The PDF Association's specification for reuse and accessibility is now an ISO standard

WINCHESTER, Mass., April 2, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The PDF industry's WTPDF, a common specification for reuse and accessibility of PDF 2.0 files, is now ISO 14289-2, an ISO standard also known as PDF/UA-2. The new ISO document provides assurance to institutions leveraging PDF technology that the PDF Association's new specification has met the demanding requirements for international consensus required for ISO standards.

ISO 14289-2 represents the culmination of ten years of development within the PDF Association by the PDF/UA Technical Working Group (TWG) and PDF Reuse TWG. These groups worked in close collaboration with ISO TC 171 SC 2, the subcommittee responsible for developing the PDF/UA family of standards, to ensure that the new ISO standard effectively represented the accessibility conformance level defined in WTPDF.

Available from both ISO and the PDF Association, ISO 14289-2 includes numerous improvements on ISO 14289-1:2014, including:

• comprehensive requirements for:
  • new structure element types introduced in PDF 2.0;
  • structure element attributes (including examples of semantically-significant usage);
  • the use of annotations;
  • the inclusion of structure elements defined in PDF 1.7 as well as PDF 2.0;
• detailed requirements for math, including support for MathML;
• requirements for intra-document links leveraging PDF 2.0's structure destinations feature.

Based on PDF 2.0, PDF/UA-2 includes numerous features that leverage the latest version of the PDF specification, including:

• Support for structure elements defined in PDF 2.0, including Title, DocumentFragment, Aside, FENote, Artifact and more
• Support for MathML
• Requirements regarding the use of structure destinations with intra-document links
• The use of Associated Files to facilitate the integration of non-PDF content
• Support for modern Unicode

By itself, conformity to PDF/UA-2 does not necessarily ensure the accessibility of a document's content. PDF/UA-2 provides a means of making PDF 2.0 files that conform to W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and may be used in conjunction with WCAG 2.x. Cases not covered by PDF/UA-2 include, and are not limited to:

• Use of colour or contrast;
• ECMAScript present in the file that can generate inaccessible results;
• Content that's inaccessible to those with certain cognitive impairments.

Several developers, including the LaTeX Project and the Big Faceless Organization, have already announced support for PDF/UA-2.

Press contact:
Duff Johnson
PDF Association
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +1 617 283 4226

SOURCE PDF Association