ISO TC 171 SC 2 meetings

May 2016 brings another biannual in-person meeting of the ISO committees for PDF and several of PDF’s subset standards. This spring the Committees will meet in Ghent, Belgium for five days dedicated to moving these respective documents forward.

Working Group 8 (ISO 32000 – PDF)

This will be the first WG 8 meeting managed by the new Project Leadership team of Duff Johnson and CiSRA’s Peter Wyatt. The committee will review comments against the 3rd DIS (Draft International Standard) of PDF 2.0.

Although we are at a stage where no new features or major changes to features are contemplated there will be a number of discussions pertaining to modernizing PDF encryption, and clarifications in a number of other areas. PDF Association members, who have access to the draft specification, are encouraged to send in their comments and concerns as soon as possible, preferably, before April 1!

Following the May meetings in Ghent we plan to use November’s meeting in Sydney to finalize the document for publication in early 2017.

Working Group 9 (ISO 14289 – PDF/UA)

In November 2015 WG9 decided to accelerate text development for PDF/UA-2. Following the meeting a number of ad hoc groups met to flesh out the next draft beyond the comments processed in Basel. The result is a significantly expanded document with several areas more fully developed.

We expect the Ghent meetings to reaffirm the decision to focus PDF/UA-2 on PDF technology, and on leveraging PDF 2.0.

Working Group 5 (ISO 19005 – PDF/A)

The PDF/A committee will continue discussing the PDF/A-next project initiated in San Jose in April, 2015. This new part for PDF/A would be based on PDF 2.0. WG 5 is also considering a “PDF/Core” specification to collate the common aspects of PDF’s various subset standards together into a single document.

Working Group 7 (ISO 24517 – PDF/E)

This standard awaits ratification of PDF 2.0, and a continued discussion on its relationship to PDF/A.

Attending the meetings

PDF Association members who wish to attend should contact the Chairman (Olaf Drümmer) or Executive Director (Duff Johnson) directly for accreditation via the PDF Association’s liaison with ISO TC 171 SC 2.

For those who participate via their respective country’s TC 171 member body organization, you need to be accredited and entered into ISO’s Global Database prior to attending. Contact Betsy Fanning at AIIM (secretariat for ISO TC 171) for more information.