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The company announced that it intended to open the standard, first developed in 1993, to the ISO early last year, and version 1.7 of the format has now been accepted and named ISO 32000-1.

"By releasing the full PDF specification for ISO standardisation we are reinforcing our commitment to openness," says Kevin Lynch, chief technology officer at Adobe.

"As governments and organisations increasingly request open formats, maintenance of the PDF specification by an external and participatory organisation will help continue to drive innovation and expand the rich PDF ecosystem that has evolved over the past 15 years," continues Lynch.

Late last year it emerged that a security vulnerability existed in the PDF format which allowed the execution of malicious code when a user opens a file. Adobe has since patched the problem.