PDF

Portable Document Format (PDF),

Portable Document Format
standardized as ISO 32000, is a file
format developed by Adobe in 1992 to
present documents, including text
formatting and images, in a manner
independent of application software,
hardware, and operating systems.[2][3]
Based on the PostScript language, each
PDF file encapsulates a complete
description of a fixed-layout flat Adobe PDF icon
document, including the text, fonts, vector Filename .pdf
graphics, raster images and other extension
information needed to display it. PDF has Internet application/pdf,[1]
its roots in "The Camelot Project" initiated media type
application/x-pdf
by Adobe co-founder John Warnock in application/x-bzpdf
1991.[4] PDF was standardized as ISO application/x-gzpdf

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 32000 in 2008.[5] The last edition as ISO Type code PDF [1] (including a single
32000-2:2020 was published in trailing space)
December 2020. Uniform Type com.adobe.pdf
Identifier (UTI)
PDF files may contain a variety of content Magic number %PDF
besides flat text and graphics including Developed by Adobe Inc. (1991–2008)
logical structuring elements, interactive ISO (2008–)
elements such as annotations and form- Initial release June 15, 1993
fields, layers, rich media (including video
Latest release 2.0
content), three-dimensional objects using
Extended to PDF/A, PDF/E, PDF/UA,
U3D or PRC, and various other data
PDF/VT, PDF/X
formats. The PDF specification also
provides for encryption and digital Standard ISO 32000-2
signatures, file attachments, and metadata Open format? Yes
to enable workflows requiring these Website iso.org/standard/75839.html (
features. https://iso.org/standard/7583
9.html)

History
The development of PDF began in 1991 when John Warnock wrote a paper for a project
then code-named Camelot, in which he proposed the creation of a simplified version of
PostScript called Interchange PostScript (IPS).[6] Unlike traditional PostScript, which
was tightly focused on rendering print jobs to output devices, IPS would be optimized
for displaying pages to any screen and any platform.[6]

Adobe Systems made the PDF specification available free of charge in 1993. In the early
years PDF was popular mainly in desktop publishing workflows, and competed with
several other formats, including DjVu, Envoy, Common Ground Digital Paper, Farallon
Replica and even Adobe's own PostScript format.

PDF was a proprietary format controlled by Adobe until it was released as an open
standard on July 1, 2008, and published by the International Organization for
Standardization as ISO 32000-1:2008,[7][8] at which time control of the specification
passed to an ISO Committee of volunteer industry experts. In 2008, Adobe published a
Public Patent License to ISO 32000-1 granting royalty-free rights for all patents owned
by Adobe necessary to make, use, sell, and distribute PDF-compliant implementations.
[9]

PDF 1.7, the sixth edition of the PDF specification that became ISO 32000-1, includes
some proprietary technologies defined only by Adobe, such as Adobe XML Forms
Architecture (XFA) and JavaScript extension for Acrobat, which are referenced by ISO

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 32000-1 as normative and indispensable for the full implementation of the ISO 32000-1
specification.[10] These proprietary technologies are not standardized, and their
specification is published only on Adobe's website.[11][12][13] Many of them are not
supported by popular third-party implementations of PDF.
December 14th, 10:03 AM: “Wikipedia still can't be sold.” - An important upda
ISO published version 2.0 of PDF, ISO 32000-2 in 2017, available for purchase,
readers in Germany.
replacing the free specification provided by Adobe.[14] In December 2020, the second
edition of PDFis2.0,
Today theISO
day.32000-2:2020, was published,
We're sorry to interrupt, with
but it's clarifications,
Saturday, Decembercorrections,
14th, and this m
and critical updates to normative references [15] (ISO 32000-2 does not include any
will be up for only a few hours.
proprietary technologies as normative references). [16] In April 2023 the PDF
Association made ISO 32000-2 available for download free of charge.[14]

Technical details
Only 18 days left €7.6M

A PDF file is often a combination of vector graphics, text, and bitmap graphics. The
Donation
basic typesaccount: Wikimedia
of content e. V. are:
in a PDF BIC: BFSWDE33XXX IBAN: DE09370205000003287300
DE09 3702 0500 0003 2873 00

Typeset text stored as content streams (i.e., not encoded in plain text);
Vector graphics for illustrations and designs that consist of shapes and lines;
Raster graphics for photographs and other types of images; and
Other multimedia objects.
In later PDF revisions, a PDF document can also support links (inside document or web
page), forms, JavaScript (initially available as a plugin for Acrobat 3.0), or any other
types of embedded contents that can be handled using plug-ins.

PDF combines three technologies:

An equivalent subset of the PostScript page description programming language but

in declarative form, for generating the layout and graphics.
A font-embedding/replacement system to allow fonts to travel with the documents.
A structured storage system to bundle these elements and any associated content
into a single file, with data compression where appropriate.

PostScript language
PostScript is a page description language run in an interpreter to generate an image.[6]
It can handle graphics and has standard features of programming languages such as
branching and looping.[6] PDF is a subset of PostScript, simplified to remove such
control flow features, while graphics commands remain.[6]

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 PostScript was originally designed for a drastically different use case: transmission of
one-way linear print jobs in which the PostScript interpreter would collect a series of
commands until it encountered the showpage command, then execute all the
commands to render a page as a raster image to a printing device.[17] PostScript was not
intended for long-term storage and real-time interactive rendering of electronic
documents to computer monitors, so there was no need to support anything other than
consecutive rendering of pages.[17] If there was an error in the final printed output, the
user would correct it at the application level and send a new print job in the form of an
entirely new PostScript file. Thus, any given page in a PostScript file could be accurately
rendered only as the cumulative result of executing all preceding commands to draw all
previous pages—any of which could affect subsequent pages—plus the commands to
draw that particular page, and there was no easy way to bypass that process to skip
around to different pages.[17]

Traditionally, to go from PostScript to PDF, a source PostScript file (that is, an

executable program) is used as the basis for generating PostScript-like PDF code (see,
e.g., Adobe Distiller). This is done by applying standard compiler techniques like loop
unrolling, inlining and removing unused branches, resulting in code that is purely
declarative and static.[17] The end result is then packaged into a container format,
together with all necessary dependencies for correct rendering (external files, graphics,
or fonts to which the document refers), and compressed. Modern applications write to
printer drivers that directly generate PDF rather than going through PostScript first.

As a document format, PDF has several advantages over PostScript:

PDF contains only static declarative PostScript code that can be processed as data,
and does not require a full program interpreter or compiler.[17] This avoids the
complexity and security risks of an engine with such a higher complexity level.
Like Display PostScript, PDF has supported transparent graphics since version 1.4,
while standard PostScript does not.
PDF enforces the rule that the code for any particular page cannot affect any other
pages.[17] That rule is strongly recommended for PostScript code too, but has to be
implemented explicitly (see, e.g., the Document Structuring Conventions), as
PostScript is a full programming language that allows for such greater flexibilities
and is not limited to the concepts of pages and documents.
All data required for rendering is included within the file itself, improving portability.
[18]

Its disadvantages are:

A loss of flexibility, and limitation to a single use case.

A (sometimes much) larger file size.[19]

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 PDF since v1.6 supports embedding of interactive 3D documents: 3D drawings can be
embedded using U3D or PRC and various other data formats.[20][21][22]

File format
A PDF file is organized using ASCII characters, except for certain elements that may
have binary content. The file starts with a header containing a magic number (as a
readable string) and the version of the format, for example %PDF-1.7. The format is a
subset of a COS ("Carousel" Object Structure) format.[23] A COS tree file consists
primarily of objects, of which there are nine types:[16]

Boolean values, representing true or false

Real numbers
Integers
Strings, enclosed within parentheses ((...)) or represented as hexadecimal within
single angle brackets (<...>). Strings may contain 8-bit characters.
Names, starting with a forward slash (/)
Arrays, ordered collections of objects enclosed within square brackets ([...])
Dictionaries, collections of objects indexed by names enclosed within double angle
brackets (<<...>>)
Streams, usually containing large amounts of optionally compressed binary data,
preceded by a dictionary and enclosed between the stream and endstream
keywords.
The null object
Comments using 8-bit characters prefixed with the percent sign (%) may be inserted.

Objects may be either direct (embedded in another object) or indirect. Indirect objects
are numbered with an object number and a generation number and defined between
the obj and endobj keywords if residing in the document root. Beginning with PDF
version 1.5, indirect objects (except other streams) may also be located in special
streams known as object streams (marked /Type /ObjStm). This technique enables
non-stream objects to have standard stream filters applied to them, reduces the size of
files that have large numbers of small indirect objects and is especially useful for Tagged
PDF. Object streams do not support specifying an object's generation number (other
than 0).

An index table, also called the cross-reference table, is located near the end of the file
and gives the byte offset of each indirect object from the start of the file.[24] This design
allows for efficient random access to the objects in the file, and also allows for small
changes to be made without rewriting the entire file (incremental update). Before PDF

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 version 1.5, the table would always be in a special ASCII format, be marked with the
xref keyword, and follow the main body composed of indirect objects. Version 1.5
introduced optional cross-reference streams, which have the form of a standard stream
object, possibly with filters applied. Such a stream may be used instead of the ASCII
cross-reference table and contains the offsets and other information in binary format.
The format is flexible in that it allows for integer width specification (using the /W
array), so that for example, a document not exceeding 64 KiB in size may dedicate only 2
bytes for object offsets.

At the end of a PDF file is a footer containing

The startxref keyword followed by an offset to the start of the cross-reference

table (starting with the xref keyword) or the cross-reference stream object, followed
by
The %%EOF end-of-file marker.
If a cross-reference stream is not being used, the footer is preceded by the trailer
keyword followed by a dictionary containing information that would otherwise be
contained in the cross-reference stream object's dictionary:

A reference to the root object of the tree structure, also known as the catalog
(/Root)
The count of indirect objects in the cross-reference table (/Size)
Other optional information
Within each page, there are one or multiple content streams that describe the text,
vector and images being drawn on the page. The content stream is stack-based, similar
to PostScript.[25]

There are two layouts to the PDF files: non-

linearized (not "optimized") and linearized
("optimized"). Non-linearized PDF files can be
smaller than their linear counterparts, though they
are slower to access because portions of the data
required to assemble pages of the document are
scattered throughout the PDF file. Linearized PDF
files (also called "optimized" or "web optimized"
PDF files) are constructed in a manner that enables
them to be read in a Web browser plugin without The maximum size of an Acrobat
waiting for the entire file to download, since all PDF page, superimposed on a map
objects required for the first page to display are of Europe.
optimally organized at the start of the file.[26] PDF
files may be optimized using Adobe Acrobat software or QPDF.

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 Page dimensions are not limited by the format itself. However, Adobe Acrobat imposes a
limit of 15 million by 15 million inches, or 225 trillion in2 (145,161 km2).[2]: 1129

Imaging model
The basic design of how graphics are represented in PDF is very similar to that of
PostScript, except for the use of transparency, which was added in PDF 1.4.

PDF graphics use a device-independent Cartesian coordinate system to describe the

surface of a page. A PDF page description can use a matrix to scale, rotate, or skew
graphical elements. A key concept in PDF is that of the graphics state, which is a
collection of graphical parameters that may be changed, saved, and restored by a page
description. PDF has (as of version 2.0) 25 graphics state properties, of which some of
the most important are:

The current transformation matrix (CTM), which determines the coordinate system
The clipping path
The color space
The alpha constant, which is a key component of transparency
Black point compensation control (introduced in PDF 2.0)

Vector graphics
As in PostScript, vector graphics in PDF are constructed with paths. Paths are usually
composed of lines and cubic Bézier curves, but can also be constructed from the outlines
of text. Unlike PostScript, PDF does not allow a single path to mix text outlines with
lines and curves. Paths can be stroked, filled, fill then stroked, or used for clipping.
Strokes and fills can use any color set in the graphics state, including patterns. PDF
supports several types of patterns. The simplest is the tiling pattern in which a piece of
artwork is specified to be drawn repeatedly. This may be a colored tiling pattern, with
the colors specified in the pattern object, or an uncolored tiling pattern, which defers
color specification to the time the pattern is drawn. Beginning with PDF 1.3 there is also
a shading pattern, which draws continuously varying colors. There are seven types of
shading patterns of which the simplest are the axial shading (Type 2) and radial
shading (Type 3).

Raster images

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 Raster images in PDF (called Image XObjects) are represented by dictionaries with an
associated stream. The dictionary describes the properties of the image, and the stream
contains the image data. (Less commonly, small raster images may be embedded
directly in a page description as an inline image.) Images are typically filtered for
compression purposes. Image filters supported in PDF include the following general-
purpose filters:

ASCII85Decode, a filter used to put the stream into 7-bit ASCII,

ASCIIHexDecode, similar to ASCII85Decode but less compact,
FlateDecode, a commonly used filter based on the deflate algorithm defined in
RFC 1951 (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1951) (deflate is also used in the
gzip, PNG, and zip file formats among others); introduced in PDF 1.2; it can use one
of two groups of predictor functions for more compact zlib/deflate compression:
Predictor 2 from the TIFF 6.0 specification and predictors (filters) from the PNG
specification (RFC 2083 (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2083)),
LZWDecode, a filter based on LZW Compression; it can use one of two groups of
predictor functions for more compact LZW compression: Predictor 2 from the TIFF
6.0 specification and predictors (filters) from the PNG specification,
RunLengthDecode, a simple compression method for streams with repetitive data
using the run-length encoding algorithm and the image-specific filters,
DCTDecode, a lossy filter based on the JPEG standard,
CCITTFaxDecode, a lossless bi-level (black/white) filter based on the Group 3 or
Group 4 CCITT (ITU-T) fax compression standard defined in ITU-T T.4 and T.6,
JBIG2Decode, a lossy or lossless bi-level (black/white) filter based on the JBIG2
standard, introduced in PDF 1.4, and
JPXDecode, a lossy or lossless filter based on the JPEG 2000 standard, introduced
in PDF 1.5.
Normally all image content in a PDF is embedded in the file. But PDF allows image data
to be stored in external files by the use of external streams or Alternate Images.
Standardized subsets of PDF, including PDF/A and PDF/X, prohibit these features.

Text
Text in PDF is represented by text elements in page content streams. A text element
specifies that characters should be drawn at certain positions. The characters are
specified using the encoding of a selected font resource.

A font object in PDF is a description of a digital typeface. It may either describe the
characteristics of a typeface, or it may include an embedded font file. The latter case is
called an embedded font while the former is called an unembedded font. The font files
that may be embedded are based on widely used standard digital font formats: Type 1

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 (and its compressed variant CFF), TrueType, and (beginning with PDF 1.6) OpenType.
Additionally PDF supports the Type 3 variant in which the components of the font are
described by PDF graphic operators.

Fourteen typefaces, known as the standard 14 fonts, have a special significance in PDF
documents:

Times (v3) (in regular, italic, bold, and bold italic)

Courier (in regular, oblique, bold and bold oblique)
Helvetica (v3) (in regular, oblique, bold and bold oblique)
Symbol
Zapf Dingbats
These fonts are sometimes called the base fourteen fonts.[27] These fonts, or suitable
substitute fonts with the same metrics, should be available in most PDF readers, but
they are not guaranteed to be available in the reader, and may only display correctly if
the system has them installed.[28] Fonts may be substituted if they are not embedded in
a PDF.

Within text strings, characters are shown using character codes (integers) that map to
glyphs in the current font using an encoding. There are several predefined encodings,
including WinAnsi, MacRoman, and many encodings for East Asian languages and a
font can have its own built-in encoding. (Although the WinAnsi and MacRoman
encodings are derived from the historical properties of the Windows and Macintosh
operating systems, fonts using these encodings work equally well on any platform.) PDF
can specify a predefined encoding to use, the font's built-in encoding or provide a
lookup table of differences to a predefined or built-in encoding (not recommended with
TrueType fonts).[2] The encoding mechanisms in PDF were designed for Type 1 fonts,
and the rules for applying them to TrueType fonts are complex.

For large fonts or fonts with non-standard glyphs, the special encodings Identity-H (for
horizontal writing) and Identity-V (for vertical) are used. With such fonts, it is necessary
to provide a ToUnicode table if semantic information about the characters is to be
preserved.

A text document which is scanned to PDF without the text being recognised by optical
character recognition (OCR) is an image, with no fonts or text properties.

Transparency
The original imaging model of PDF was opaque, similar to PostScript, where each object
drawn on the page completely replaced anything previously marked in the same
location. In PDF 1.4 the imaging model was extended to allow transparency. When

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 transparency is used, new objects interact with previously marked objects to produce
blending effects. The addition of transparency to PDF was done by means of new
extensions that were designed to be ignored in products written to PDF 1.3 and earlier
specifications. As a result, files that use a small amount of transparency might be viewed
acceptably by older viewers, but files making extensive use of transparency could be
viewed incorrectly by an older viewer.

The transparency extensions are based on the key concepts of transparency groups,
blending modes, shape, and alpha. The model is closely aligned with the features of
Adobe Illustrator version 9. The blend modes were based on those used by Adobe
Photoshop at the time. When the PDF 1.4 specification was published, the formulas for
calculating blend modes were kept secret by Adobe. They have since been published.[29]

The concept of a transparency group in PDF specification is independent of existing

notions of "group" or "layer" in applications such as Adobe Illustrator. Those groupings
reflect logical relationships among objects that are meaningful when editing those
objects, but they are not part of the imaging model.

Additional features

Logical structure and accessibility

A tagged PDF (see clause 14.8 in ISO 32000) includes document structure and
semantics information to enable reliable text extraction and accessibility.[30] Technically
speaking, tagged PDF is a stylized use of the format that builds on the logical structure
framework introduced in PDF 1.3. Tagged PDF defines a set of standard structure types
and attributes that allow page content (text, graphics, and images) to be extracted and
reused for other purposes.[31]

Tagged PDF is not required in situations where a PDF file is intended only for print.
Since the feature is optional, and since the rules for tagged PDF were relatively vague in
ISO 32000-1, support for tagged PDF among consuming devices, including assistive
technology (AT), is uneven as of 2021.[32] ISO 32000-2, however, includes an improved
discussion of tagged PDF which is anticipated to facilitate further adoption.

An ISO-standardized subset of PDF specifically targeted at accessibility, PDF/UA, was

first published in 2012.

Optional Content Groups (layers)

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 With the introduction of PDF version 1.5 (2003) came the concept of Layers. Layers,
more formally known as Optional Content Groups (OCGs), refer to sections of content in
a PDF document that can be selectively viewed or hidden by document authors or
viewers. This capability is useful in CAD drawings, layered artwork, maps, multi-
language documents, etc.

Basically, it consists of an Optional Content Properties Dictionary added to the

document root. This dictionary contains an array of Optional Content Groups (OCGs),
each describing a set of information and each of which may be individually displayed or
suppressed, plus a set of Optional Content Configuration Dictionaries, which give the
status (Displayed or Suppressed) of the given OCGs.

Encryption and signatures

A PDF file may be encrypted, for security, in which case a password is needed to view or
edit the contents. PDF 2.0 defines 256-bit AES encryption as the standard for PDF 2.0
files. The PDF Reference also defines ways that third parties can define their own
encryption systems for PDF.

PDF files may be digitally signed, to provide secure authentication; complete details on
implementing digital signatures in PDF are provided in ISO 32000-2.

PDF files may also contain embedded DRM restrictions that provide further controls
that limit copying, editing, or printing. These restrictions depend on the reader software
to obey them, so the security they provide is limited.

The standard security provided by PDF consists of two different methods and two
different passwords: a user password, which encrypts the file and prevents opening,
and an owner password, which specifies operations that should be restricted even when
the document is decrypted, which can include modifying, printing, or copying text and
graphics out of the document, or adding or modifying text notes and AcroForm fields.
The user password encrypts the file, while the owner password does not, instead relying
on client software to respect these restrictions. An owner password can easily be
removed by software, including some free online services.[33] Thus, the use restrictions
that a document author places on a PDF document are not secure, and cannot be
assured once the file is distributed; this warning is displayed when applying such
restrictions using Adobe Acrobat software to create or edit PDF files.

Even without removing the password, most freeware or open source PDF readers ignore
the permission "protections" and allow the user to print or make copy of excerpts of the
text as if the document were not limited by password protection.[34][35][36]

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 Beginning with PDF 1.5, Usage rights (UR) signatures are used to enable additional
interactive features that are not available by default in a particular PDF viewer
application. The signature is used to validate that the permissions have been granted by
a bona fide granting authority. For example, it can be used to allow a user:[37]

To save the PDF document along with a modified form or annotation data
Import form data files in FDF, XFDF, and text (CSV/TSV) formats
Export form data files in FDF and XFDF formats
Submit form data
Instantiate new pages from named page templates
Apply a digital signature to existing digital signature form field
Create, delete, modify, copy, import, and export annotations
For example, Adobe Systems grants permissions to enable additional features in Adobe
Reader, using public-key cryptography. Adobe Reader verifies that the signature uses a
certificate from an Adobe-authorized certificate authority. Any PDF application can use
this same mechanism for its own purposes.[37]

Under specific circumstances including non-patched systems of the receiver, the

information the receiver of a digital signed document sees can be manipulated by the
sender after the document has been signed by the signer.[38]

PAdES (PDF Advanced Electronic Signatures) is a set of restrictions and extensions to

PDF and ISO 32000-1[39] making it suitable for advanced electronic signatures. This is
published by ETSI as TS 102 778.[40]

File attachments
PDF files can have file attachments which processors may access and open or save to a
local filesystem.[41]

Metadata
PDF files can contain two types of metadata.[2] The first is the Document Information
Dictionary, a set of key/value fields such as author, title, subject, creation and update
dates. This is optional and is referenced from an Info key in the trailer of the file. A
small set of fields is defined and can be extended with additional text values if required.
This method is deprecated in PDF 2.0.

In PDF 1.4, support was added for Metadata Streams, using the Extensible Metadata
Platform (XMP) to add XML standards-based extensible metadata as used in other file
formats. PDF 2.0 allows metadata to be attached to any object in the document, such as

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 information about embedded illustrations, fonts, and images, as well as the whole
document (attaching to the document catalog), using an extensible schema.

PDF documents can also contain display settings, including the page display layout and
zoom level in a Viewer Preferences object. Adobe Reader uses these settings to override
the user's default settings when opening the document.[42] The free Adobe Reader
cannot remove these settings.

Accessibility
PDF files can be created specifically to be accessible to people with disabilities.[43][44]
[45][46][47] PDF file formats in use as of 2014 can include tags, text equivalents, captions,

audio descriptions, and more. Some software can automatically produce tagged PDFs,
but this feature is not always enabled by default.[48][49] Leading screen readers,
including JAWS, Window-Eyes, Hal, and Kurzweil 1000 and 3000 can read tagged
PDFs.[50][51] Moreover, tagged PDFs can be re-flowed and magnified for readers with
visual impairments. Adding tags to older PDFs and those that are generated from
scanned documents can present some challenges.

One of the significant challenges with PDF accessibility is that PDF documents have
three distinct views, which, depending on the document's creation, can be inconsistent
with each other. The three views are (i) the physical view, (ii) the tags view, and (iii) the
content view. The physical view is displayed and printed (what most people consider a
PDF document). The tags view is what screen readers and other assistive technologies
use to deliver high-quality navigation and reading experience to users with disabilities.
The content view is based on the physical order of objects within the PDF's content
stream and may be displayed by software that does not fully support the tags' view, such
as the Reflow feature in Adobe's Reader.

PDF/UA, the International Standard for accessible PDF based on ISO 32000-1 was first
published as ISO 14289–1 in 2012 and establishes normative language for accessible
PDF technology.

Multimedia
Rich Media PDF is a PDF file including interactive content that can be embedded or
linked within the file. It can contain images, audio, video content, or buttons. For
example, if the interactive PDF is a digital catalog for an E-commerce business, products
can be listed on the PDF pages and can be added with images and links to the website
and buttons to order directly from the document.

Forms

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 Interactive Forms is a mechanism to add forms to the PDF file format. PDF currently
supports two different methods for integrating data and PDF forms. Both formats today
coexist in the PDF specification:[37][52][53][54]

AcroForms (also known as Acrobat forms), introduced in the PDF 1.2 format
specification and included in all later PDF specifications.
XML Forms Architecture (XFA) forms, introduced in the PDF 1.5 format
specification. Adobe XFA Forms are not compatible with AcroForms.[55] XFA was
deprecated from PDF with PDF 2.0.
AcroForms were introduced in the PDF 1.2 format. AcroForms permit the uses of
objects (e.g. text boxes, Radio buttons, etc.) and some code (e.g. JavaScript). Alongside
the standard PDF action types, interactive forms (AcroForms) support submitting,
resetting, and importing data. The "submit" action transmits the names and values of
selected interactive form fields to a specified uniform resource locator (URL).
Interactive form field names and values may be submitted in any of the following
formats, (depending on the settings of the action's ExportFormat, SubmitPDF, and
XFDF flags):[37]

HTML Form format

HTML 4.01 Specification since PDF 1.5; HTML 2.0 since 1.2
Forms Data Format (FDF)
based on PDF, uses the same syntax and has essentially the same file structure,
but is much simpler than PDF since the body of an FDF document consists of only
one required object. Forms Data Format is defined in the PDF specification (since
PDF 1.2). The Forms Data Format can be used when submitting form data to a
server, receiving the response, and incorporating it into the interactive form. It can
also be used to export form data to stand-alone files that can be imported back
into the corresponding PDF interactive form. FDF was originally defined in 1996
as part of ISO 32000-2:2017.
XML Forms Data Format (XFDF)
(external XML Forms Data Format Specification, Version 2.0; supported since
PDF 1.5; it replaced the "XML" form submission format defined in PDF 1.4) the
XML version of Forms Data Format, but the XFDF implements only a subset of
FDF containing forms and annotations. Some entries in the FDF dictionary do not
have XFDF equivalents – such as the Status, Encoding, JavaScript, Page's keys,
EmbeddedFDFs, Differences, and Target. In addition, XFDF does not allow the
spawning, or addition, of new pages based on the given data; as can be done
when using an FDF file. The XFDF specification is referenced (but not included) in
PDF 1.5 specification (and in later versions). It is described separately in XML
Forms Data Format Specification.[56] The PDF 1.4 specification allowed form
submissions in XML format, but this was replaced by submissions in XFDF format
in the PDF 1.5 specification. XFDF conforms to the XML standard. XFDF can be
used in the same way as FDF; e.g., form data is submitted to a server,

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 modifications are made, then sent back and the new form data is imported in an
interactive form. It can also be used to export form data to stand-alone files that
can be imported back into the corresponding PDF interactive form. As of August
2019, XFDF 3.0 is an ISO/IEC standard under the formal name ISO 19444-1:2019
- Document management — XML Forms Data Format — Part 1: Use of ISO
32000-2 (XFDF 3.0).[57] This standard is a normative reference of ISO 32000-2.
PDF

The entire document can be submitted rather than individual fields and values, as was
defined in PDF 1.4.

AcroForms can keep form field values in external stand-alone files containing key-value
pairs. The external files may use Forms Data Format (FDF) and XML Forms Data
Format (XFDF) files.[58][56][59] The usage rights (UR) signatures define rights for
import form data files in FDF, XFDF, and text (CSV/TSV) formats, and export form data
files in FDF and XFDF formats.[37]

In PDF 1.5, Adobe Systems introduced a proprietary format for forms; Adobe XML
Forms Architecture (XFA). Adobe XFA Forms are not compatible with ISO 32000's
AcroForms feature, and most PDF processors do not handle XFA content. The XFA
specification is referenced from ISO 32000-1/PDF 1.7 as an external proprietary
specification and was entirely deprecated from PDF with ISO 32000-2 (PDF 2.0).

Licensing
Anyone may create applications that can read and write PDF files without having to pay
royalties to Adobe Systems; Adobe holds patents to PDF, but licenses them for royalty-
free use in developing software complying with its PDF specification.[60]

Security

Changes to content
In November 2019, researchers from Ruhr University Bochum and Hackmanit GmbH
published attacks on digitally signed PDFs.[61] They showed how to change the visible
content in a signed PDF without invalidating the signature in 21 of 22 desktop PDF
viewers and 6 of 8 online validation services by abusing implementation flaws. At the
same conference, they additionally showed how to exfiltrate the plaintext of encrypted
content in PDFs.[62] In 2021, they showed new so-called shadow attacks on PDFs that

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 abuse the flexibility of features provided in the specification.[63] An overview of security
issues in PDFs regarding denial of service, information disclosure, data manipulation,
and arbitrary code execution attacks was presented by Jens Müller.[64][65]

Malware vulnerability
PDF files can be infected with viruses, Trojans, and other malware. They can have
hidden JavaScript code that might exploit vulnerabilities in a PDF, hidden objects
executed when the file that hides them is opened, and, less commonly, a malicious PDF
can launch malware.[66]

PDF attachments carrying viruses were first discovered in 2001. The virus, named
OUTLOOK.PDFWorm or Peachy, uses Microsoft Outlook to send itself as an attached
Adobe PDF file. It was activated with Adobe Acrobat, but not with Acrobat Reader.[67]

From time to time, new vulnerabilities are discovered in various versions of Adobe
Reader,[68] prompting the company to issue security fixes. Other PDF readers are also
susceptible. One aggravating factor is that a PDF reader can be configured to start
automatically if a web page has an embedded PDF file, providing a vector for attack. If a
malicious web page contains an infected PDF file that takes advantage of a vulnerability
in the PDF reader, the system may be compromised even if the browser is secure. Some
of these vulnerabilities are a result of the PDF standard allowing PDF documents to be
scripted with JavaScript. Disabling JavaScript execution in the PDF reader can help
mitigate such future exploits, although it does not protect against exploits in other parts
of the PDF viewing software. Security experts say that JavaScript is not essential for a
PDF reader and that the security benefit that comes from disabling JavaScript
outweighs any compatibility issues caused.[69] One way of avoiding PDF file exploits is
to have a local or web service convert files to another format before viewing.

On March 30, 2010, security researcher Didier Stevens reported an Adobe Reader and
Foxit Reader exploit that runs a malicious executable if the user allows it to launch when
asked.[70]

Software

Viewers and editors

Many PDF viewers are provided free of charge from a variety of sources. Programs to
manipulate and edit PDF files are available, usually for purchase.

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 There are many software options for creating PDFs, including the PDF printing
capabilities built into macOS, iOS,[71] and most Linux distributions. Much document
processing software including LibreOffice, Microsoft Office 2007 (if updated to SP2)
and later,[72] WordPerfect 9, and Scribus can export documents in PDF. There are many
PDF print drivers for Microsoft Windows, the pdfTeX typesetting system, the DocBook
PDF tools, applications developed around Ghostscript and Adobe Acrobat itself as well
as Adobe InDesign, Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, that allow
a "PDF printer" to be set up, which when selected sends output to a PDF file instead of a
physical printer. Google's online office suite Google Docs allows uploading and saving to
PDF. Some web apps offer free PDF editing and annotation tools.

The Free Software Foundation was "developing a free, high-quality and fully functional
set of libraries and programs that implement the PDF file format and associated
technologies to the ISO 32000 standard", as one of its high priority projects.[73][74] In
2011, however, the GNU PDF project was removed from the list of "high priority
projects" due to the maturation of the Poppler library,[75] which has enjoyed wider use
in applications such as Evince with the GNOME desktop environment. Poppler is based
on Xpdf[76][77] code base. There are also commercial development libraries available as
listed in List of PDF software.

The Apache PDFBox project of the Apache Software Foundation is an open source Java
library, licensed under the Apache License, for working with PDF documents.[78]

Printing
Raster image processors (RIPs) are used to convert PDF files into a raster format
suitable for imaging onto paper and other media in printers, digital production presses
and prepress in a process known as rasterization. RIPs capable of processing PDF
directly include the Adobe PDF Print Engine[79] from Adobe Systems and Jaws[80] and
the Harlequin RIP from Global Graphics.

In 1993, the Jaws raster image processor from Global Graphics became the first
shipping prepress RIP that interpreted PDF natively without conversion to another
format. The company released an upgrade to its Harlequin RIP with the same capability
in 1997.[81]

Agfa-Gevaert introduced and shipped Apogee, the first prepress workflow system based
on PDF, in 1997.

Many commercial offset printers have accepted the submission of press-ready PDF files
as a print source, specifically the PDF/X-1a subset and variations of the same.[82] The
submission of press-ready PDF files is a replacement for the problematic need for
receiving collected native working files.

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 In 2006, PDF was widely accepted as the standard print job format at the Open Source
Development Labs Printing Summit. It is supported as a print job format by the
Common Unix Printing System and desktop application projects such as GNOME, KDE,
Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice and OpenOffice have switched to emit print jobs in
PDF.[83]

Some desktop printers also support direct PDF printing, which can interpret PDF data
without external help.

Native display model

PDF was selected as the "native" metafile format for macOS (originally called Mac OS
X), replacing the PICT format of the earlier classic Mac OS. The imaging model of the
Quartz graphics layer is based on the model common to Display PostScript and PDF,
leading to the nickname Display PDF. The Preview application can display PDF files, as
can version 2.0 and later of the Safari web browser. System-level support for PDF allows
macOS applications to create PDF documents automatically, provided they support the
OS-standard printing architecture. The files are then exported in PDF 1.3 format
according to the file header. When taking a screenshot under Mac OS X versions 10.0
through 10.3, the image was also captured as a PDF; later versions save screen captures
as a PNG file, though this behavior can be set back to PDF if desired.

Annotation
Adobe Acrobat is one example of proprietary software that allows the user to annotate,
highlight, and add notes to already created PDF files. One UNIX application available as
free software (under the GNU General Public License) is PDFedit. The freeware Foxit
Reader, available for Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux, allows annotating
documents. Tracker Software's PDF-XChange Viewer allows annotations and markups
without restrictions in its freeware alternative. Apple's macOS's integrated PDF viewer,
Preview, does also enable annotations as does the open-source software Skim, with the
latter supporting interaction with LaTeX, SyncTeX, and PDFSync and integration with
BibDesk reference management software. Freeware Qiqqa can create an annotation
report that summarizes all the annotations and notes one has made across their library
of PDFs. The Text Verification Tool exports differences in documents as annotations
and markups.

There are also web annotation systems that support annotation in pdf and other
document formats. In cases where PDFs are expected to have all of the functionality of
paper documents, ink annotation is required.

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 Conversion and Information Extraction
PDF's emphasis on preserving the visual appearance of documents across different
software and hardware platforms poses challenges to the conversion of PDF documents
to other file formats and the targeted extraction of information, such as text, images,
tables, bibliographic information, and document metadata. Numerous tools and source
code libraries support these tasks. Several labeled datasets to test PDF conversion and
information extraction tools exist and have been used for benchmark evaluations of the
tool's performance.[84]

Alternatives
The Open XML Paper Specification is a competing format used both as a page
description language and as the native print spooler format for Microsoft Windows since
Windows Vista.

Mixed Object: Document Content Architecture is a competing format. MO:DCA-P is a

part of Advanced Function Presentation.

See also
Web page
XSL Formatting Objects
Page margin
PDF portfolio

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January 12, 2023. "For anyone interested in having their graphic project
commercially printed directly from digital files or PDFs."
83. "PDF as Standard Print Job Format" (https://web.archive.org/web/20091114130224/
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/pdf_as_standa
rd_print_job_format). The Linux Foundation. Linux Foundation. October 23, 2009.
Archived from the original (http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/op
enprinting/pdf_as_standard_print_job_format) on November 14, 2009. Retrieved
January 12, 2023.
84. Meuschke, Norman; Jagdale, Apurva; Spinde, Timo; Mitrović, Jelena; Gipp, Bela
(2023), Sserwanga, Isaac; Goulding, Anne; Moulaison-Sandy, Heather; Du, Jia Tina
(eds.), "A Benchmark of PDF Information Extraction Tools Using a Multi-task and
Multi-domain Evaluation Framework for Academic Documents" (https://link.springer.
com/10.1007/978-3-031-28032-0_31), Information for a Better World: Normality,
Virtuality, Physicality, Inclusivity, vol. 13972, Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland,

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 Virtuality, Physicality, Inclusivity, vol. 13972, Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland,
pp. 383–405, arXiv:2303.09957 (https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.09957), doi:10.1007/978-
3-031-28032-0_31 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2F978-3-031-28032-0_31), ISBN 978-
3-031-28031-3

Further reading
Hardy, M. R. B.; Brailsford, D. F. (2002). "Mapping and displaying structural
transformations between XML and PDF" (https://web.archive.org/web/20170324072
906/https://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~psadb1/Publications/Download/2002/Hardy02.pdf)
(PDF). Proceedings of the 2002 ACM symposium on Document engineering –
DocEng '02. pp. 95–102. doi:10.1145/585058.585077 (https://doi.org/10.1145%2F58
5058.585077). ISBN 1-58113-594-7. S2CID 9371237 (https://api.semanticscholar.or
g/CorpusID:9371237). Archived from the original (https://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~psadb
1/Publications/Download/2002/Hardy02.pdf) (PDF) on March 24, 2017.
PDF 2.0 "ISO 32000-2:2020(en), Document management — Portable document
format — Part 2: PDF 2.0" (https://www.iso.org/standard/75839.html). International
Organization for Standardization. Retrieved December 16, 2020.
PDF 2.0 "ISO 32000-2:2017(en), Document management — Portable document
format — Part 2: PDF 2.0" (https://www.iso.org/standard/63534.html). International
Organization for Standardization. August 3, 2017. Retrieved January 31, 2019.
PDF 1.7 (ISO 32000-1:2008) (https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/p
dfstandards/PDF32000_2008.pdf)
PDF 1.7 (https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/pdfstandards/pdfrefer
ence1.7old.pdf) and errata to 1.7 (https://web.archive.org/web/20220306202833/http
s://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference_archive/pdf_17
_errata.pdf) at the Wayback Machine (archived March 6, 2022)
PDF 1.6 (https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/pdfstandards/pdfrefer
ence1.6.pdf) (ISBN 0-321-30474-8) and errata to 1.6 (https://web.archive.org/web/2
0220306152230/https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/pdf/pdf_refer
ence_archive/PDF16Errata.pdf) at the Wayback Machine (archived March 6, 2022)
PDF 1.5 (https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/pdfstandards/pdfrefer
ence1.5_v6.pdf) and errata to 1.5 (https://web.archive.org/web/20211222122128/htt
ps://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference_archive/errat
a.txt) at the Wayback Machine (archived December 22, 2021)
PDF 1.4 (https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/pdfstandards/pdfrefer
ence1.4.pdf) (ISBN 0-201-75839-3) and errata to 1.4 (https://web.archive.org/web/2
0220306152229/https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/pdf/pdf_refer
ence_archive/PDF14errata.txt) at the Wayback Machine (archived March 6, 2022)
PDF 1.3 (https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/pdfstandards/pdfrefer
ence1.3.pdf) (ISBN 0-201-61588-6) and errata to 1.3 (https://web.archive.org/web/2

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 0220306152234/https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/pdf/pdfs/PDF
errata.txt) at the Wayback Machine (archived March 6, 2022)
PDF 1.2 (https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/pdfstandards/pdfrefer
ence1.2.pdf)
PDF 1.0 (https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/pdfstandards/pdfrefer
ence1.0.pdf) (ISBN 0-201-62628-4)

External links
PDF Association (https://pdfa.org/) – The PDF Association is the industry
association for software developers producing or processing PDF files.

PDF Specification Index (https://pdfa.org/resource/pdf-specification-index/) at the

PDF Association
Adobe PDF 101: Summary of PDF (https://web.archive.org/web/20101007220449/ht
tp://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/tips/topic_tip31.html) at the Wayback
Machine (archived 2010-10-07)
Adobe: PostScript vs. PDF (https://web.archive.org/web/20160413212438/https://w
ww.adobe.com/print/features/psvspdf/) at the Wayback Machine (archived 2016-04-
13) – Official introductory comparison of PS, EPS vs. PDF.
PDF Standards....transitioning the PDF specification from a de facto standard to a
de jure standard (https://web.archive.org/web/20110424013530/http://www.aiim.org/
Resources/Archive/Magazine/2007-Jul-Aug/33448) at the Wayback Machine
(archived 2011-04-24) – Information about PDF/E and PDF/UA specification for
accessible documents file format
PDF/A-1 ISO standard (https://www.iso.org/standard/38920.html) published by the
International Organization for Standardization (with corrigenda)
PDF Reference and Adobe Extensions to the PDF Specification (https://web.archiv
e.org/web/20210116133007/https://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html)
at the Wayback Machine (archived 2021-01-16)
Portable Document Format: An Introduction for Programmers (http://preserve.macte
ch.com/articles/mactech/Vol.15/15.09/PDFIntro/index.html) – Introduction to PDF vs.
PostScript and PDF internals (up to v1.3)
The Camelot Paper (https://web.archive.org/web/20190422013101/http://www.plane
tpdf.com/enterprise/article.asp?ContentID=6519) at the Wayback Machine (archived
2019-04-22) – the paper in which John Warnock outlined the project that created
PDF
Everything you wanted to know about PDF but was afraid to ask (https://web.archiv
e.org/web/20160118105015/http://river-valley.zeeba.tv/everything-you-wanted-to-kn
ow-about-pdf-but-were-afraid-to-ask/) at the Wayback Machine (archived 2016-01-
18) – recording of a talk by Leonard Rosenthol (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p

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 oc9PVmFzpc) (45 mins) (Adobe Systems) at TUG 2007

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDF&oldid=1257207960"

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