedesktop.org. It is commonly used on Linux systems, and is used by the PDF viewers of the open source GNOME and KDE desktop environments.
A proprietary file format is a file format of a company, organization, or individual that contains data that is ordered and stored according to a particular encoding-scheme, designed by the company or organization to be secret, such that the decoding and interpretation of this stored data is easily accomplished only with particular software or hardware that the company itself has developed. The specification of the data encoding format is not released, or underlies non-disclosure agreements. A proprietary format can also be a file format whose encoding is in fact published, but is restricted through licences such that only the company itself or licensees may use it. In contrast, an open format is a file format that is published and free to be used by everybody.
GeoPDF refers to map and imagery products created by TerraGo software applications. GeoPDF products use geospatial PDF as a container for maps, imagery, and other data used to deliver an enhanced user experience in TerraGo applications. However, GeoPDF products conform to published specifications including both the OGC best practice for PDF georegistration as well as Adobe's proposed geospatial extensions to ISO 32000, making them readable by applications such as Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, Avenza PDF Maps, Global Mapper, and others.
In color management, an ICC profile is a set of data that characterizes a color input or output device, or a color space, according to standards promulgated by the International Color Consortium (ICC). Profiles describe the color attributes of a particular device or viewing requirement by defining a mapping between the device source or target color space and a profile connection space (PCS). This PCS is either CIELAB (L*a*b*) or CIEXYZ. Mappings may be specified using tables, to which interpolation is applied, or through a series of parameters for transformations.
PDF/UA, formally ISO 14289, is an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard for accessible PDF technology. A technical specification intended for developers implementing PDF writing and processing software, PDF/UA provides definitive terms and requirements for accessibility in PDF documents and applications. For those equipped with appropriate software, conformance with PDF/UA ensures accessibility for people with disabilities who use assistive technology such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, joysticks and other technologies to navigate and read electronic content.
PostScript fonts are font files encoded in outline font specifications developed by Adobe Systems for professional digital typesetting. This system uses PostScript file format to encode font information.
XLIFF is an XML-based bitext format created to standardize the way localizable data are passed between and among tools during a localization process and a common format for CAT tool exchange. The XLIFF Technical Committee (TC) first convened at OASIS in December 2001, but the first fully ratified version of XLIFF appeared as XLIFF Version 1.2 in February 2008. Its current specification is v2.1 released on 2018-02-13, which is backwards compatible with v2.0 released on 2014-08-05.
XML Data Package (XDP) is an XML file format created by Adobe Systems in 2003. It is intended to be an XML-based companion to PDF. It allows PDF content and/or Adobe XML Forms Architecture (XFA) resources to be packaged within an XML container.
Geospatial PDF is a set of geospatial extensions to the Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.7 specification to include information that relates a region in the document page to a region in physical space — called georeferencing. A geospatial PDF can contain geometry such as points, lines, and polygons. These, for example, could represent building locations, road networks and city boundaries, respectively. The georeferencing metadata for geospatial PDF is most commonly encoded in one of two ways: the OGC best practice; and as Adobe's proposed geospatial extensions to ISO 32000. The specifications also allow geometry to have attributes, such as a name or identifying type.
This document describes the base technology and ideas behind the project named "Camelot." This project's goal is to solve a fundamental problem [...] there is no universal way to communicate and view ... printed information electronically.
1.7ext8 – PDF 1.7 extension level 8 requires Acrobat X
AES-256 according to PDF 1.7 Adobe Extension Level 3 (Acrobat 9) should be avoided because it contains a weakness in the password checking algorithm which facilitates brute-force attacks against the password. For this reason Acrobat X no longer offers Acrobat 9 encryption for protecting new documents (only for decrypting existing documents). In summary, AES-256 according to PDF 1.7 Adobe Extension Level 8/PDF 2.0 or AES-128 according to PDF 1.6/1.7 should be used, depending on whether or not Acrobat X is available. Passwords should be longer than 6 characters and should contain non-alphabetic characters.
XFA is not to be ISO standard just yet. ... The Committee urges Adobe Systems to submit the XFA Specification, XML Forms Architecture (XFA), to ISO for standardization ... The Committee is concerned about the stability of the XFA specification ... Part 2 will reference XFA 3.1
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