What is Hybrid Archiving? Addition to PDF/A-3

Small addition to our PDF series:

PDF/A – The format of the future – Part 1: PDF/A-1

PDF/A – The format of the future – Part 2: PDF/A-2

and

PDF/A – The format of the future – Part 3: PDF/A-3

As the PDF Association reports, the third standard part of PDF/A now offers the possibility of “hybrid archiving”. This term refers to the linking of digital and analog data storage methods. For example, in addition to the purely digital possibilities, there are also analog storage methods such as microfilm.

Hybrid archiving is intended to make information and documents available via data networks (digital) on the one hand, but on the other hand it also offers backup on an analog medium such as microfilm. It can be used in case of data loss.

PDF/A-3 format

The different PDF/A formats offer more and more new functions. PDF/A-3 is now particularly suitable for all aspects of “hybrid archiving”. You can also embed non-PDF/A-compliant files and much more.  PDF/A-3 is regarded as a kind of archive container that can cope with many different sources. Scans can also be used here well and are easier to process with PDF/A-3. Secure e-mail archiving (including attachments) with PDF/A-3 works just as well.

Hybrid archiving with PDF/A-3 has one advantage: you can optimize processes and enable hybrid archiving. PDF/A-3 can also be used to embed non-compliant PDF/A files such as CSV, XML or Office files as attachments.