apologies for any cross-posting
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Dear All,

An interesting initiative from two professional associations -Association for
Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies (NPES), and the
Association for  information and Image Management, International (AIIM
International)- to define a subset of PDF functionality for long term archiving
purpose.
This includes prohibition of encryption, proprietary compression methods,
external references to fonts and other files, buried executables and proprietary
fonts.
This will lead to a new standard and (PDF/A) and specification of tools. This
comes after the definition of an ISO standard for exchange in the publishing
community (PDF/X ISO 15930-1)

http://www.aiim.org/standards.asp?ID=25013

the press release :

"A new joint activity has been initiated between the Association for Suppliers
of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies (NPES), and the Association
for Information and Image Management, International (AIIM International) to
develop an international standard that defines the use of PDF for archiving and
preserving documents.

The project, currently referred to as PDF/A, will address the growing need to
electronically archive documents in a way that will ensure preservation of their
contents over an extended period of time, and will further ensure that those
documents will be able to be retrieved and rendered with a consistent and
predictable result in the future. This need exists in a growing number of
international government and industry segments, including legal systems,
libraries, newspapers, regulated industries, and others.

The work will address the use of PDF for multi-page documents that may contain a
mixture of text, raster images and vector graphics. It will also address the
features and requirements that must be supported by reading devices that will be
used to retrieve and render the archived documents.

This joint committee formed under AIIM and NPES will identify issues to be
addressed, as well as proposed solutions, and will develop a draft document that
will then be presented to a Joint Working Group of the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) for development and approval as an
International Standard.

Those with an interest in this work, or who are able to contribute technical
expertise, can register to participate on the committee at the Web site."

Julien Masanes



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Neil Beagrie                         JISC Digital Preservation Focus
Programme Director             Secretary, Digital Preservation Coalition
JISC London Office,              Tel/Fax/Voicemail :+44 (0)709 2048179
King's College London          email:       [log in to unmask]
Strand Bridge House            url:            www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/preservation/
138 - 142, The Strand,                          www.dpconline.org
London WC2R 1HH              email list:  www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/digital-preservation.html

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