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The PDF Association celebrates its members’ public statements
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PDF versions

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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DARPA recognizes the PDF Association’s contributions to SafeDocs

June 2023 by PDF Association staff (PDF Association)
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DARPA recognizes the PDF Association’s contributions to its SafeDocs program.

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December 2022 by PDF Association staff (PDF Association)
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Adobe releases the source code for an early version of PostScript, the forerunner of PDF.

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November 2022 by PDF Association staff (PDF Association)
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DARPA will provide seed funding of $1.3M for research and prototyping centered on reinventing the PDF specification and delivering on … Read more

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October 2022 by PDF Association staff (PDF Association)
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In a new podcast episode, SE Radio’s Gavin Henry interviews PDF Association CTO Wyatt and CEO Johnson about a wide … Read more

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July 2021 by PDF Association staff (PDF Association)
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Technical resources on pdfa.org are now more understandable and navigable by less technically experienced readers as well as knowledgeable developers.

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April 2021 by PDF Association staff (PDF Association)
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Version 1.18 of veraPDF, the industry-supported PDF/A validator, is now available for download, and now includes support for PDF/UA-1 (machine … Read more

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April 2021 by PDF Association staff (PDF Association)
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The PDF community was saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. Chuck Geschke, one of the visionaries who helped … Read more

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March 2021 by PDF Association staff (PDF Association)
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The Technical University of Dresden has created very compact and clear instructions that describe in an easy-to-understand manner how to … Read more

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March 2021 by PDF Association staff (PDF Association)
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PDF 2.0 Application Note 003 identifies precise locations for PDF objects’ XMP metadata to help drive interoperability across all PDF … Read more

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February 2021 by PDF Association staff (PDF Association)
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A recent article on Medium reveals a nugget regarding PDF usage: “…Adobe reports that in its 2020 fiscal year alone, … Read more

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February 2021 by Peter Wyatt (PDF Association)
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The recently-announced pdf-issues GitHub repo already has 25 issues, with 12 proposed resolutions for review in the next PDF TWG … Read more

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