PDF

File Format
Name	PDF
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Document PDF
Extension(s)	.pdf

PDF, portable document format, based on PostScript and originally from Adobe, has many subsets.

As well as the 'full function' ISO 32000-1:2008 (or PDF 1.7), there are also PDF/X, PDF/A, PDF/E, PDF/VT and PDF/UA, all of which are ISO specifications.

PDF profiles (formalized subsets) include the following:

• PDF/A (optimized for preservation)
  • PDF/A-1 (ISO 19005-1:2005)
  • PDF/A-2 (ISO 19005-2:2011)
  • PDF/A-3 (ISO 19005-3:2012) (extends PDF/A-2 by allowing embedded files of any type)
• PDF/E (ISO 24517-1:2008) (for engineering workflows)
• PDF/UA (ISO 14289-1) (making documents accessible through assistive technologies)
• PDF/VT (ISO 16612-2) (support for variable document printing)
• PDF/X (support for prepress graphics exchange)
  • PDF/X-1 (ISO 15930-1:2001)
  • PDF/X-1a (ISO 15930-4:2003)
  • PDF/X-2 (ISO 15930-5:2003)
  • PDF/X-3 (ISO 15930-6:2003)
• Tagged PDF

Also see: extension PDF

References

• Portable Document Format (Wikipedia)
• PDF/A Competence Center
• The Network is the Format: PDF and the Long-term Use of Digital Content Article by Sheila Morrissey of ITHAKA on the challenges of preserving PDF files based on experience. She illustrates the challenge of defining a "sufficient sub-graph of the network of information about a digital object, for effective future use."