What Agencies Should Know About PDF/A September 20, 2005 Susan J. Sullivan, CRM

Introduction Agenda –Why long term preservation of PDF is an issue –Discussion of PDF/A Standard and NARA’s Transfer Guidance for Permanent PDF records –Roles of both PDF/A and the NARA’s PDF Transfer Guidance in Federal recordkeeping –Overview of PDF/A and the ISO Process –Conclusion and Questions

Wide Use of PDF PDF is a ubiquitous open format for electronic documents –Proprietary, but with publicly available specification The feature-rich nature of PDF can complicate preservation efforts All PDFs not created equal Much important information maintained in PDF Permanent archival records, in some cases.

PDF Not a Suitable Archival Format PDF itself is not suitable as an archival format. –Some Features not compatible with current archival requirements –Not necessarily self-contained –All PDFs are not created equal Long-term solution needed –Permanent archival records, in some cases –Administrative Office of U.S. Courts initiated idea for an ISO Standard based on PDF (PDF/A)

How NARA is Addressing PDF Issued PDF Transfer Guidance –Allowing agencies to transfer permanent records to NARA in PDF In March of 2003, NARA Participating in PDF/A ISO Standard Development –To influence the process –To gain knowledge

Transfer Format versus File Format NARA’s transfer guidance and PDF/A have a similar goal….. to ensure that valuable electronic information in PDF is not lost But different purposes: Transfer Format - NARA’s PDF Transfer Guidance –Specifies NARA transfer requirements –Applies to existing and future records in PDF File Format - The PDF/A ISO Standard (PDF/A) –Specifies a subset of the PDF file format –More format reliability/fewer in “bells & whistles” –PDF should be maintained longer as PDF (e.g., within agencies)

Scope and Usage NARA’s PDF Transfer Guidance Usage: Transfer existing permanent PDF records to NARA Permanent PDF Records Scope –Applies to permanent records –PDF –Quality criteria, laws and regulations, transfer documentation, NARA contact information PDF/A ISO Standard Usage: Programming Specification Scope –Addresses one aspect of long term preservation (i.e., file format) –Should be used as one piece of the archival puzzle

Requirements - PDF/A and NARA’s PDF Transfer Guidance Embedded fonts PDF/A and NARA’s PDF Transfer Guidance both require that fonts be embedded –NARA Guidance phases in requirements for workstation resident fonts. Encryption PDF/A and NARA’s PDF Transfer Guidance both prohibit encryption –NARA Guidance phases in requirement as long as we can open, view and print

Special Features PDF/A restricts special features –Embedded files, external links, Java Script –PDF/A promotes tagged PDF as a higher level of conformance NARA evaluates special features on a case-by-case basis at the time of scheduling Metadata/Documentation PDF/A requires that embedded metadata must be in Adobe XMP NARA requires transfer documentation (e.g., SF-258), and would evaluate embedded metadata at the time of scheduling Requirements - PDF/A and NARA’s PDF Transfer Guidance

Quality Requirements PDF/A as a file format does not address quality/creation requirements such as exact replication of source material –Informative Annex B - identifies recommended creation guidelines –Agencies must implement these guidelines to comply with NARA’s PDF transfer guidance NARA’s PDF Transfer Guidance includes –quality requirements regarding scanning quality, –lossy compression –substitution of characters with OCR’d text Requirements - PDF/A and NARA’s PDF Transfer Guidance

NARA’s Expectations for PDF/A –PDF/A should address some of the PDF archival issues and enable PDF records to be maintained longer as PDF –Standard maintained by ISO, not just vendors –Agencies should implement PDF/A along with records management policies and procedures Such as…. –NARA’s PDF Transfer Guidance –AOUSC’s document management program

The PDF/A Standard Multi-part ISO International Standard –ISO :2005, Document management – Electronic document file format for long-term preservation – Part 1: Use of PDF 1.4 (PDF/A-1) –Part 2 ( ) intended to bring PDF/A into conformance with PDF 1.6 –And additional future parts, as necessary

Time Line for Part 1 Submitted to ISO Central Secretariat for publication as International Standard –Should be publicly available September 2005 Throughout the process, PDF/A has been reviewed by technical experts from 15 national standards bodies

PDF/A - Approach PDF/A specifies: –The subset of PDF components, from the PDF 1.4 Reference), that are either required, restricted, or prohibited, and –How these components may be used by software PDF/A PDF 1.4 Reference Specifies required features Specifies restricted features Specifies prohibited features

PDF/A - Requirements Disallows or limits features that could complicate long term preservation, and Maximizes: –Device independence Can be reliably and consistently rendered without regard to the hardware/software platform –Self-contained Contains all resources necessary for rendering –Self-documenting Contains its own description –Transparency Amenable to direct analysis with basic tools

PDF/A - Table of Contents 1 Scope 2 Normative References 3 Terms and Definitions 4 Notation 5 Conformance Levels 6 Technical Requirements –6.1 File Structure –6.2 Graphics –6.3 Fonts –6.4 Transparency –6.5 Annotations –6.6 Actions –6.7 Metadata –6.8 Logical Structure –6.9 Interactive Forms Informative annexes –Annex A - PDF/A-1 Conformance Summary –Annex B - Best Practices for PDF/A Bibliography

Annexes of the Draft PDF/A Standard – Informative Annexes Informative Annexes provide supplemental information including: –Summary of the PDF structures and components disallowed, required, or limited –Best Practices for PDF/A Guidelines for capturing or converting electronic documents to PDF/A –To replicates the exact quality and content of source documents –Required for compliance with NARA’s PDF Transfer Guidance

PDF/A - Overview of Requirements Two levels of conformance –Level A (e.g., Tagged PDF, UNICODE Mapping) –Level B (e.g. No Tagged PDF) Uniform file format (header, trailer, no encryption) Device-independent rendering of graphics Embedded fonts, character encoding Annotations restricted, content should be displayed by readers External actions restricted, no dependence on external content Readers not required to act on hyperlinks, but may XMP metadata “Adobe XML Metadata Framework” Forms based on appearance, not data

For permanent records in PDF, agencies need to understand that: –PDF/A is one option for long-term preservation of electronic documents –PDF/A, by itself, does not guarantee exact replication of source material –Agencies must implement PDF/A in conjunction with additional requirements to meet NARA standards for transferring permanent records to NARA (i.e., NARA’s PDF Transfer Guidance) Take Away

More Information is Available More information on NARA’s PDF Transfer Guidance on NARA’s Web Site – More information on PDF/A on AIIM Web Site – Contact Susan Sullivan at

Questions/Discussion