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Multi-page PDF To Multi-page TIFF and Archiving?
GeorgeMonroy writes "One of my clients has aperture cards that they have been scanning into multi-page PDF files — but now they want them in multi-page TIFFs instead. One of the reasons they gave for this is that TIFF files require less storage space. While that is true, I wonder if TIFF is the best format going into the future. Are TIFFs better than PDFs for future use? I wonder what format you think would last longer. Are there any other formats that you think would be better or more future-proof? To me, storage is not a good enough reason to go to TIFF, because storage prices are always dropping anyway. Also, since they already have many of these files in PDF format and they want to convert them into multipage TIFFs, are there any programs that you can recommend that will perform batch processing of files so that we do not have to convert each PDF one by one? If another file format is better than TIFF, then are there any programs for batch processing that you can recommend?"
But size does not have anything to do with it. TIFF is far simpler in structure than PDF and has therefore better compatibility. TIFF is also well documented. Of course, they would have to use raw tiff to get the advantages. The storage-space argument is secondary and matters only insofar as larger data sets have a higher irsk of corruption.
I dispute the "well documented" claim. The TIFF standard is quite clear. Unfortunately, almost nobody adheres precisely to the standard. I work extensively with TIFF and PDF, and I have to say that the consistency I see in PDF is about 100 times more than what I see in TIFF. Your typical TIFF reader will contain thousands of hacks and workarounds for oddities that are produced by major players in the industry. While there is slightly non-compliant PDF, I have never seen things that even begin approaching the strangeness I see in TIFF on a daily basis. Having said that, I recommend TIFF plus search text metadata for archival, not PDF.