Standards | PDF-AKTUELL

The first PDF specification
was published 25 years ago

11. July 20181. July 2018 by Stephan Jaeggi

Twentyfive years ago, on July 1st, 1993, Addison Wesley has published the first Portable Document Format Reference Manual:

Initially the specification was only available as a printed book which had to be purchased. Much later the spec was made available as a free PDF version!

John Warnock, one of the Adobe founders, had described the basics of PDF already in his «Camelot» white paper. Then the new data format was called Interchange PostScript (IPS) and was meant to facilitate the paperless office.

My Keynote on 25 years of PDF
at PDF Days Europe 2018

4. July 20181. July 2018 by Stephan Jaeggi

I had the honor to open the PDF Days Europe 2018 conference with a keynote introduction on 25 years of PDF:

I have slightly changed the title to 27 years of PDF since I am involved with this data format already since 1991.

First advertising video
for Acrobat and PDF

2. July 20181. July 2018 by Stephan Jaeggi

25 years ago this first video spot for Acrobat and PDF was produced:

The video clearly shows the intention of Adobe to change office communication with Acrobat and PDF.

This legendary video is very well done and extremely funny. It’s worth viewing this historical document (6’20”). Enjoy… 🙂 😀 😆

10 years ISO 32000

10. July 20181. July 2018 by Stephan Jaeggi

In July 2008 ISO has published their first PDF standard as ISO 32000-1:2008. The specification can also be downloaded for free from Adobe. The standard is based on the PDF specification 1.7 from Adobe published in November 2006.

Adobe had transferred the PDF specification to the ISO in 2007. One of reasons was the fight between Adobe and Microsoft about the future standards for electronic documents. Microsoft had proposed their XML based document formats used in Microsoft Office for ISO standards.

Ghent Workgroup (GWG)
celebrates 25 years of PDF

4. July 201825. June 2018 by Stephan Jaeggi

During their spring meeting the Ghent Workgroup (GWG) has celebrated on June 15th the 25th anniversary of Acrobat and PDF. The press release contains a review of the last 25 years and the role of GWG is acknowledged.

In addition short video statements of over a dozen GWG members were collected (below).

I have also contributed a one minute video: