Wednesday, July 2,2008 @ 4:00pm
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.