Comments on: Are PDF Portfolio’s A Bad Idea? http://www.4xpdf.com/2009/11/are-pdf-portfolios-a-bad-idea/ PDF News, PDF Articles, PDF Tips and PDF Rants on ... PDF! Sat, 14 May 2011 22:40:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: Leonard Rosenthol http://www.4xpdf.com/2009/11/are-pdf-portfolios-a-bad-idea/comment-page-1/#comment-1433 Leonard Rosenthol Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:17:05 +0000 http://www.4xpdf.com/?p=2010#comment-1433 There is no question that PDF has gone in directions that its original designers never intended - but then it started doing so back in PDF 1.2 or 1.3 when it moved from electronic paper (with some simple digital advances like hyperlinks) to a rich container for various types of media (incl. sounds and movies, forms, etc). It is this movement that brought about the need for the various "ISO PDF subset standards" (aka PDF/X, PDF/A and PDF/E) where specific industries wanted a very of PDF "optimized" for their use case. And that is where we are today, which is a world of choice for users. Should you need to incorporate a video and interactivity into your electronic document such as the David Gilmour PDF () or just a simple white paper or legal document - PDF suits your needs. And if you need to control what goes into the PDF or produce a PDF for a specific industry, the choices are there too. And ALL OF THESE are international standards which define not only the file format BUT also how a "conforming reader" is to behave. These rules aren't made by Adobe or any other single company, they are made by an international committee of people with various backgrounds from vendors to users and all things in between! If you (or anyone else reading this blog) is concerned about the direction of PDF - then don't just write blogs about - GET INVOLVED! PDF is an open standard - ANYONE can participate at NO COST. We (the ISO PDF committees) WANT YOUR INPUT - but there is a proper, formal, channel for doing so - use it! Leonard Rosenthol PDF Standards Architect Adobe Systems There is no question that PDF has gone in directions that its original designers never intended – but then it started doing so back in PDF 1.2 or 1.3 when it moved from electronic paper (with some simple digital advances like hyperlinks) to a rich container for various types of media (incl. sounds and movies, forms, etc). It is this movement that brought about the need for the various “ISO PDF subset standards” (aka PDF/X, PDF/A and PDF/E) where specific industries wanted a very of PDF “optimized” for their use case.

And that is where we are today, which is a world of choice for users. Should you need to incorporate a video and interactivity into your electronic document such as the David Gilmour PDF () or just a simple white paper or legal document – PDF suits your needs. And if you need to control what goes into the PDF or produce a PDF for a specific industry, the choices are there too.

And ALL OF THESE are international standards which define not only the file format BUT also how a “conforming reader” is to behave. These rules aren’t made by Adobe or any other single company, they are made by an international committee of people with various backgrounds from vendors to users and all things in between!

If you (or anyone else reading this blog) is concerned about the direction of PDF – then don’t just write blogs about – GET INVOLVED! PDF is an open standard – ANYONE can participate at NO COST. We (the ISO PDF committees) WANT YOUR INPUT – but there is a proper, formal, channel for doing so – use it!

Leonard Rosenthol
PDF Standards Architect
Adobe Systems

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