title: Peter Wyatt and Duff Johnson on 30 Years of PDF (Episode 532 of Software Engineering Radio)
creators: Henry Gavin Peter Wyatt Duff Johnson
abstract: <p><em>Originally published at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.se-radio.net/2022/10/episode-532-peter-wyatt-and-duff-johnson-on-30-years-of-pdf/ ">https://www.se-radio.net/2022/10/episode-532-peter-wyatt-and-duff-johnson-on-30-years-of-pdf/&nbsp;</a><br>
  All information below taken from Software Engineering Radio Episode Page</em></p>
  
  <p><strong>Episode 532: Peter Wyatt and Duff Johnson on 30 Years of PDF</strong></p>
  
  <p>Peter Wyatt, CTO at PDF Association and project co-leader of ISO 32000 (the core PDF standard), and Duff Johnson, CEO at PDF Association and ISO Project co-leader and US TAG chair for both ISO 32000 and ISO 14289 (PDF/UA), discuss the 30-year history of the portable document format (PDF). SE Radio&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.se-radio.net/team/gavin-henry/">Gavin Henry</a> spoke with Wyatt and Johnson about a wide range of topics, including the PDF/A Archival format, key dates in PDF history (including why 2007 was such an important year), and PDF security. They explore details such as redaction of information in a PDF, object models, what Adobe did right, choosing PDF versions, efficient paging of documents, SafeDocs, selecting a PDF SDK, Arlington PDF, veraPDF. They further consider when to use the PDF format, binary and XML, javascript in PDFs, PDF linters and validators, backward compatibility, how HTML and PDF complement each other, the biggest PDFs in the world, PDF as a website, and the guests&rsquo; top 3 PDF security tips.</p>
  
  <p>Related Links</p>
  
  <ul>
  	<li><a href="https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings-article/sp/2021/893400b902/1t0x9ObxH8Y">Breaking the Specification: PDF Certification</a></li>
  	<li><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-022-11960-x">Towards enhanced PDF maldocs detection with feature engineering: design challenges&nbsp;</a></li>
  	<li><a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/UEMCON47517.2019.8992996">PDFPhantom: Exploiting PDF Attacks Against Academic Conferences&rsquo; Paper Submission Process with Counterattack </a></li>
  	<li><a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/SPW54247.2022.9833889">Research Report: Strengthening Weak Links in the PDF Trust Chain </a></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Other References</p>
  
  <ul>
  	<li><a href="https://www.pdfa.org/"><em>PDF Association</em></a></li>
  	<li><a href="https://www.darpa.mil/program/safe-documents">https://www.darpa.mil/program/safe-documents</a></li>
  	<li><a href="https://twitter.com/petervwyatt"><em>Peter Wyatt&rsquo;s Twitter: https://twitter.com/petervwyatt</em></a></li>
  	<li><a href="https://twitter.com/duffjohnson">Duff Johnson&rsquo;s Twitter: https://twitter.com/duffjohnson</a></li>
  	<li><a href="https://twitter.com/PDFAssociation"><em>PDFAssociation</em></a></li>
  	<li><a href="https://openpreservation.org/tools/verapdf/">veraPDF &ndash; Open Preservation Foundation</a></li>
  	<li><a href="https://github.com/pdf-association"><em>PDF Association</em></a></li>
  	<li><a href="https://github.com/pdf-association/pdf-issues">GitHub &ndash; pdf-association/pdf-issues: Industry-based resolutions for issues and errata reported against any PDF-related ISO standard</a></li>
  	<li><a href="https://github.com/pdf-association/arlington-pdf-model"><em>GitHub &ndash; pdf-association/arlington-pdf-model: A vendor- and implementation-independent specification-derived, machine-readable model of PDF.</em></a></li>
  	<li><a href="https://www.pdfa.org/community/">PDF Association</a></li>
  	<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_(graphics_layer)#Use_of_PDF"><em>Quartz (graphics layer)</em></a></li>
  	<li><a href="https://www.pdfa.org/resource/iso-19005-pdfa/">ISO 19005 (PDF/A)</a></li>
  	<li><a href="https://www.pdfa.org/resource/iso-32000-pdf/"><em>ISO 32000 (PDF)</em></a></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p><strong>About SE-Radio</strong></p>
  
  <p>Software Engineering Radio is a podcast targeted at the professional software developer. The goal is to be a lasting educational resource, not a newscast. Now a weekly show, we talk to experts from throughout the software engineering world about the full range of topics that matter to professional developers.</p>
  
  <p>All SE Radio episodes feature original content; we don&rsquo;t record conferences or talks given in other venues.</p>
  
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  <p>SE Radio was founded in January 2006 by Markus Voelter.&nbsp; It joined forces with <em>IEEE&nbsp;Software</em> in February 2012 and has been run through the collaborative efforts of Computer Society staff and a team of volunteer editors since then.</p>