In January of this year, Adobe submitted the Portable Document Format to the International Standards Organization. Now, the request for approval has been granted, and PDF 1.7 will become a worldwide standard, garnering the number ISO 32000.

- the smaller company succeeds where the giant one did not!

The format powered its way through the voting process, being approved by a vote of 13-1-1, with Russia abstaining and France against. (What’s up with the French this time?) This is not the absolute final vote, but the final acceptance is assured.

The comments made by various members must be addressed, and after all concerns are taken into consideration, the standard will gain its worldwide use.

This is both good news and bad for Adobe. It will have the only fully 1.7 compatible programs, but since the standard will be full public, others who wish to compete will be able to do so, on a flat playing field. Also, once ratified fully, ISO, and not Adobe, will retain the rights to change any specifications to the standard.

Will we all need one of these soon?

Once again, the foray into acceptance was undertaken by Adobe because of the Redmond giant, due to the looming XPS format being touted by Microsoft.

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[tags] Adobe, PDF format, ISO, ISO32000, Acrobat Reader, Acrobat 8, PDF 1.7, Microsoft, XPS [/tags]

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