Adobe and industry standards

From PostScript® to Adobe® PDF, Adobe has a tradition of establishing, supporting, and promoting standards. That tradition continues with our commitment to building technology solutions that embrace industry standards and meet customer requirements.

Adobe is an active member of key standards bodies, working groups, and industry associations that develop standards — including XML-based industry standards. We contribute ongoing resources and publish, review, and share technology.

Adobe's best-known standard is PDF, a fine example of innovation through standards. PDF is everywhere. It is a published specification that has become the de facto worldwide standard for the reliable distribution and exchange of electronic documents.

As of January 2007, Adobe has been working with an ISO Technical Committee to submit PDF 1.7 to ISO for approval as a formal, open standard, named ISO 32000. ISO 32000 will be maintained and further developed by this technical committee with the objective of protecting the integrity and longevity of PDF. This will provide a formal, open standard for the more than 1 billion PDF files in existence today. Adobe supports, or will support, specific PDF versions that have been defined as open standards.

• PDF/X for printing, an ISO standard (PDF, 59K)
• PDF/A for archiving, an ISO standard

Innovating further, Adobe developed the Intelligent Document Platform. Based on PDF and XML technologies, it helps enterprise organizations convert static documents to Intelligent Documents, then integrate them with existing business processes.