01.05.2016
The Advanced Function Presentation Consortium (AFPC), an international consortium of print industry stakeholders working together to further enhance the Advanced Function Presentation (AFP) document architecture, is pleased to announce ISO publication of the AFP Archive (AFP/A) standard, which enables accurate long term preservation and faithful reproduction of original AFP jobs.
While independent AFP archival systems have existed for many years, the ISO technical committee for document management applications (TC171) embarked on ISO standardization of AFP/A in May 2012 with the help of the AFPC. Working within the ISO process, AFP/A was exposed to a broad range of international experts and leveraged insights from sources beyond the AFPC, including additional experts within the archivist community. The end result is a recognized level of integrity that will aid the format’s widespread adoption.
“This certification is a huge step for AFP and the AFP user community,” said Harry Lewis, President, AFPC. “Until the introduction of AFP/A, archival to an ISO-recognized format would require a transform to PDF. While PDF/A is great for archiving PDF content, there is always the chance of introducing some small fidelity issue in the transform. If the resulting archive is incomplete or inaccurate, then integrity may be compromised, limiting the archive’s usefulness. For the many users who run end-to-end AFP, the introduction of a fully realized, fully approved AFP/A format is a huge boon, providing increased efficiency and compliance with regulations that demand ISO-approved standards.”
The AFP Archive standard can be obtained by ordering from ISO as document ISO 18565:2015.
To find out more about the AFPC and its numerous standards, visit http://afpcinc.org/afp-publications/.
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