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Service phase: Beta

This service is still in development. Give us your feedback or view this page on the current PRONOM service.

Format

PDF 2.0 - Portable Document Format

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Summary

Name
PDF 2.0 - Portable Document Format
Version
2.0
Identifiers
  • MIME: application/pdf
  • PUID: fmt/1129
Format type
Page Description
Description
Portable Document Format is a platform-independent format for representing formatted documents, originally developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated. PDF 2.0 is standardised by ISO 32000-2. A PDF file comprises a Header section, a Body section containing the objects which make up the document, a Cross Reference Table, and a Trailer section. PDF files can contain a wide variety of content, including text, images, video and audio.
File extensions
pdf
Source
Digital Preservation Department / The National Archives

Relationships

Has lower priority than

Internal signatures

PDF 2.0

Note
PDF 2.0 allows an arbitrary amount of information to appear before the PDF 2.0 data starts. For now we are setting a max offset of 4096 bytes from the BOF before we expect to see the %PDF-2.0 tag as this should encompass most use-cases and also maintain processing efficiency for any identification tools using PRONOM data. If you find this offset is inadequate please contact the PRONOM team. Also seeking EOF sequence %%EOF within final 1024 bytes. This signature cannot currently identify files that were incrementally saved to PDF 2.0 from a previous PDF version (for example PDF 1.7), and this scenario will currently return an identification for the orignal format. Please contact the PRONOM team if you can assist with developing a signature that can account for such a use-case.

Byte sequences

Min Frag Length
Absolute from BOF
Offset
0
Max offset
4096
Byte Sequence
255044462D322E30
Endianness
None
Min Frag Length
Absolute from EOF
Offset
0
Max offset
1024
Byte Sequence
2525454F46
Endianness
None

Changelog

  • Added in V93

    Release date
    30 November 2017

    PDF 2.0 - Portable Document Format 2.0: Signature developed through PRONOM Research.

    PDF 2.0 - Portable Document Format 2.0: Full entry added.