The application/pdf Media
Type
Adobe
345 Park Ave
San Jose
CA
95110
USA
mahardy@adobe.com
Adobe
345 Park Ave
San Jose
CA
95110
USA
masinter@adobe.com
http://larry.masinter.net
Adobe
345 Park Ave
San Jose
CA
95110
USA
dmarkovi@adobe.com
PDF Association
Neue Kantstrasse 14
Berlin
14057
Germany
duff.johnson@pdfa.org
Global Graphics
2030 Cambourne Business Park
Cambridge
CB23 6DW
UK
martin.bailey@globalgraphics.com
http://www.globalgraphics.com
Requests for Comment
The Portable Document Format (PDF) is an ISO standard (ISO
32000-1:2008) defining a final-form document representation
language in use for document exchange, including on the
Internet, since 1993. This document provides an overview of
the PDF format and updates the media type registration of
application/pdf.
This document is intended to provide updated information
on the registration of the MIME Media Type
application/pdf for documents defined in the PDF , "Portable Document Format", syntax.
PDF was originally envisioned as a way to reliably communicate
and view printed information electronically across a
wide variety of machine configurations, operating
systems, and communication networks.
PDF is used to represent "final form" formatted documents.
PDF pages may include
text, images, graphics and multimedia content such as
video and audio. PDF is also capable of containing
auxiliary structures including annotations,
bookmarks, file attachments, hyperlinks, logical
structure and metadata. These features are useful for
navigation, building collections of related documents and for
reviewing and commenting on documents. A rich JavaScript
model has been defined for interacting with PDF documents.
PDF used the imaging model of the
PostScript page description language
to render complex text, images, and graphics in a device
and resolution-independent manner.
PDF supports encryption and digital signatures. The
encryption capability is combined with access control
information to facilitate management of the
functionality available to the recipient. PDF supports
the inclusion of document and object-level metadata through
the eXtensible Metadata Platform.
PDF is used widely in the Internet community. The first
version of PDF, 1.0, was published in 1993 by Adobe
Systems. Since then PDF has grown to be a
widely-used format for capturing and exchanging
formatted documents electronically across the Web, via
e-mail and virtually every other document exchange
mechanism. In 2008, PDF 1.7 was published as an ISO
standard , ISO 32000-1:2008.
The ISO TC-171 committee is presently working on a
refresh of PDF, known as ISO 32000-2, with a version
of PDF 2.0, expected to be published in 2017.
In addition to ISO 32000-1:2008 and 32000-2,
several subset standards have been defined to
address specific use cases and standardized by
the ISO. These standards include PDF
for Archival (PDF/A), PDF for Engineering (PDF/E), PDF
for Universal Accessibility (PDF/UA), PDF for Variable
Data and Transactional Printing (PDF/VT) and PDF for
Prepress Digital Data Exchange (PDF/X). The subset
standards are fully compliant PDF files capable of being
displayed in a general PDF viewer.
A set of fragment identifiers and
their handling are defined in ISO 32000-2 . This section summarizes that material;
any disagreements between that document and this should be
resolved in favor of the ISO definition, once that has been
approved.
A fragment identifier is comprised of one or more
parameters separated
by the AMPERSAND (&) character. Each
parameter implies an action to be performed on the
document and provides values to be used for that
action; the values for a parameter are introduced
by an EQUAL SIGN (=) and separated by a COMMA (,);
values which are strings appear in the fragment
identifier using URI's percent-hex escaping --
spaces, reserved and non-ASCII strings are
included by %nn encoding the UTF-8 of each character.
Actions shall be processed and executed from left to
right as they appear in the character string that
makes up the fragment identifier.
The parameters listed in this section
operate on the document at the point it is opened;
for this reason they are sometimes referred to as
PDF open parameters. The fragment identifier should
be processed immediately after document-specified open
parameters have been processed.
The table below lists the PDF open parameters relevant
to PDF. All coordinate values (left, right, top, and
bottom) are expressed in the default user space
coordinate system (1/72 of an inch measured down
and to the right from the upper-left corner); see
Section 8.3.2.3 "User Space".
PDF Open Parameters
Parameter Name
Arguments
Description
nameddest
name
Open the document to the specified named
destination. The argument provided is a string
which shall correspond to the name of a destination
in the target document.
page
pageNum
Open the document to the specified page number. The
argument shall be a positive integer number. The
first page in the document has a pageNum value of 1.
zoom
scale
scale,left,top
Open the document with the specified zoom level and
optional offset. The scale argument shall be either
an integer or floating point value representing the
percentage to which the document should be zoomed,
where a value of 100 would correspond to a zoom of
100%. The left and top arguments are optional, but
shall both be specified if either is included. The
left and top arguments shall be integer or floating
point values representing the offset from the left
and top of the page in a coordinate system where 0,0
represents the top left corner of the page.
view
keyword,position
Open the document with the specified destination set
as the view. The arguments shall correspond to
those found in 12.3.2.2,
"Explicit destinations". The keyword shall correspond
to one of the keywords defined in
Table 149, "Destination syntax" with appropriate position
values.
viewrect
left,top,width,height
Open the document with the specified window view
rectangle. The left and top arguments shall be
integer or floating point values representing the
offset from the left and top of the page in a
coordinate system where 0,0 represents the top left
corner of the page. The width and height arguments
shall be integer or floating point values
representing the width and height of the view.
highlight
left,right,top,bottom
Open the document with the specified rectangle
highlighted. Each argument shall be an integer or
floating point value representing the rectangle
measured from the top left corner of the page.
comment
commentID
Open the document with the specified comment
selected. The commentID shall be the value of an
annotation name, which is defined by the NM key in
the corresponding annotation dictionary (see 12.5.2
"Annotation dictionaries", Table 167).
If the comment parameter is combined with another
parameter that defines a specific page to be
displayed, then the comment parameter shall appear
after that in the URI.
Note: The NM key is unique to a specific page, but
is not guaranteed to be unique to a document.
Unless the page on which the comment resides has
been selected prior to the comment parameter, the
comment will not be selected.
search
wordList
Open the document and search for one or more words,
selecting the first matching word in the document.
The wordList argument defines the search words and
shall be a string enclosed within quotation marks
comprised of individual words separated by space
characters.
Note that the space characters must be encoded.
fdf
URI
Open the document and then import the data from the
specified FDF or XFDF file (see
Section 12.7.8). The URI shall be either
a relative or absolute URI to an FDF or XFDF file.
The fdf parameter should be specified as the last
parameter to a given URI.
Note: The fdf parameter is recommended to be the
last parameter so that the document can open
directly to the appropriate view.
Several subsets of PDF have been published as distinct ISO standards:
PDF/X, initially released in 2001 as PDF/X-1a , specifies how to use PDF for graphics
exchange, with the aim to fascilitate correct and
predictable printing by print service providers. The
standard has gone through multiple revisions over the
years and has several published parts, the most recently
released being part 8, specifying different levels of
conformance: PDF/X-1a:2001, PDF/X-3:2002, PDF/X-1a:2003,
PDF/X-3:2003, PDF/X-4, PDF/X-4p, PDF/X-5, PDF/X-5g,
PDF/X-5pg and PDF/X-5n.
PDF/A, initially released in 2005, specifies how to use
PDF for long-term preservation (archiving) of electronic
documents. It prohibits PDF features which are not well
suited to long term archiving of documents. Its
requirements for PDF/A viewers include color management
guidelines and support for embedded fonts. There are three
parts of this standard and a total of eight conformance levels:
PDF/A-1a, PDF/A-1b, PDF/A-2a,
PDF/A-2b, PDF/A-2u, PDF/A-3a, PDF/A-3b and PDF/A-3u.
PDF/E, initially released in 2008 as PDF/E-1 , specifies how to use PDF in
engineering workflows, such as manufacturing, construction
and geospatial analysis. Future revisions of PDF/E are
supposed to include support for 3D PDF workflows.
PDF/VT, initially released in 2010, specifies how to use
PDF in variable and transactional printing. It is based on
PDF/X, and adds adidtional restrictions on PDF content
elements and supporting metadata. It specifies three
conformance levels: PDF/VT-1, PDF/VT-2 and PDF/VT-2s .
PDF/UA, initially released in 2012 as PDF/UA-1 , specifies how to create accessible
electonic documents. It requires use of ISO 32000's Tagged
PDF feature, and adds many requirements regarding semantic
correctness in applying logical structures to content in
PDF documents.
All of these subset standards use application/pdf media type. The subset
standards are generally not exclusive, so it is possible to
construct a PDF file which conforms to, for example, both
PDF/A-2b and PDF/X-4 subset standards.
PDF documents claiming conformance to one or more of the
subset standards use XMP metadata to identify levels of
conformance. PDF processors should examine document metadata
streams for such subset standards identifiers and, if
apropriate, label documents as such when presenting them to
the user.
PDF format has gone through several revisions, primarily for the addition of features.
PDF features have generally been added in a way that older viewers 'fail gracefully'
because they can just ignore features they do not recognize, but even so, the older the
PDF version produced, the more legacy viewers will support that version, but the fewer
features will be enabled.
PDF files are experienced through a reader or viewer of PDF files.
For most of the common platforms in use (iOS, OS X, Windows, Android, ChromeOS, Kindle)
and for most browsers (Edge, Safari, Chrome, Firefox), PDF viewing is built-in. In addition,
there are many PDF viewers available for download and install. The PDF specification
was published and freely available since the format was introduced in 1993, so hundreds
of companies and organizations make tools for PDF creation, viewing, and manipulation.
The PDF file format allows several constructs which may
compromise security if handled inadequately by PDF
processors. For example:
PDF may contain scripts to customize the displaying
and processing of PDF files. These scripts are
expressed in a version of JavaScript and are intended
for execution by the PDF processor.
PDF file may refer to other PDF files for portions of
content. PDF processors are expected to find these
external files and load them in order to display the
document.
PDF may act as a container for various files embedded in it (for example,
as attached files). PDF processors may offer functionality to open and
display such files or store them on the system.
PDF files may contain links to content on the internet. PDF processors
may offer functionality to show such content upon following the link.
In addition, the PDF processor itself, as well as its plugins, scripts etc. may be a
source of insecurity, by either obvious or subtle means.
This document updates the registration
of application/pdf, a media type
registration as defined in :
Type name: application
Subtype name: pdf
Required parameters: none
Optional parameter: none
Encoding considerations: binary
Security considerations: See
of this document.
Interoperability considerations: See of this document.
Published specification: ISO 32000-1:2008 (PDF 1.7)
. ISO 32000-2 (PDF 2.0) is currently under development.
Applications which use this media type: See of this document.
Fragment identifier considerations: See of this document.
Additional information:
Deprecated alias names for this type: none
Magic number(s): All PDF files start with the characters
'%PDF-' followed by the PDF version number, e.g., "%PDF-1.7".
These characters are in US-ASCII encoding.
File extension(s): .pdf
Macintosh file type code(s): "PDF "
Person & email address to contact for further information:
Duff Johnson <duff@duff-johnson.com>, Peter Wyatt
<Peter.wyatt@cisra.canon.com.au>, ISO 32000 Project Leaders
Intended usage: COMMON
Restrictions on usage: none
Author: Authors of this document
Change controller: ISO; in particular, ISO 32000 is by
ISO/TC 171/SC 02/WG 08, "PDF specification". Duff Johnson
<duff@duff-johnson.com> and Peter Wyatt
<Peter.wyatt@cisra.canon.com.au are current ISO 32000
Project Leaders.
Document management -- Portable document format -- Part 1: PDF 1.7
ISO
Also available free from Adobe Systems.
Document management -- Portable document format -- Part 2: PDF 2.0
ISO
Currently under development - publication expected in 2017. This becomes a Normative Reference on approval.
Graphic technology -- Prepress digital data exchange using PDF --
Part 8: Partial exchange of printing data using PDF 1.6 (PDF/X-5)
ISO
Document management -- Electronic document file format for long-term preservation
-- Part 3: Use of ISO 32000-1 with support for embedded files (PDF/A-3)
ISO
Document management -- Engineering document format using PDF -- Part 1:
Use of PDF 1.6 (PDF/E-1)
ISO
Graphic technology -- Variable data exchange -- Part 2:
Using PDF/X-4 and PDF/X-5 (PDF/VT-1 and PDF/VT-2)
ISO
Document management applications -- Electronic document file format enhancement
for accessibility -- Part 1: Use of ISO 32000-1 (PDF/UA-1)
ISO
Extensible metadata platform (XMP) specification -- Part 1: Data model, serialization and core properties
ISO
Not available for free, but there are a
number of descriptive resources, e.g.,
PostScript Language Reference, third edition
Adobe Systems Incorporated
This specification replaces RFC 3778, which previously
defined the application/pdf
Media Type. Differences include:
To reflect the transition from a proprietary specification
by Adobe to an open ISO Standard, the Change Controller
has changed from Adobe to ISO, and references updated.
The overview of PDF capabilitiies, the history of PDF, and
the descriptions of PDF subsets were updated to reflect
more recent relevant history.
The section on Fragment identifiers was updated to closely
reflect the material which has been added to ISO-32000-2.
The status of popular PDF implementations was
updated.
The Security Considerations were updated to match current
status.
The registration template was updated to match RFC 6838.