PDF format acceptance by Microsoft

At times it has seemed as if Microsoft was in full battle mode against Portable Document Format, the open format files based on Acrobat which has become the backbone of the publishing/printing industries.

Now however comes the announcement that the next version of Microsoft Office (currently known as Office 12 and due for release in the second half of 2006) will include a built-in ability to save documents to PDF format.

The chosen format, it seems, will be PDF 1.4, the format for Acrobat 5, which is two versions behind, and likely to be three behind when Office 12 is available. However, this is not really a problem in that 1.4 is the basis of the PDF/X standards which are the acceptable file standard for most printers. Almost every magazine and newspaper ad, for example, in many parts of the world, is now supplied to PDF/X standards. Worsley Press, as a book publisher, has noted that for the past couple of years it has been unnecessary to ask printers for their file requirements: the statement that the file will be supplied to PDF/X-1A standard has never been queried in that time.

The editorial on Planet PDF also has the notable quote from a Microsoft spokesperson that "Microsoft receives over 120,000 queries per month worldwide requesting the ability to 'save as PDF' in Office."

The danger is that many who produce documents which will eventually be printed in magazine or book form will think that "save as PDF" means that their document will now be ready for final use. It has become quite normal for the basic cost of "converting a Word document to PDF" to be charged by publishers, printers and designers at several hundred or even thousands of dollars -- but this is not because of the file conversion. In many cases it involves layout to a different page format, choices in fonts, margins, type sizes etc, and even some final editing.

We'll just have to find a different acceptable term for that part of the publishing process.