- published: 24 Mar 2016
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Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format used to represent documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. Each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout flat document, including the text, fonts, graphics, and other information needed to display it. In 1991, Adobe Systems co-founder John Warnock outlined a system called "Camelot" that evolved into PDF.
While the PDF specification has been available free of charge since at least 2001, PDF was originally a proprietary format controlled by Adobe. It was officially released as an open standard on July 1, 2008, and published by the International Organization for Standardization as ISO 32000-1:2008. In 2008, Adobe published a Public Patent License to ISO 32000-1 granting royalty-free rights for all patents owned by Adobe that are necessary to make, use, sell and distribute PDF compliant implementations.
PDF's adoption in the early days of the format's history was slow.Adobe Acrobat, Adobe's suite for reading and creating PDF files, was not freely available; early versions of PDF had no support for external hyperlinks, reducing its usefulness on the Internet; the larger size of a PDF document compared to plain text required longer download times over the slower modems common at the time; and rendering PDF files was slow on the less powerful machines of the day. Additionally, there were competing formats such as DjVu (still developing), Envoy, Common Ground Digital Paper, Farallon Replica and even Adobe's own PostScript format (.ps); in those early years, PDF was popular mainly in desktop publishing workflows.
Anne, Duchess of Brittany (25 January 1477 – 9 January 1514), also known as Anna of Brittany (French: Anne de Bretagne; Breton: Anna Vreizh), was a Breton ruler, who was to become queen to two successive French kings. She was born in Nantes, Brittany, and was the daughter of Francis II, Duke of Brittany and Margaret of Foix. Her maternal grandparents were Queen Eleanor of Navarre and Gaston IV, Count of Foix. Upon her father's death, she became sovereign Duchess of Brittany, Countess of Nantes, Montfort and Richmont and Viscountess of Limoges. In her time, she was the richest European woman.
Anne was the only child of Francis and Margaret to survive childhood (she had a younger sister, Isabeau, who died in 1490). Accordingly, she was brought up as the heiress to the Duchy. She was given a good education under the guidance of Françoise de Dinan, Lady of Laval and Chateaubriant, and the poet Jean Meschinot.
Since the Breton War of Succession, Brittany had been understood to operate according to semi-Salic Law–women could only inherit if the male line had died out. By the time Anne was born, her father was the only male left of the Breton House of Montfort. The War of Succession had ended with an agreement that, in the absence of a male heir, the heirs of Joanna of Penthièvre would succeed. After a century, however, this agreement had been forgotten. Thus, in 1486 Anne's father had her recognised as heiress by the Breton estates; however, the question of her marriage remained a diplomatic issue. Francis had no intention of allowing Brittany to be absorbed by France. Therefore, he sought for his daughter a marriage with a figure capable of withstanding French power.