While you’re all excited about the upcoming holidays and can’t think of anything else but that gift list to get through, you can add one more thing to get excited about.<\/p>\n
The de facto standard of information interchange, aka the PDF, just got one step closer to being adopted as a standardized format. Last week, the PDF 1.7 specification gained the approval votes it needed from ISO committee voting members as it reached the Enquiry \u201cClose of voting” stage in the standardization process.<\/p>\n
Before this certification happens though, the comments included with the votes need to be addressed before the format gets its official ISO standard tag\u2014ISO 32000 (lovely name, no?). Even with those last few hurdles, the PDF\u2019s standardization process is looking good.<\/p>\n
Jim King, PDF architect and Senior Principle Scientist at Adobe Systems Inc. will serve as technical editor for the international working group meeting in January where the submitted 205 comments will be resolved.<\/p>\n
On his blog he states, “If the group can address all the comments to the satisfaction of all countries, especially the ones voting negatively, it is possible to finish at that meeting and publish the revised document.”<\/p>\n
So Is It Still An Adobe-Microsoft Showdown?<\/b><\/p>\n
In the face of impending success, you can’t help but wonder about OOXML and where its standardization is headed.<\/p>\n
OOXML was also submitted and fast tracked for an official ISO standard, but rejected in September. Alongside that rejection was the controversy over Microsoft’s active influence over committee members and their votes. The OOXML proposal then went back to the drawing board for revisions to take the negative votes and comments into account.<\/p>\n
![\"Boxing](\"https:\/\/www.investintech.com\/resources\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/12\/boxingglovesfromsportsfilter.serendipityThumb.jpg\" "\\"boxingglovesfromsportsfilter.serendipityThumb\\"")
Now, three months later, as its Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) draws near in February, OOXML’s standardization is still up in the air as its interoperability, the OOXML hot topic of the day, will be a major factor in the decision to approve it as such.<\/p>\n
Making it even harder is that OOXML is constantly held up against ODF, the poster child of open source solutions. It’ll be interesting to see how “open” and how much “interoperability” a Microsoft format can possess in general.<\/p>\n
While that issue unfolds, the PDF will more than likely get the ISO standardization without much drama. Has Adobe won this round already without even trying?<\/p>\n
These are exciting times for the PDF format indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"