OCR as time goes by: The first machine-readable font was developed for the American government 45 years ago. Much has changed in the world of OCR technology from that time until today.

1968 was a revolutionary year - not just in the sense of political upheaval, but in the history of the computer as well. Douglas C. Engelbart invented the computer mouse, the precursor of the personal computer hit the market, and electronic data processing was slowly gaining in popularity and demand.

Information about the geometry of a PDF document plays an enormously important role in the printing industry

Unlike the PDF/A format, which does not explicitly include printing related requirements, the PDF/X standard requires that information about the page's geometry be specified using page boxes. One of the things these boxes define is where on a page the content is placed that corresponds to the desired final trimmed size. The bleed is also marked at the same time. At present, desktop publishing (DTP) programs automatically set the information needed for this in the PDF during direct export.

PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility) was formalized in July 2012 as the ISO 14289-1 standard and is the designation for a variety of PDF specifically designed to create accessible PDF documents.

This standard provides a uniform description of the requirements that a PDF document must satisfy, and which also fulfills the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. The goal is to make PDF documents usable with the same degree of ease and quality for individuals with disabilities as they are for those without disabilities. In Germany, the Equal Rights for Disabled Persons Act (BGG) specifically stipulates that federal agencies must ensure web accessibility for their websites and the services that these sites offer.