It’s been almost two weeks since I joined the Office Interoperability team, so no doubt it’s about time I started a blog. After more than 19 years at Microsoft, I probably have a tale or two to tell … but I don’t want to give the lawyers heart attacks, so will save those for another forum.
Who am I and why am I blogging? After 19 years as a Test Engineer, I’ve transitioned to a role as a Standards Professional, focusing on document formats. My main focus over the last few years has been on PDF-related standards, and that will continue in this new role. In addition, I’ll pick up some of our work around ODF and OOXML. I’m also a member of the AIIM Standards Board and the TC171 TAG. This blog is likely to focus on PDF standards issues, interesting tidbits from AIIM and TAG activities, with a bit of everything else I’m working on. If you were expecting details on turning yarn and fabric interesting colors, or my adventures with a Bichon and a half, that’s a whole other blog.
Three years ago this month I began prodding my group’s vice president to let me join the PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility) team. I’d been working on PDF/XPS in Office, leading the test effort for the core code and coordinating testing across the eight teams that implemented the two file formats in Office 2007. Some of the people I’d been learning about PDF accessibility from, folks outside Microsoft, had suggested several times by then that we should get someone on the PDF/UA committee. It took a few more months to convince everyone who needed convincing and fill out all the paperwork, but in March of 2007, I joined the PDF/UA committee. It was pretty much downhill from there – a few months after that, the committee to create an ISO standard based on the PDF 1.7 Reference was formed and I joined that too. A little more than a year after I joined the first committee, I was appointed to the AIIM Standards Board. And most recently, I didn’t leave a Standards Board meeting quickly enough and somehow ended up elected to the TC 171 TAG.
TC171 is an interesting group of standards. AIIM, the company that drives the work of these committees, and TC171 focus on electronic formats and archiving. In the Standards Board, we see everything from digital image preservation standards to PDF to StratML to best practices documents on issues such as email archiving. Most of the committee work I do centers on SC2, WG5, 8 and 9. These are the committees that work on PDF/A (ISO19005), PDF Reference (ISO32000), and PDF/UA (ISO/AWI14289) respectively.
The whole PDF alphabet soup can get confusing - my involvement covers only a fraction of the possible PDF committees - so here’s a quick outline:
· TC171 WG5 – PDF/A (ISO19005) – PDF/A defines a standard for archiving PDF documents, proscribing methods that will best allow the long-term preservation of a variety of content. It is based on PDF 1.4.
· TC171 WG7 – PDF/E (ISO24517) – PDF/E is the flavor of PDF that defines which structures should be used for creating files for engineering workflows. It is based on PDF 1.6. Special concerns here include 3D rendering and geo-spatial issues.
· TC171 WG8 – PDF Reference (ISO32000) – This is the core PDF specification, the foundation of all PDF. It was not, however, the first ISO specification for PDF. It is the PDF 1.7 Reference from Adobe dressed up in ISO vestments. ISO32000 is now the superset for all other PDF standards.
· TC171 WG9 – PDF/UA (ISO/AWI14289) – PDF/UA defines how PDFs should be created to make them accessible for all users. It references the tagging structures outlined in ISO32000, defines which are required and defines the optimal use of semantic information. I am the current project leader for PDF/UA.
· TC130 – PDF/X (ISO15930) and PDF/VT – These are two standards used by the printing industry. PDF/X, now in flavors 1 through 5, defines a set of requirements for facilitating graphics exchange. Depending on the flavor, PDF/X is based on either PDF1.3 or PDF 1.4. PDF/VT (Variable, Transactional) defines requirements for variable data printing workflows.
· PDF Healthcare – Currently under development at AIIM, PDF Healthcare (NOT PDF/H, please) is a best practices guide and implementation guide for the use of PDF in the healthcare industry. Version 1 was published in 2008 and is based on ISO32000.
There. I think that’s all. But no promises. You never know when another one might pop up.
TC171 committees meet in Orlando, Florida next week, beginning on Sunday, October 18. I’ll be there, with bells on and editing pen in hand.