Adobe has passed control of its Portable Document Format to the International Organisation for Standardisation.

The move makes the popular format for electronic documents accessible as ISO International Standard 32000-1.

ISO is now in charge of publishing the specifications for the current version (1.7) and for updating and developing future versions.

"By releasing the full PDF specification for ISO standardisation we are reinforcing our commitment to openness," said Kevin Lynch, chief technology officer at Adobe.

ISO secretary-general Alan Bryden added: "As an ISO standard we can ensure that this useful and widely popular format is easily available to all interested stakeholders.

"The standard will benefit software developers and users by encouraging the propagation and dissemination of a common technology that cuts across systems and is designed for long term survival."

PDF is a digital format used to represent electronic documents. It allows users to exchange and view the documents independent of the environments in which they are created, viewed and printed, while preserving their content and visual appearance.

According to Adobe, over 2,000 PDF product developers use the standard for products and billons of PDF files are in existence today.