November 23, 2010

It seems that PDF/A – a standard that’s in common and widespread use throughout Europe – is starting to make waves on U.S. shores. At least, we noticed a lot more buzz about this standard at the recent ARMA 2010 – the 55th Annual Conference & EXPO hosted by ARMA International, this year in San Francisco.

We were at ARMA earlier this month, as part of the PDF/A Competence Center booth, and there we had the chance to talk to record managers and other attendees. Compared to the ARMA event in 2009,  we found that more of the people we talked to knew about PDF/A in general, and were interested in learning more about how used of this format could benefit them.

The attendees interested in PDF/A, too, were a varied bunch – from those working for small city governments to individuals who managed substantial archives for large energy companies. They visited the PDF/A Competence Center booth to discover how PDF/A will be vital to implement in the future of their digital records, and what they need to do to prepare for it.

We were excited to see the growing interest for PDF/A, because we believe that the standard offers a tremendous amount of benefits for organizations of any size that are digitizing their records and maintaining these files for many years to come.

If you missed ARMA and the chance to visit with us at the PDF/A Competence Center’s booth and you have questions about why your organization may want to adopt PDF/A for its archives, please e-mail me at m.mckinney(at)luratech.com and I’m happy to answer your questions.  I can also tell you more about how a number of federal, state and local government agencies have begun to adopt the PDF/A standard, and what’s the best way to optimize your processes for PDF/A.