macnn
07/02/2008, 4:00pm, EDT
Wednesday, July 2nd
PDF gains ISO standard certification
The PDF format has officially been granted ISO certification, the latter organization has announced. Although its original creator and main proponent, Adobe has handed control of the format over to ISO, which is now in charge of both publishing the specifications for PDF 1.7 and updating and developing later versions. The transfer may be most significant for third-party developers, who will have open access to PDF, making it easier to support in graphic and word processing apps.
This could in turn pose a threat to Microsoft, which has been promoting its younger XPS format as an alternative. Aside from losing general popularity, the company could be forced to include PDF tools within Windows and Office, leaving no incentive to try XPS.
Filed under: industry, developer, Graphics/Web Design
Other story tags: Microsoft, Adobe, PDF, XPS
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Formats
I understand MS's propensity to promote their own formats, but I think in the case of PDF they have long resisted and done a disservice to users by not adopting it in its OS like Apple did with OS X. I don't want to spark a debate, but can anyone elaborate on MS history against the PDF format?
Re: formats
Sorry, but that's not MS's fault. Even when they created their own useless format (XPS), they were hit hard by Adobe whining about how they were stealing their business model of overpriced PDF generation.
(OK, actually MS is at fault for abusing their monopoly, which causes anything like this to cause them to get sued or complaints filed against them).
And remember that Apple 'adopted' it only because they couldn't get Adobe to license them PostScript, which Next's graphics layer was all based on. So they basically said "Screw it, we'll go with the free and open standard format"
Fill in any PDF coming?
I have been wondering if this means that we'll finally be able to get an editor that lets you fill in any PDF. I'm so tired of getting forms that I either have to print out or tediously (page by page) import into photoshop or OG to do a horrible job of typing over.
I assume that the fact that all PDF capable editors seem to respect the locking nonsense is a result of licensing of the PDF libs from Adobe... So I would then further assume that an open PDF standard would mean that we can finally do whatever we want with our own data?
- Pat