Microsoft praises Adobe PDF format

Microsoft has now officially accepted that Adobe PDF format represents the “printed page” that can be viewed on multiple platforms, even if a person does not have Microsoft Office. Microsoft PressPass recently spoke with Sinofsky on upcoming support for the PDF Format in Office 12. Among several things like support for PDF on Mac Office, Steven revealed that PDF documents created with Office 12 will not support Adobe DRM or password systems.

PressPass: Isn’t PDF an Adobe product?
Sinofsky: PDF was developed by Adobe and has been available in a public specification for a long time. It has been offered by Adobe as an ISO standard. Microsoft used this standard to guide development of the PDF technology in Office 12.

PressPass: Under what scenarios do you expect customers to take advantage of PDF?
Sinofsky: The PDF format has been broadly recognized as an acceptable way to share information when the author does not want that information easily modified or when there is no longer a need to edit that information. This ability to view on multiple platforms and provide a casual level of document security is a customer need that can be met by PDF.

Office Vista will output PDF documents compatible with any PDF viewer that supports version 1.4 of the PDF specification, such as Adobe Acrobat 5.0 or later. PDF documents created with Office 12 can contain live hyperlinks. Office 12 PDF documents will be accessible to screen readers as well.

PDF documents produced from Microsoft Office Publisher 12 will include support for pre-press specific functionality, such as CMYK color models and printing page marks. You can read the full interview with Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft Senior Vice President, Microsoft Office.