Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#1

Post by steerablesafe » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 10:43 AM UTC

I just discovered that Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site. It's used to be hosted at [1] and I can't find a replacement. Of course this doesn't mean that the specification can't be acquired freely from elsewhere [2, 3], but it's unfortunate if the authoritative source is down. Hopefully it is a mistake though and it will be back up.

[1] http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/pdf/pdfs/PDF32000_2008.pdf

[2] https://christianhaider.de/dokuwiki/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=pdf:pdf32000_2008.pdf

[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20220309040754if_/https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/pdf/pdfs/PDF32000_2008.pdf

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#2

Post by hulitu » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:13 PM UTC

Maybe they want to sell it :)

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#3

Post by colejohnson66 » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:25 PM UTC

It's possible they're reworking their CMS and that causes files to be moved (breaking links everywhere). Microsoft loves doing that with their developer blogs.

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#4

Post by dorianmariefr » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:28 PM UTC

> This page was updated on 23 March 2022 as many direct links to legacy PDF specifications on adobe.com were broken. Many links now reference the Wayback Machine internet archive and thus may be slow.

https://www.pdfa.org/resource/pdf-specification-index/

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#5

Post by jeffreportmill1 » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:34 PM UTC

Off topic, but man is that document hard to use as a reference. Ironically, I wish they would publish it as HTML broken down by chapter and section.

(I have used that document a lot to write a custom PDF generator and parser in Java, using a downloaded copy)

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#6

Post by zozbot234 » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

jeffreportmill1 wrote: post #5

Off topic, but man is that document hard to use as a reference. Ironically, I wish they would publish it as HTML broken down by chapter and section. (I have used that document a lot to write a custom PDF generator and parser in Java, using a downloaded copy)

PDFs can support tables of contents with labeled chapters and sections. Not sure if the feature is standardized, but it's there.

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#7

Post by darrenf » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:46 PM UTC

It's still available at this Adobe URL: https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/standards/p... "As distributed by Adobe after adoption as ISO 32000-1:2008, with permission of ISO." [0]

Not to mention ISO unsurprisingly host it, which I would also consider authoritative: https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:32000:-1:ed-1:v1:en

[0] https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd0002...

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#8

Post by Anunayj » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:49 PM UTC

darrenf wrote: post #7

It's still available at this Adobe URL: https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/standards/p... " As distributed by Adobe after adoption as ISO 32000-1:2008, with permission of ISO. " [0] Not to mention ISO unsurprisingly host it, which I would also consider authoritative: https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:32000:-1:ed-1:v1:en [0] https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd0002...

kinda funny you need a pdf reader to read the pdf specification :)

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#9

Post by steerablesafe » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:51 PM UTC

darrenf wrote: post #7

It's still available at this Adobe URL: https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/standards/p... " As distributed by Adobe after adoption as ISO 32000-1:2008, with permission of ISO. " [0] Not to mention ISO unsurprisingly host it, which I would also consider authoritative: https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:32000:-1:ed-1:v1:en [0] https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd0002...

Ah, thanks for the link. For some reason that link doesn't turn up in google search for me, however hard I try. Of course the ISO one is also authoritative, but not free.

Re: Tell HN: Adobe took down the PDF 1.7 specification from their site

#10

Post by geodel » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:53 PM UTC

Anunayj wrote: post #8

darrenf wrote: post #7

It's still available at this Adobe URL: https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/standards/p... " As distributed by Adobe after adoption as ISO 32000-1:2008, with permission of ISO. " [0] Not to mention ISO unsurprisingly host it, which I would also consider authoritative: https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:32000:-1:ed-1:v1:en [0] https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd0002...

kinda funny you need a pdf reader to read the pdf specification :)

Its same with html spec I think.