The 3rd International PDF/A Conference in Berlin

A whole string of experts from the PDF/A field are expected: Leonard Rosenthol, PDF Standard Architect at Adobe and senior member of the Acrobat Engineering Team, who, since more than 10 years has been involved in the development of PDF technology and as a member of the ISO 19005 committee has been a major contributor to the standardization of the PDF/A standard as project lead (his keynote presentation will report on the next version of PDF/A) will be present, as will Stephen Levenson from the US Federal District Court, one of the initiators of the PDF/A standard who also is a member the ISO PDF/A committee, and who apart from this is a member of the AIIM Standards Board of Directors. Another keynote speaker will be Bernhard Zöller, a DMS consultant who will give a presentation on the pros and cons of PDF/A.

Moreover a number of large well-known companies will report on the uses of PDF/A in a number of different application areas within their enterprises. This will include the State Bank of the states of Hesse and Thuringia, the EU Publication Office, the State Archives of the State of Baden-Württemberg and the Techniker Krankenkasse (one of the larger German medical insurance companies).

Next to the keynotes addresses and the accompanying panel discussions, the following tracks have been put together for the two days:

Day One:

Track 1: What you need to know about PDF/A
(for novice to intermediate level attendees)

Track 2: Legal and Compliance: Save and legal with PDF/A

Track 3: Metadata: Data about PDF/A data

Day 2:

Track A: Archive & Libraries, Public Sector/eGovernment

Track B: Engineering/Manufacturing/Construction

Track C: Business to Customers (e.g. banks, insurance, telcos)

Track D: Health Care

The conference language is English.

The workshops held on the day before the conference (the 17th of June) are half-day workshops designed for small groups. They provide a deeper examination of the subject matter augmented by practical examples. The workshops cover the following themes:

Morning Sessions:

• Scan to PDF/A:
  This workshop covers all topics around scanning to PDF/A. General conversion and compression techniques with practical demos are discussed. A scan service provider’s mass scanning approaches are presented as well as the classification possibilities for scanned documents. (Instructers: Carten Heiermann, Thomas Zellmann, LuraTech Europe GmbH, and Daniel Schmidt, asservo)

• Fonts in PDF/A Primer:
  Introduction to the internal structure of fonts, how fonts are used in PDF, what can go wrong with fonts and font requirements specific to PDF/A. (Instructors: Dietrich von Seggern and Olaf Drümmer, both of callas software GmbH)

• Digital-born PDF/A:
  Office files, batch processing, tagged PDF, interactive documents, missing fonts or dynamic generation? This workshop presents the top ten problems when creating PDF/A from applications or databases – and how to solve them. (Instructor: Michael Karbe, Actino Software GmbH)

• “PDF/A in einer ECM-Suite” (in German):
  The workshop will discuss how PDF/A support is implemented in OS|ECM making it valuable for users of Optimal Systems’ products as well as for attendees who want to understand how PDF/A can be integrated in a modern ECM system. (Instructers: Dr. Olaf Holst and Christian Fink, both of Optimal Systems GmbH)

Afternoon Sessions:

• “PDF/A für Sparkassen” (in German)
  PDF/A is of great interest for German savings banks since the central service provider, Finanz Informatik, supports PDF/A for the central archive ZDA. Scanning to high-compressed PDF/A are discussed, and Martin Ott presents the user view.Instructers Thomas Zellmann, LuraTech Europe GmbH, Manuela Stefen, Bechtle GmbH IT-Systemhaus, Martin Ott, Kreissparkasse Ludwigsburg)PDF/A and Output:
  The workshop covers the various technical aspects of data streams conversion and text mining requirements including performance considerations, font and character encoding issues and a detailed discussion of various print data streams like AFP, PCL and Postscript in conjunction with PDF/A. (Instructors: Dr. Karl-Heinz Werner, Beta Systems Software AG, and Jörg Palmer, Compart AG)

• Digital Signatures in PDF/A:
  The workshop conveys a technical insight into the specification, implementations and use of digital signatures. Besides embedded signatures, the workshop will also focus on the emerging CADeS and XADeS standards as well as on the role of signatures in long-term archiving of documents. (Instructors: Leonard Rosenthol, Adobe Systems, Inc. and Dr. Bernd Wild, intarsys consulting GmbH)

• XMP Metadaten Primer:
  Who uses XMP today? How to use XMP in PDF/A, and how to inspect, store and retrieve it? What about accuracy, persistence and privacy of XMP? (Instructors: Dietrich von Seggern and Olaf Drümmer, both of callas software GmbH)

A flyer with a detailed description of the conference is available here. The workshops (apart from “PDF/A in einer ECM-Suite” and “PDF/A for Savings Banks) will all be held in English and can be booked together with or separate from the main conference. An on-line registration form can also be found here. On registration for the event, participants receive a list of hotels in which rooms have been reserved. The early registration discount is only available for registrations received before the end of March 2009. The evening social event on the first day of the conference is included in the conference fee.