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

[steerablesafe]

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

[darrenf]

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...

[steerablesafe]

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.

[svat]

Apart from the PDF32000_2008.pdf (the ISO version), Adobe used to have a pdf_reference_1-7.pdf at https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/pdf/pdf_ref... which is the version before it got ISO-ized. The ISO version is "substantially the same" except for typesetting and small differences in wording, but I found the Adobe version much more of a pleasure to read. Comparing them is a good exercise in how much these small differences matter.

[Anunayj]

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

[pointlessone]

How did you find the link on opensource.adobe.com? The used to host other standards, too (e.g. font formats).

[iceblockderby]

The ISO released the 2.0 version of the specification that replaces the 1.7 standard.

"Although it is an open standard, one major difference compared with prior versions of PDF is that ISO now holds the copyright to the PDF specification and thus PDF 2.0 is not freely downloadable." [0]

It looks like DMCA requests are being issued to anyone that hosted the old specification, even open source projects [1].

[0] https://www.pdfa.org/resource/iso-32000-pdf/ [1] https://github.com/Hopding/pdf-lib#git-history-rewrite

[mr337]

Wow, I feel like that is a step back. This feels a lot like other protocols non free specs like J1939 that is over $1000USD.

[dorianmariefr]

> 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/

[colejohnson66]

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.

[hunter2_]

Not cool [0].

It's funny how CMSes tend to offer "clean URL" configurations (meaning that everything after the origin is 100% controlled by the CMS user) for requests served dynamically (database queries) but requests served statically (public files on disk) often end up containing implementation-specific junk (e.g., "/sites/" in the case of Drupal). The magic that makes clean dynamic URLs (rewrite everything that isn't a file to the boot script) should be expanded to make clean file URLs. Serving files would then need help from a script+db, but so what, that already happens for private files.

Obviously embedded assets that need to be fast (images, stylesheets, scripts, etc.) can't have a slow db query in the way. I'm only talking about files that are a first-class destination in the browser's address bar, like PDFs, and anything where the disposition is that it lands in your Downloads folder. Stuff that might be a search result or otherwise linked-to.

[0] https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI

[jeffreportmill1]

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)

[fivea]

> Ironically, I wish they would publish it as HTML broken down by chapter and section.

I wish there was an EPUB version of the document. Do PDFs support reflowable content?

[zozbot234]

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

[layer8]

> hard to use as a reference

How so? I frequently reference specific sections, tables or pages of the spec at work.

[andrewmcwatters]

Maybe one of the side effects of this is that people only continue writing against PDF 1.7.

[hulitu]

Maybe they want to sell it :)