Background
A transatlantic background, a taste for the technical and three years in political consulting somehow brought Duff Johnson to the conclusion in 1995 that political campaigns needed the ability to rapidly search through electronic or scanned documents very quickly. He set out to offer the service. That business didn't work out too well, but along the way, Duff discovered that there was a market for the capabilities of Adobe's Adobe Acrobat and Reader software to create, distribute and view PDF files.
Document Solutions, Inc. (DSI) 1996-2008
The essence of Duff's original service-bureau organization was to use Adobe's Acrobat software to do what DSI's customers wanted, but didn't themselves know how to do. When Adobe added new features to PDF and to Acrobat, DSI would add new services to help end-users use PDF to solve their business and communications problems. Some examples:
- In 1996, DSI created a sophisticated user-interface for CD-ROM based collections of PDFs
- In 1997, DSI leveraged the unique capabilities of PDF to combine lossless black-and-white scanned pages with lossy JPEG color images. "MultiResolution PDF" was very popular with publishers, and DSI went on to convert millions of pages of academic journals and magazines to PDF using this technique.
- In 1998, shortly after Adobe's initial release of PDF forms technology, DSI added form-fields to over 30,000 PDF insurance forms for server-based filling and delivery.
- In 2001, DSI was the first organization in the world to tag PDF files for accessibility purposes, and offer Section 508 compliance services for PDF content.
Squeezed between the ever-increasing capabilities of Acrobat software and the burgeoning expectations of end-users, DSI has busied itself with filling the gaps between software and customer since 1996.
Appligent Document Solutions
Digital Applications was a leader in PDF technology even earlier than Duff Johnson's DSI. In 1993, Mark Gavin, founder and CTO of Digital Applications, wrote the first 3rd party parser for PDF as a proof-of-concept for the National Institute of Standards & Technology. Digital Applications went on to invent PDF redaction, releasing the acclaimed Redax plugin to Adobe Acrobat in 1997, and the groundbreaking FDFMerge server software for filling and flattening PDF forms in 1998. Digital Applications was first to market with server-based assembly, stamping, security and digital signature applications for PDF files.
In 2001, Digital Applications become Appligent, Inc., maintaining over a dozen server applications on a wide variety of platforms as well as several stand-alone applications and Acrobat plugins.
Appligent and Document Solutions, Inc. merged in late 2008 to form Appligent Document Solutions, with Duff Johnson as CEO and Mark Gavin as CTO. The combined company offers the industry's most complete range of software and services to meet almost any conceivable PDF technology requirement.
Industry Standards
"If PDF didn't exist, someone would have to invent it."
Duff believes that the key function of PDF -- to serve as electronic paper, a record of a particular document's state at a given moment in time -- is key to modern business infrastructure.
To encourage the acceptance, adoption and extension of PDF technology, Duff serves the industry in a number of capacities relating to the development of International Standards for PDF.
Chair of AIIM's PDF/Universal Accessibility initiative since 2005, Duff now serves as Chair of the U.S. Committee for ISO/AWI 14289 (PDF/UA), Vice Chair of the U.S. Committee for ISO 32000 (PDF Reference) and as U.S. Spokesperson for both the ISO 32000 and ISO/AWI 14289 committees.
Articles, Blogs, Forum Posts, Seminars...
In addition to his work on PDF Standards, Duff is one of the most respected writers in the PDF technology space, with dozens of feature articles on a wide variety of subjects relating to the use (and misuse) of PDF technology and electronic documents in general. His articles, blog posts, software reviews, forums advice and other public writings offer a staunchly independent perspective and a fierce loyalty to the concepts behind the technology rather than any particular purveyor.
Duff's articles have been featured on the Best of Planet PDF volumes 1 and 2. A regular panelist and speaker at industry events, Duff has presented at AIIM, Seybold, AGI, PDF Conference, PDF Central, BFMA and other conferences and trade-shows.
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Duff Johnson is based in Boston, Massachusetts. When he's not thinking, speaking or writing about PDF technology, Duff may be found SCUBA diving in chilly New England waters, and occasionally, more exotic locations.
Read Duff's Talking PDF blog or his articles.
