Question:
I have been told that there is a new version of the PDF/A standard coming soon. What does this mean for me?  

Answer:
The first important message is that the new part PDF/A-2 will not substitute or ‘fix’ the current one. PDF/A-1 will remain available as an independent, valid standard. All existing PDF/A-1 documents and those that will be created in future are perfectly well suited for long-term archiving. That said, why do we need a part of the standard then? The PDF format is constantly being enhanced and improved. The current version of PDF/A is based on the PDF specification 1.4. But in the meantime the PDF specification reached version 1.7 and has even been published as an ISO standard itself (ISO 32000-1).  Since PDF 1.4 there were added numbers of new features to the PDF format, and some of these are also useful for long-term archiving. So PDF/A-2 will be based on the new PDF standard. The new features in PDF/A-2 cover document collections, metadata, image formats, transparency, among other things. The most important aspect for LuraTech customers will be the new support for JPEG 2000 in PDF/A-2. Now highly compressed PDF/A documents will be possible with the same great visual quality and small file size as it could so far only be gained for standard PDF output. LuraTech is actively involved in the development of the PDF/A standard. So our customers will always be among the first who can benefit from the new possibilities.