The PDF format will become an ISO standard.

Adobe, which gave many of its inventions the status of a de facto industry standard in IT, decided to assign one of them the formal right to be called an international standard.



In a press release released by Adobe on Monday, the company submitted the full specifications of its PDF file version 1.7 to AIIM , a specialized office, which will prepare them for review by the International Organization for Standardization .



The ISO working group will subsequently make its decision: whether the popular PDF is worthy of becoming an open international standard for electronic document flow. However, no one doubts that ISO will satisfy Adobe in the shortest possible time, because in many countries PDF has long won certain niches for itself. For example, the PDF / H version (PDF for Healthcare) of the same AIIM is recognized as the best for use in medical records.

')

The wishes of the Californian sotfernogo giant is easy to understand. At present, only one ODF format has been approved by an authoritative commission and, by its attractiveness to various government agencies, businesses, and ordinary private users in any country of the world, it can give many points ahead to its competitors. It can’t be ignored even by Microsoft, who six months ago said that it will expand ODF support in its products by building in them translators between it and its promising Open XML.



In addition, from Microsoft, probably a lot of the community of independent (from it) developers who are pissed off with such success, it is worth waiting for decisive steps. And, most likely, sharply asymmetrical: from their point of view, it would be logical to not give a damn about the ISO and just try to expand the circle of consumers hooked on the MS Office needle. If open competition is still possible with ODF, then in the fight against Godmond from Redmond it will be difficult to even imagine it.



But standardization is the most serious driving force of progress, so its utility cannot be underestimated. It is hoped that by pointing out errors to each other and improving their products, the creators of ODF and PDF will not only change the situation in the office software market, shifting the conservative MS from its throne, but will generally contribute to the widespread introduction of electronic form documentation business life.