Question: From an IT perspective, what are the pros and cons of converting all our documents of record into PDF format?
Answer: The process of maintaining files over time, otherwise know as archiving, is complex. There are many factors that argue towards having a uniform format for long term document storage, and yet also some factors that would mitigate against it. Nevertheless, converting to PDF is likely a worthwhile initiative.
Among the reasons to convert all documents of record to one format is that its easier on the IT group to maintain. There is only one format to maintain with respect to both the viewer and the operating system, in the long term. It is easy to convert both electronic and image formats into PDF since the PDF specs have direct support for both of these format types. It is easy to support meta-data, web-optimization, header/footers, and security (view/print).
So these are among the advantages towards standardization and conversion of all database files to a PDF format. Reasons not to standardize/convert include the risk in any conversion of modifying the original document. There is some risk inherent in any document conversion of modifying the original source document. Although the risk is very small per document, taken over millions of documents the risk is non-negligible. Of course, it is also very hard to modify the source documents once it is no longer in its native format, but this is probably a plus with respect to long term archiving of documents of record that should no longer be changing.
PDF/A is a recently introduced version of Adobe PDF that is specifically designed for long-term archiving. Javascript, non-embedded fonts, and encryption are all disallowed within the PDF/A specifications. Widespread adoption of PDF/A within industry appears likely.
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