In 2023 the Adobe Acrobat 30th Anniversary. A computer program known to many. But it is the PDF format is much better known that was born with this software. A digital file format that was born as a necessity in a time different from the current one. And in which there were a multitude of applications, platforms and computer systems. Incompatible with each other. Someone had to create a format readable by everyone them and easy to print. A standard. And they got it.
Today there may be more detractors of the PDF format than defenders. The reason is that when PDF was born, a digital file format with its features did not yet exist. Today we can open virtually any type of file on any device. There are office automation and document editing applications that work from the Internet, without installation. Without going any further, Microsoft Office is online. And free. But in the 90s of the last century, far from having an Internet for everyone, there were many computers, with architectures own, incompatible with each other. Each one with your own text editor and its exclusive editing format closed.
The birth of the PDF has to do with a letter. Or rather, a six-page document. A declaration of intent that I wanted solve the eternal problem to create a standard so that we could all share the information of a document regardless of the operating system, the device and the reading and/or editing application. The PDF format more than met this demand. To such an extent that today is still a standard de facto for invoices, instruction manuals and, ultimately, for any paper document that we want in digital format on the internet.
With the Camelot project it all began
August 1990. John Warnockco-founder of Adobe, writes a six page document titled The Camelot Project, The Camelot Project. Not to be confused with the project of the same name carried out by the United States Army in the 1960s. Warnock’s document begins by saying “the objective of this project is solve a fundamental problem that faces today’s companies. And that problem is, as I mentioned at the beginning, “the ability to communicate visual material between different systems and applications”.
Adobe It had been founded in 1982 in Mountain View, California. Its founders were the aforementioned, John Warnock, and Charles Geschke. Both had worked as computer engineers in the legendary Xerox PARC in the 70s. There they worked on the launch of Xerox Star, a computer that has the honor of being the first to incorporate technologies that are everywhere today. And they also created Interpressa language that would serve as the basis for what would later become PostScript and other technologies that allow work with graphics in text documents.
But Xerox didn’t see much of a future for Interpress, so Warnock and Geschke They decided to go it alone. Precisely, the first product of his new company would be PostScript, an improved version of Interpress. Legend has it that Adobe was born in the former’s garage, like so many stories of companies created in garages that have later been proven not to be entirely true. What does seem to be true is that the name Adobe comes from Adobe Creek, adobe stream or San Antonio Creek, located in Los Altos, California, and which ran near the house where Warnock lived.
Apple, Adobe and the predecessor of the PDF format
One of Adobe’s first customers was Apple. Specifically, the printer Apple LaserWriter It was the first to support PostScript. And Steve Jobs liked this technology so much that offered Warnock and Geschke about $5 million in exchange for the newborn Adobe. Although the complete purchase did not take place, the founders of Adobe did agree to sell 19% of the company. Thus it would become the first company in the history of Silicon Valley that was already profitable in its first year.
An investment that also helped the following launches, such as Illustrator, in 1987. And to acquire external software such as photoshop, in 1989. Both initially available for the Macintosh platform. So when the idea of creating a new format to deal with text documents and share them everywhere arose in 1990, Adobe was already a big company and PostScript it’s a standard in the printing industry. Now we have to go further and create standard documents for personal computers.
The digital equivalent of the traditional fax
How to solve the problem of sharing documents between incompatible systems and programs? The idea is to create a standard format that can be read, edited and printed by any operating system, editing software and printing peripherals that existed on the market at that time. And inspiration, as reflected in John Warnock’s document, arises from a very popular technology in that decade of the 90s: the fax.
Relegated to oblivion thanks to email, mobile phones and other technologies, the fax was an essential device in any office of the world. For years, the fax was used to do what we do today with a simple WhatsApp message or an email: send documents from one place to another on the planet. Using your own telephone number, from one fax you could send paper documents to another fax that were scanned instantly and printed on the other side.
You just had to print the document, fax it and send it. As Warnock said in his document, the brand of fax did not matter, nor the computer with which the document was created. A simple paper with text and image It was enough to send that information anywhere.
The knights arrive at Camelot
Although the document The Camelot Projectwhich officially begins the creation of the PDF format, is dated August 1990when that document is made public, at least internally within Adobe, been working for months On it. Continuing with the Arthurian references, John Warnock, CEO of Adobe, contacted Randy Adams to lead the project. If Warnock was Arthur, Adams would be Lancelot, his right-hand man.
Randy Adams He joined Adobe when his startup, Emerald City Softwarewas purchased at the end of 1989. Thanks to this acquisition, Adobe was able to enrich its technology Adobe Type Manager font management. And, as we see, he was able to count on a good team to work on what would become the PDF.
In May 1990, Warnock explained his idea to Adams, which would later appear in the Project Camelot document. The idea is to combine two of its technologies, PostScript and PostScript Display, to create the definitive digital document format. At least as far as the exchange of documents is concerned. A format that is easy to print and easy to display on any computer screen.
An ambitious mission that falls on Randy Adams and on his team from what had been Emerald City and which was now another piece of Adobe. Ed Hall and Joe Holt They will be in charge of the graphical interface and user experience, Mike Pell and Bill Woodruff They will work on adapting PostScript to achieve a document visible on the screen and ready to print. AND Frank Boosman will be in charge of the commercial part of the project. Some Adobe veterans will also join, such as Mike Schuster, Ivar Durham either Richard Cohenwho will help in the technical part to make the project compatible with PostScript and Adobe Illustrator.
The birth of the PDF format
In its embryonic phase, what will later be known as Adobe Acrobat receives the name of Carousel. They will work mainly with Macintosh as a reference platform and will release several samples to teach you Adobe CEO John Warnock their progress.
Not only do you have to create a new format, what they will call PDF or Portable Document Format. You also have to design tools to edit and work with that format, Adobe Acrobat Exchange and Adobe PDF Writerand a simplified read-only version, Adobe Acrobat Reader. All of this will be accompanied by a font manager, Adobe Type Manager and an assortment of 14 fonts. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
On Friday, June 29, 1990, John Warnock sees a nearly finished version of Carousel. in a small conference hall At the Adobe facility, Adams and his team show you a program for Macintosh capable of viewing, printing and working with digital documents, compatible with PostScript and Adobe Illustrator. As well as a simpler program just to read that new format.
In August 1990, Warnock share the document titled Project Camelot where he summarizes, or explains in his own words, the project itself and the purpose they want to achieve. And on June 15, 1993, Adobe Acrobat goes on sale accompanied by the new PDF format. All this accompanied by a presentation in the Equitable Center from New York, in style, and broadcast live via satellite.
A legacy that seems to have no end
I am not discovering anything new by saying that so much Adobe Acrobat as Adobe Reader and the PDF format will become de facto standards on millions of computers around the world. But it will not be until 2008 that this proprietary format will be released so anyone can create compatible software without paying licenses to Adobe.
Nowadays, any device and operating system can read PDF documents. It’s more. With the print function it is possible convert any document for free image or text in PDF. Or save a web page directly to that format. The PDF format made it possible share a document on any platform.
Today there may be most suitable formats to deal with text, images, tables, links, forms, digital signatures and other elements that the PDF format has been incorporating over time. over the years. He has also added the password protection or the possibility of optimizing the size and quality of the document. And there are dozens of tools to deal with a PDF in addition to the official Adobe ones. However, the PDF is still there and will continue to be beyond 30 years of life.