For those of you who thought you'd made up your mind whether TIF or PDF is better than native files, another option: PDF with native files embedded. A recent article by John Martin outlines how embedding native files using PDF/a specifications appears to provide the best of both worlds -- a fixed image-type representation with page-level control sequences possible but also with the ability to open the native files and explore spreadsheet formulae, etc. One of the details: using the hash value of the embedded file as the name of the embedded file, but using a Bates sequence for the name of the PDF. See the article in the recent ALSP Update at bit.ly/FormProduction. A reprint is available at http://bit.ly/FormPrdctn2 and a sample of a PDF with an embedded file is available at http://bit.ly/PDFwNative.

Read the full story originally posted by EDD Update.