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How is pdf considered an open format since you need to pay for the spec ?[edit]

Maybe this needs to be clarified. E.g. open format? PDF-3200-2008:yes, PDF-3200-2008:no, or reference should be provided which should explain that a format can be considered open even if the maintainer requires paying for licensing usage of the spec.

In Open_format the first reference free_file_format states: "Thus, open format should refer to any format that is published for anyone to read and study but which may or may not be encumbered by patents, copyrights or other restrictions on use."

I don't think current PDF-2.0 meets the abbove requirement: "..published for anyone to read and study.."

My opinion is that current version of PDF is not an open format.

Furthermore in the absense of a document granting royalty-free rights to implementors (e.g. like in the old spec: ISO32000-1PublicPatentLicense ), specific mention on whether the format is free should be made in the article.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikipiuser (talk • contribs) 08:37, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

PDF <2.0 is an open format, but 2.0 is not. I do however find it a little amusing that the spec is itself a PDF, creating a self-referential situation where you need to already have software that can understand PDF in order to read about how to understand it... 50.68.13.81 (talk) 05:19, 24 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Open_format page describes open format as "usually maintained by a standards organization". ISO is clearly a standards organization, but it costs money to purchase most of their standards. That does not imply a license cost to implement and make use of the standard, just a need to pay for the text that describes it. Further down the open format page it includes PNG as an example of an open format. PNG, like PDF 2.0, is an ISO standard, and it is not free to obtain the text. Every ISO standard includes a statement about required patents; in the case of PDF 2.0, no necessary patents have been identified. So no licensing costs for using PDF 2.0 have been identified there either. I'm struggling to see how PDF 2.0 can be seen as failing to meet the criteria for being an open standard. Mpbailey (talk) 12:01, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Link to PDF Reference Manual[edit]

Somehow this external link

PDF Reference and Adobe Extensions to the PDF Specification

to be found in the external links section points to something else than the PDF reference. At the moment this page is forwarded to a documentation called DC Developer Resources, no sight of PDF reference. I am confused, since also other pages use this link as, e.g., de.wikipedia.org. Did something get broken along time?

As far as I understand PDF Reference refers to the PDF Reference Manual, i.e., PDF Reference, Third Edition - Adobe or is this document also deprecated.

Fabiangabel (talk) 10:41, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. This was bugging me because I remember Adobe having the PDF 1.7 spec on their site. I found this page which links to all the PDF specifications, including 1.3-1.7, hosted on Adobe's site. The free link for ISO 32000-1:2008 "Document management — Portable document format — Part 1: PDF 1.7" is dead (or rather, redirects to DC Developer Resources), but can be found alongside their supplements here. I'm not sure the difference between these two versions, but maybe it has something to do with the errata?

Sprocklet (talk) 21:38, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

thumb — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.221.250.172 (talk) 20:37, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

True icon[edit]

Which of these icons is more reliable: or ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk • contribs) 13:14, April 19, 2022 (UTC)

File Format: PDF as the size of a country[edit]

The section currently states "Page dimensions are not limited by the format itself. However, Adobe Acrobat imposes a limit of 15 million in by 15 million in, or 225 trillion in2 (145,161 km2)" and then cites the PDF specs sheet for version 1.7. However, this seems like a calculated number that is not explicitly stated in the adobe specsheet being stated. It does say (page 350) that there is a max size of 200 x 200 inches. Can someone provide a brief explanation of how this number is arrived at on the article page?

It appears that is has something to do with the fact that each unit is of 1/72 (inches) and there should be a maximum "14,400 by 14,4000 units", but I don't understand how this works out to 15 million. Could someone make the article more transparent about this calculation since it is not explicitly stated in the document being cited? Textaural (talk) 07:27, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Page 1,128:

"Beginning with PDF 1.6, the size of the default user space unit may be set with the UserUnit entry of the page dictionary. Acrobat 7.0 supports a maximum UserUnit value of 75,000, which gives a maximum page dimension of 15,000,000 inches (14,400 * 75,000 * 1 ⁄ 72). The minimum UserUnit value is 1.0 (the default)." Sockwell162 (talk) 07:34, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The manual it references is from 2006 and Acrobat is now on version 22. I wonder if there's a newer version. Sockwell162 (talk) 07:38, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed the misrepresentation of the relationship between PS and PDF.[edit]

The previous author seems to not have understood the word „tokenized”, and not read the PostScript language reference. Being a programming language, of course PS is tokenized and parsed by the interpreter too, before/during interpretation.
PDF is simply “unrolled” PS so that it is purely declarative, and packaged with its dependencies.
Professor Brailsford of Nottingham university explained this quite well in some Computerphile videos. And he knows/knew the people who developed PDF personally.

I improved the whole section. I also made it a bit more neutral; as it seems much knowledge about PS (especially about the extend of its use case, compared to PDF being just about documents) is almost lost nowadays, leading to a natural underestimation and bias from people who don’t know they don’t know enough to make that decision. I know because I thought like that too until I looked into it. (The language reference is quite nice to read.)
E.g. the fact that PS is based on Forth and Lisp (and frankly nicer than both). Or that SVG is basically the XML version of the PS in PDF. … All information that is almost lost, and would quickly get deleted by such people who don’t know they don’t know … for not being up to the standard … of confirming their beliefs that are based on sources that already lacked those forgotten details about the big picture and ideas back then.
— 109.42.178.164 (talk) 00:19, 28 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]