In the river of time, the intersection of fate is always full of unexpected coincidences. on August 21, 2023, former U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he would travel to Atlanta to turn himself in, allegedly overturning the results of the 2020 Presidential election in Georgia. And earlier that same day, Adobe released an obituary in memory of the company's co-founder, Dr. John Warnock, who was 82 years old. Behind these two seemingly unrelated pieces of news is a deep and long story.

The story began 30 years ago, when Adobe released its first production-oriented product. pdf software, AdobeAcrobat1.0. at the same time, Donald Trump (Donald Trump) campaign team's former chairman Paul Manafort (Paul Manafort) in serious trouble. ) is in serious trouble, facing new collusion charges. Manafort's dilemma was that he needed to falsify the company's profit and loss statement to increase the loan amount, but he didn't know how to edit it. the PDF format of the profit and loss statement didn't make any sense. So he had to consult a partner.word to pdf converter online free i love pdf The PDF form was converted to a Word document and then the forged form was reconverted to .PDF format as one of the loan company's materials. This series of emails became one of the key pieces of evidence in the judicial investigation that led to his conviction.

This story reveals an irony:Manafort's method, while foolish, highlights the .pdf file format. Although PDF files were expensive when they were first introduced and the Internet was slow to develop, they have now gradually become widely used in many fields such as business, academia and law. It has not only become a global standard for digital documents, but also plays a key role in the preservation of digital antiquities and historical documents.

The popularity of PDF is astonishing, with the number of .pdf files in the world reaching trillions, and billions more being added every day, according to 2018 estimates from the International PDF Association. However, people may be more familiar with Adobe's other products, such as Photoshop, than with PDFs, but the fact is that Adobe's founding is inextricably linked to PDFs.

Adobe's founders John Warnock and Charles Geschke originally developed a page description language called InterPress to drive laser printers. However, for fear of being copied by competitors, Xerox decided to keep it as an internal standard. This decision led to the resignation of Warnock and Geschke, who founded Adobe and developed a new page description language called PostScript, a technology that was important because of its ability to accurately and simply describe what was being printed, a major breakthrough in printing technology, and which would later become the core foundation of the PDF format.

The participation of Steve Jobs also played a key role in the popularization of PDF. He believed that if the printer with a computer can produce high-quality business documents, will give Apple a huge advantage. So Adobe PostScript licensed to Apple's network printer LaserWriter. this decision not only allows LaserWriter has been a commercial success, but also for the rise of Apple in the field of desktop publishing has laid the foundation for the rise of Adobe's reputation.

PDF's success has not been smooth sailing. At first, due to high prices and the underdevelopment of the Internet, it did not spread quickly. However, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in the submission of tax returns, choose to use PDF tax download service, which directly saves the IRS millions of dollars in printing costs, and become PDF of the "official" tax return. Since then, PDF has been widely used in business, academia, and the legal profession, and eventually became the global standard for digital documents.

The historic moment for PDF came in 2008, when Adobe authorized ISO to publish and ultimately control the specification of the PDF format, which is free to use the relevant patents. The new PDF standard also continues to enhance the interactivity and incorporate more features needed in the future. Meanwhile, PDFA format has become the format of choice for digitizing antiquarian and historical documents.

John Warnock is one of the founding fathers of the PDF format, and his contributions we can not only be limited to PDF, but also includes important management work in the field of computer graphics technology. Despite his mediocre secondary school performance, his interest and talent in mathematics made him an outstanding mathematical thinker and social computer scientist. In contrast, Charles Gerschke's life was also legendary, with his career change experience and programming ability to realize what may ultimately have led to a brilliant and accomplished career in the field of computer applications.

Finally, the lives of these two great founders were full of unexpected twists and turns. PDF a seemingly ordinary document format, has become an important tool for the transmission of information to the world.

Looking back at history, we can not help but feel deeply. Since Geschke and Warnock have worked together, they have pushed for great advances in printing technology, graphics, text and photos accurately rendered on paper. This technology has not only changed the printing industry, but also laid the foundation for the PDF format. PDF was born a long time ago, but in the course of its development, once faced with the crisis of being eliminated. However, fate is always unpredictable. 1996 PDF became the IRS preferred tax form format, began to emerge. Since then, it has rapidly expanded into the business, academic and legal fields and has become the global standard for digital documents.

PDF owes its success not only to its technological strengths, but also to Adobe's smart business practices. in 2008, Adobe licensed the ISO to publish the PDF specification, laying the groundwork for its global dissemination. The new PDF standard also added interactivity and future-proofing features to ensure its place in the evolving digital age. At the same time, the introduction of the PDF/a format made it the preferred choice for digitizing antiquarian and historical documents, demonstrating PDF's versatility.

Meanwhile, PDF's competitors, such as the DjVu format, though unique, have failed to shake PDF's position.PDF is not only widely used, but also maintains a dominant position in the printer field. It is the format of choice for e-books, academic papers, manuals and various forms, and is even widely used in social media applications such as WeChat.

Behind PDF are two outstanding founders, Warnock and Gerschke. Warnock is not only the founder of PDF, or through the pioneers of computer graphics, his Warnock algorithm changed the traditional computer for rendering, for the subsequent development of the study laid the foundation. Geschke, on the other hand, is a classical economist who embarked on the path of computer techno-scientism, and his accomplishments in the field of computer applications are also produced even more impressive. The cooperation of these two outstanding individuals, the birth of PDF this has a global file data format.

Life is full of unpredictable twists and turns, technological advances and legal developments are always closely linked. As a seemingly ordinary file format, PDF has played an important role in this process, becoming an important tool in the information age, the right hand in the legal field. This history tells us that in a rapidly changing world, anything can be a key factor in determining the direction of human society. Like PDF, it was born out of technological innovation, but has left a deep mark on the stage of history.