AIIM Standards Watch

It's Final - PDF is Now an ISO Standard

It's final! The PDF specification that billions of documents are based upon is now an ISO standard. The Portable Document Format (PDF), undeniably one of the most commonly used formats for electronic documents, is now accessible as an ISO International Standard - ISO 32000-1. This move follows a decision by Adobe Systems Incorporated, original developer and copyright owner of the format, to relinquish control to ISO, who is now in charge of publishing the specifications for the current version (1.7) and for updating and developing future versions. While this is an ISO standard, AIIM had a key role in the process of bringing the once Adobe controlled specification to ISO. AIIM, on behalf of ANSI, holds the secretariat for the ISO committee that is responsible for the development of ISO 32000-1. This version of the standard is an exact replica of the existing PDF 1.7.

While the committee's initial work has been completed in getting the standard through the approval and pubication process, the committee's work is far from over. The focus for the committee will now be to identify new features and functions that may be added to the PDF file and included in the standard. To follow the activities of the US committee for this standard, please visit http://www.aiim.org/Standards/article.aspx?ID=33223. For more information on this standard, please feel free to contact Betsy Fanning at bfanning@aiim.org.

PDF/Archive Training

AIIM announces the availability of training on PDF/Archive. The PDF/A training provides you with a solid understanding of PDF/A and the standard ISO 19005-1, Document management – File format for the long-term preservation of electronic document – Part 1: Use of PDF 1.4 (PDF/A-1). The course will cover the technologies and best practices that help you to implement PDF/A in your organization so that you can preserve your electronic documents.

Some of the specific topics that will be covered include:

• Preservation
• Preservation Problem
• Overview of ERM
• Overview of file formats
• PDF/A Introduction
• Digital Signatures in preservation
• Overview of conformance levels and restricted features
• Color
• Metadata for preservation
• Workflow and migration for long-term preservation
• Conformance levels and issues
• Creating PDF/A documents from digitally born documents
• Scanning to PDF/A (converting images to PDF/A)
• Validating PDF/A files
• Implementation best practices
• Selecting PDF/A products
• Relevance of other PDF standards to PDF/A
• Legal and compliance implications of PDF/A

The training is available as private classes that can be tailored to your organization's specific needs. Additionally, we will be offering public training classes in several locations. Please watch the AIIM web site for a location near you and for the introduction of the web-based version of this training.

If you would like to have more information on this training, please contact Betsy Fanning at bfanning@aiim.org.

Next Steps for ISO/DIS 32000

Earlier this week, we announced that the ISO/DIS 32000 accomplished a major hurdle in the approval of the draft standard. This approval does not signify that the document is to be published soon. Through the vote we received numerous comments, mostly editorial, which need to be incorporated into a revised draft. Additionally, we received a negative or No vote which must be dealt with. ISO procedures allow for No votes to be changed to Yes with Comment provided the No voter is satisfied with the way their comments are being addressed. We are currently in the process of addressing the comments and are hopeful that the voter will consider them and take appropriate action.

There are two paths that the standard may take. If the No vote is not changed to a Yes with comment, the revised standard including the modifications for the comments received will need to be balloted for a 2 month approval ballot. If the No vote is changed to a Yes with comment, the modifications from the comments will be incorporated into the standard and it will go to publication.

If you are interested in PDF, we urge you to get involved in the committee efforts. Once this version of the standard is published, the committee will begin work on the next version. All future versions of this standard will come from the committee.

PDF Reference 1.7 A Step Closer to ISO Standard

The ISO ballot to approve the PDF Reference 1.7 as an ISO standard closed yesterday. Of the 14 member countries voting, 13 have voted in favor of the standard and 1 has voted negative. Discussions of the comments will be the focus of an international meeting in the end of January in Orlando, FL. We expect one additional ballot final approval ballot to be conducted prior to the standard being published.

While this draft is nearing publication, there is much work to be done as we add new features and enhancements to the standard. If you would like to be a part of this effort, please contact Betsy Fanning at bfanning@aiim.org.

PDF/Archive to meet in Berlin

Nine members of the US committee for PDF/Archive are on their way to an international working group meeting with colleagues from Japan, Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom and others. The committee will be discussing the next version of PDF/Archive which brings this important standard current to the PDF Reference 1.7 adding many capabilities to the archive file.

Prior to this meeting a working draft was circulated for comment which provided a number of comments for the committee to review and discuss at the meeting in Berlin. Parts 1 and 2 of the PDF/Archive standard deal with static documents, i.e., document content that does not change. Also at this meeting, the committee will begin discussions on Part 3 which will enable the archiving of dynamic documents, i.e., forms with drop down information.

The goal of this meeting is to gain approval from the meeting attendees to issue a committee ballot to gain the consensus of all the member countries.

US PDF Reference Committee

The US PDF Reference Committee held its first meeting in Washington, DC on July 16-17. For a first meeting, it was well attended with representatives from various government agencies, PDF developers, and end user organizations that are major users of PDF. Even though the attendance at the meeting was good, there were several notable vendors who were absent from the meeting.

It is important to note that with Adobe's release of the PDF specification to the industry, the industry now has the opportunity to specify the direction of the next version of PDF. So, if you ever wanted PDF to do something that it could not do, now is the time to share that information.

The committee reviewed the proposed ISO version of the PDF Reference 1.7 and began to identify features to be proposed to be included in the next version of the standard. The ISO version of PDF Reference 1.7 was reformatted to fit to the ISO template for ISO standards. This involved making non-technical changes to the writing style to conform with ISO format and to further ensure that the standard was vendor neutral and aligned with existing files and implementations.

The committee will be holding a conference call meeting on August 8 and in September to continue its discussions of comments that will form the US position on the ISO/DIS ballot for the standard. Those interested in participating on the US committee (you must have a home address in the US) are welcome to contact Betsy Fanning at bfanning@aiim.org for more information.

PDF Reference 1.7 - ISO Draft Standard

In late January 2007, Adobe Systems announced their intent to release the full Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.7 specification to ANSI and AIIM for the purpose of publishing it as an ISO standard. The specification is in the ISO fast-track process which means that the standard is submitted for vote as an enquiry draft or DIS which is a 5 month ballot. It qualifies for the fast-track process in that it is an established specification that has been submitted to ISO by the ANSI or the US which is a qualified P-member of ISO. The DIS ballot opened July 2 and will close December 2, 2007.

The US is forming a committee to represent the US interests at international meetings with regard to this standard. The first meeting of the committee will take place on Monday and Tuesday, July 16 and 17 in Silver Spring, Maryland. All interested parties are welcome to attend the meeting. For information on the agenda and the location of the meeting please visit http://www.aiim.org/standards.asp?ID=33223. Here you will find the agenda and the ability to download the draft standard as well as a change sheet that details the changes made to the document in the process of formatting it in the ISO format.

If you plan to attend the meeting, please let Ebony Dowtin at edowtin@aiim.org know that you will be attending the meeting or if you would like to be added to the listserv for this group.

A second meeting for the US committee is tentatively being scheduled for November 2007 in San Jose, California. The first International meeting will take place in January 2008 in the United States, most likely the Orlando, Florida area.

PDF/Archive

The US committee for PDF/A (PDF/Archive) will be meeting on Thursday, May 17 at the AIIM Headquarters in Silver Spring. The focus of this meeting will be on reviewing and producing comments for the PDF/A-2 which will become ISO 19005-2. ISO 19005-1 (PDF/A-1) was published in 2005 and is based on PDF Reference 1.4. This new version of PDF/A-2 will incorporate some new features that are in PDF Reference 1.7. This review process will produce comments on the new version of the standard which will be sent to ISO for the committee to discuss at its next international meeting which will be August 28-29 in Berlin, Germany.

Anyone who lives in the U.S. is welcome to participate on the US PDF/A committee and may attend the meeting this week. If you want to review the history of the PDF/A commtitee, you will find minutes from previous meetings at http://www.aiim.org/pdfa.