News

August 26, 2010

Press Release:PDF/A-2 a prominent theme at the PDF/A conference in Rome.

July 13, 2010

Press Release:PDF/A Competence Center founds a new chapter in Benelux.

May 4, 2010

Press Release:The PDF/A Competence Center invites you to the 4th International PDF/A Conference in the “eternal city” of Rome.

May 5, 2010

Press Release:New PDF/A Competence Center Chair for North America is Appligent Document Solutions CEO.



We welcome our newest members

Adlib Software, Canada
CDP Communications Inc., Canada
InovoO, Germany
ReproZentrum Rosenberger, Germany



What's new?

4th PDF/A Conference in Italy
Rome, September 30th and October 1st


Colosseum in Rome

Third International PDF/A Conference in Berlin

The PDF/A Competence Center is conducting the third International PDF/A Conference on June 18th and 19th, 2009 in Berlin. The conference offers lectures by international experts, tracks for different areas of focus and interest in PDF/A as well as workshops on the practical use of PDF/A. PDF/A Competence Center members will present their solutions in an accompanying exhibition.

Wednesday, June 17th – Workshops


Morning Sessions (9:30-13:00)


Scan to PDF/A

This workshop covers all topics around scanning to PDF/A. General conversion and compression techniques with practical demos are discussed. A scan service provider’s mass scanning approaches are presented as well as the classification possibilities for scanned documents.
Instructors: Carsten Heiermann, Thomas Zellmann, LuraTech Europe GmbH, Daniel Schmidt, asservo.
Detailed workshop agenda

Fonts in PDF/A Primer

Introduction to the inner workings of fonts, e.g. how fonts are used in PDF, font embedding, glyphs, characters and Unicode, things that can go wrong with fonts and specific requirements for the use of fonts in PDF/A.
Instructors: Dietrich von Seggern, Business Development Manager, callas software GmbH and Olaf Drümmer, CEO, callas software GmbH.
Detailed workshop agenda

Digital-born PDF/A

Office files, batch processing, Tagged PDF, interactive documents, missing fonts or dynamic generation? This workshop presents the top ten problems when creating PDF/A from applications or databases – and how to solve them. These are the challenges of PDF/A.
Instructor: Michael Karbe, President, Actino Software.
Detailed workshop agenda

„PDF/A in einer ECM-Suite“ (in German)

The workshop will discuss how PDF/A support is implemented in OS|ECM making it valuable for users of Optimal Systems’ products as well as for attendees who want to understand how PDF/A can be integrated in a modern ECM system.
Instructors: Dr. Olaf Holst, Director Sales & Partnermanagement Christian Fink, Productmanager ECM-Solutions, Optimal Systems.


Afternoon Sessions (14:00-17:30)


„PDF/A für Sparkassen“ – canceled

PDF/A and Output

PDF/A has become a standard in high volume printing applications. The workshop covers the various technical aspects of datastream conversion and text mining requirements including performance considerations, font and character encoding issues and a detailled discussion of various print datastreams like AFP, PCL and Postscript in conjunction with PDF/A.
Instructors: Jörg Palmer, Compart AG, and Dr. Karl-Heinz Werner, Beta Systems Software AG

Digital Signatures in PDF/A

The workshop conveys a technical insight into the specs, implementations and use of digital signatures. Besides embedded signatures the workshop will focus also on the emerging CADeS and XADeS standards as well as on the role of signatures in long-term archiving of documents.
Instructors: Leonard Rosenthol, Adobe Systems, Dr. Bernd Wild, intarsys

XMP Metadata Primer

Why use XMP for metadata? Where is XMP used today? How is XMP metadata inspected, stored and retrieved? How is custom information included in XMP? What are accuracy, persistence and privacy of XMP metadata? How does XMP metadata work in PDF/A?
Instructors: Dietrich von Seggern, Business Development Manager, callas software GmbH and Olaf Drümmer, CEO, callas software GmbH
Detailed workshop agenda


Thursday, June 18th, 2009 – Conference Programme

9:00Registration, Exhibition
10:00Welcome - Harald Grumser, Chairman of the PDF/A Competence Center
10:30Keynote - Pros and Cons of PDF/A for Long-Term Archiving, Bernhard Zöller, Managing Director, Zöller & Partner
11:15Keynote - The Making of PDF/A, Stephen Levenson, US District Courts and Convener of the ISO PDF/A committee
12:00Lunch break, Exhibition
Track 1: What you need to know about PDF/A
For novice to intermediate level attendees
Track 2: Legal and Compliance
Safe and legal with PDF/A
Track 3: Metadata
Data about PDF/A data
14:00PDF/A 101
Introduction to PDF/A,
Stephen Poe, VP Product Management, Crawford Technologies Inc.
Non-compliance Liability - Legal Aspects of ILM
Dr. Jens Bücking, e/s/b lawyers, Stuttgart, Germany
Metadata - Who needs it, and what for?
Metadata essentials for the rest of us
Frank Biederich, Sr. Engineering Manager, XMP Technology, Adobe Systems
14:45Application Scenarios with PDF/A
Create, convert, sign and validate
Hans Klimmer, Product Management, DETEC Decision Technology Software GmbH
Reproducibility of Archived Documents
François Fernandes, levigo, Holzgerlingen, Germany
XMP Metadata in PDF/A
Concepts, tools and techniques
Thomas Merz, President, PDFlib GmbH
15:30Coffee break, Exhibition
16:00PDF/A for Scanned Documents
Paper becomes digital
Carsten Heiermann, Managing Director, LuraTech Europe GmbH
Legal Requirements of Cross-Border Signed Documents
Enrico Entschew, secrypt, Berlin, Germany
Real World Use of Metadata
Company Standard for PDF Metadata
Jan-Michael Rehn, Robert Bosch GmbH
XMP Metadata for European Patent Documents in PDF/A
Klaus Baumeister, European Patent Office
16:45PDF/A for Digital-Born Documents
Archiving MS-Office documents, e-mails and websites
Dr. Hans Bärfuss, CEO, PDF Tools AG
The Challenges in Archiving E-Mails with PDF/A
In search of an email document format
Dr. Bernd Wild, intarsys, Karlsruhe, Germany
Metadata Strategies for Archiving
Round table discussion
Moderated by Olaf Drümmer, CEO, callas software GmbH
17:30Closing session - Wrap-up and hot topics from the first day, Olaf Drümmer, callas software & Carsten Heiermann, LuraTech Europe GmbH
18:15End of first conference day
19:30Evening event



Friday, June 19th, 2009 – Conference Programme

9:00Keynote - From PDF to PDF/A-2 and beyond, Leonard Rosenthol, PDF Standards Architect, Adobe Systems Inc.
9:45Coffee break, Exhibition
Track A: Archives & Libraries, Public Sector /eGovernmentTrack B: Engineering / Manufacturing /Construction
10:15Digital Preservation
Retrospective digitization with PDF/A
Hans-Joachim Hübner,
Satz-Rechen-Zentrum Hartmann+Heenemann GmbH & Co. KG
PDF/A in Product Life Cycle
Engineering requirements for PDF/A
Dr. Uwe Wächter, Sales Manager, SEAL Systems AG
11:00PDF/A in Archives
Basic Issues of Digital Preservation
Dr. Christian Keitel, Regional State Archive of Baden-Württemberg
PDF/A in Plant Engineering and Construction
PDF/A in SAP environment
Jean-Marc Chevalier, PLM & IAM Project Manager, SAFRAN Informatique - Groupe Safran
11:45The Publications Office Digital Library Project
High volume book scanning creating PDF/A-1b
Anton Zagar, EU Publications Office
PDF/A in highly regulated Industries
PDF/A in a complex PDM environment
Herr Andreas Bergmann, Siemens AG A&D
Track C: Business to Comsumer
(e.g. banks, insurances, telcos)
Track D: Health Care
10:15Once upon a Time before PDF/A ...
Reviewing how PDF/A can help us(ers) today and in which way PDF/A should support us(ers) in the future
Kai Volmar, Referent archive:net, Certified Document Imaging
Architech (CDIA+), Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen
Longterm Archiving of Medical Documents
Requirements for document formats in Healthcare
Prof. Dr. Paul Schmücker, Mannheim University of Applied Sciences, Mannheim, Germany
11:00Electronic Invoices as PDF/A
with respect to Italian law requirements
Domenico Barile, E-Mission S.r.l, Italy
Archiving electronic Health Records
From paper to PDF/A
Carsten Heiermann, LuraTech, Berlin, Germany
11:45PDF/A in High Volume Printing Applications
How to get from print datastreams to PDF/A and vice versa
Harald Grumser, CEO, Compart AG
From Medical Forms to PDF/A Documents
Archiving patient forms in Radiotherapy
Michael Obenland, Center for Radiotherapy, Singen, Germany
12:30Lunch break, Exhibition
14:00Step-by-Step to PDF/A, Jacob Bielfeldt, Techniker Krankenkasse
14:30The EU Digital Library - a Use Case for PDF/A, Dr. Silke Stapel, EU Publications Office
15:00Panel Discussion, Doris Störtzer (VOI), Betsy Fanning (AIIM), Philippe Martin (Aproged) Stephen Levenson, Leonard Rosenthol, Moderators: Harald Grumser & Olaf Drümmer
15:40Prize Draw
16:00End of second conference day
© PDF/A Competence Center 2010