Hi from Sydney, Australia

I am reviewing options for long-term preservation of scanned documents
for the (Local Government) organisation I work for and it has been
suggested by some scanning companies that documents in PDF/A-1A format
is difficult to achieve.

There are currently two types of PDF/A, PDF/A-1A and PDF/A-1B, as
defined in ISO 19005-1:2005, Part 1: Use of PDF 1.4.

The Digital Preservation website notes the following:

'For pragmatic reasons, when PDF/A is mandated, PDF/A-1b is usually
acceptable. Full PDF/A-1a compliance, with tagged document structure,
is hard to achieve except in a workflow that anticipates that
objective from initial document creation.'
(http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000125.shtml,
retrieved 1 December 2010)

Is anyone able to comment, based on experience with scanning
documents, whether PDF/A-1A is a 'better' version for long-term
digital preservation, or if PDF/A-1B is in fact 'acceptable' for this
purpose?  In what circumstances would PDF/A-1A be the preferred
option, and is it 'hard to achieve' in practice?  Should we wait for
PDF/A-2 to be released? (ISO 32000-1)

Andrew Warland
Sydney, Australia

My views entirely

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