AIIM (The Enterprise Content Management Association) and NPES (The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies) today announced that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has approved the proposed PDF/Archive (PDF/A) standard. PDF/A enables organizations to archive documents electronically in a way that will ensure preservation of that content over an extended period of time. In addition, those documents can be retrieved and rendered with a consistent and predictable result in the future.
"PDF/A files will be more self-contained, self-describing, device-independent than generic PDF 1.4 files, and should allow information to be retained longer as PDF," said Susan Sullivan of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. "But, Federal agencies and other users should be aware that PDF/A does not stand alone. PDF/A must be implemented in conjunction with mechanisms to manage records according to legal and domain specific requirements."
"We began work in May 2002 with the U.S. Courts and U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, and then moved to create a formal standards working group in October 2002," said Melonie Warfel, director of worldwide standards at Adobe Systems. "The quick time to publication is a direct result of the strong commitment of all the participating members, from the U.S. Courts and the Library of Congress to our project leader from Harvard University, and representatives of national standards bodies around the world."
OK, so you want to stamp your document. Maybe you need to give reviewers some advice about the document's status or sensitivity. This tip from author Ted Padova demonstrates how to add stamps with the Stamp Tool along with related comments.