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March 2024 by Peter Wyatt (PDF Association)

Does the PDF version actually matter?

A key finding of recent research: at least 20% of PDF files on the web have an “invalid” PDF version!

However, as our experience with everyday PDF files appears to be unhampered by these inaccurate version numbers the answer to the question, generally speaking, is “no”. 

One important explanation for why the file’s stated version number lacks relevance is that most PDF features are designed to be backward-compatible. There is no need for general PDF software to fail on a document or warn users when it encounters a minor mis-versioned feature – either the software is coded to understand the feature or it ignores the effectively unknown feature(s) that it doesn’t understand. This is today’s experience with most PDF software.

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