PDF/A
PDF/A is an ISO-standardized version of the PDF format designed for long-term archiving, requiring that everything needed to render a document faithfully be embedded inside the file itself.
PDF/A is a constrained, self-contained variant of PDF specified under ISO 19005 for the long-term preservation of electronic documents. Unlike an ordinary PDF, it forbids features that threaten future readability — external font references, encryption, audio or video, and dependencies on software or fonts that may not exist decades later. Instead, fonts, color profiles, and metadata are embedded directly in the file, so the document looks the same regardless of the system used to open it.
In recordkeeping, PDF/A matters because it directly supports the trustworthiness and accessibility goals behind a digital preservation program: a record stored in PDF/A remains renderable long after the application that created it is gone. For example, an agency digitizing permanent records or transferring them to an archives will often normalize them to PDF/A so the preserved version is stable, vendor-neutral, and free of active content.
PDF/A is a format choice, not a metadata or requirements framework. As records standards evolve — NARA having revoked its DoD 5015.2 endorsement in 2022 in favor of the Universal ERM Requirements and FERMI approach — durable, open formats like PDF/A remain a practical preservation building block.