Following three years of collaboration among industry leaders, the PDF/VT format was published as the ISO 16612-2 standard in August 2010.​

This version of PDF is based on the PDF imaging model and is designed specifically for the requirements of variable (V) and transactional (T) data printing workflows. The stated goal of ISO 16612-2 is to bring the advantages of PDF workflow to the production process involved in variable data printing (VDP). PDF/VT serves as an exchange format for graphically designed content and simplifies the process for businesses, marketers, designers and print professionals.

E-mail has long since supplanted other forms of communication, including letters and faxes, not only for personal but business correspondence as well. The advantages are obvious: a vastly simplified and accelerated flow of communications. It only takes a split second to reach and provide information to individuals and large groups of recipients anywhere in the world. In light of the fact that more and more business-relevant information is being shared by e-mail, many companies have an urgent need to organize and properly archive their e-mail correspondence. After all, contracts, offers and similar documents must be retained in accordance with statutory and regulatory requirements. The conventional form of paper documentation is not a viable alternative, since printing e-mails and file attachments and then storing them by hand would consume an enormous amount of time.

In many businesses, document archiving is one of the most sensitive parts of data processing. Electronic documents have to be specially prepared for the archiving process in order to guarantee readability over time. webPDF lets you convert files to the PDF/A format and ensures that documents, image files and other materials can be faithfully rendered in their original format in the future. The ISO standards used for this meet the statutory requirements for legally compliant long-term archiving and permit automated, and in turn cost-effective, routines in the area of data retention.