Adobe wins backing for PDF 1.7

Global technology giant Adobe Systems recently announced that it has received support from the international community to work on the 1.7 version of the Portable Document Format (PDF) standard.

The support that Adobe is enjoying means that the company’s PDF 1.7 product will be developed in accordance to ISO 320000 standards. The ISO panel assembled to discuss this digital preservation format voted overwhelmingly in favor of Adobe.

The 14 votes collected from the ISO panel made very clear that its members wish to make PDF 1.7 a digital standard. Representatives from nine countries gave their votes to Adobe unequivocally and without leaving a comment. The remaining five nations also voted in favor of Adobe, but they attached comments to their votes.

A single vote was entered against PDF 1.7; that negative vote came from France. One nation abstained from voting; Russia.

The majority of the comments provided by the panel came from the United States, followed by France, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Of the 205 comments made by the panel, 13 were added by representatives from the UK. In addition to voting against Adobe, France also added 37 comments, almost double the 19 comments made by Switzerland. The rest of the 125 comments were all submitted by the U.S.

On the issue of who should serve as technical director in this process, the members of the United States committee nominated Adobe’s own Jame C King. After this nomination, Mr. King posted an update to the Inside PDF blog maintained by Adobe, and he mentioned his intention of preparing responses to all comments so that they could be discussed during the next scheduled meeting of the International Working Group.

Mr. King added that he hoped that all the comments, particularly those that were issued along with negative votes, could be addressed so that a revised document could be published. Should there be difficulties in coming up with a resolution, a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) process could be entered, and a new voting round would be necessary, albeit without comments.

The main goal of the meeting is to finalize the ISO 32000 documents. For his part, Mr. King stated that he was not surprised by the high number of comments added by the U.S. committee; after all, wtote Mr. King, a few committee members are from Adobe.