Adobe’s goal of moving PDF from a publicly documented proprietary format to a true international standard is moving into higher gear.
AIIM’s new Portable Document Format (PDF) Reference Committee is holding its first meeting on July 16-17 (yes, in less than 2 weeks time), in Silver Spring, Maryland.
The page on AIIM’s website offers contact and meeting information – and (crucially) a “Download” button leading to the draft “Fast Track” document itself.
While I’ve spent relatively little time with it thus far (I do have a day job), it’s clear that Adobe has put a tremendous amount of work into revising the PDF Reference to prepare it for the ISO process. How will we know this version is really “equivalent” to the version 1.7? I’m looking forward to finding out. There must be something clever going on; the ISO PDF draft is a mere 768 pages, far shorter than the 1,310 page Reference it is intended to replace. Some old-school Adobe veterans have been managing the process, and I for one will be looking forward to their presentation.
As a self-appointed PDF Platform Evangelist, I was an instant fan of the “PDF-becomes-ISO” idea. I mean, duh. Microsoft sees the value as well, which is doubtless why they are now racing Adobe to see who can ramrod their own “electronic document” format into a standard first.
My money’s on Microsoft to win that race, but that’s mostly because no-one in the real world actually cares about XPS yet, if they ever will. People do already care about PDF. Whether that will translate into real stakeholder involvement in the standards process remains to be seen.
Later, I’ll attempt to report on highlights from both the meeting and the document. Stay tuned…
Originally posted on Duff Johnson’s PDF Perspective blog for acrobatusers.com.
By Duff Johnson