Service Note

TIFF format support and development

The following content applies to NA, APAC and EMEA Geos

TIFF is a tag-based image file format that is designed to promote the interchange of digital image data. The TIFF format originated in 1986 when Aldus Corporation and leading scanner vendors worked together to create a standard file format for images used in desktop publishing.

The first version of the specification was published in July, 1986. Version 6.0 of the specification was completed in September 1995, and is available on Adobe's website at http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/PDFS/TN/TIFF6.pdf.

TIFF provides a general-purpose data format and is compatible with a wide range of scanners and image-processing applications. It is device independent and is used in most operating environments including Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX. Most scanner manufacturers and desktop publishing applications have implemented this non-proprietary industry standard.

Adobe continues to evaluate and incorporate TIFF enhancements that are useful within publishing applications, maintaining backward compatibility whenever possible (for example, even applications written in the fall of 1986 can read many modern TIFF 6.0 compatible images).

TIFF support

Adobe supports TIFF issues that directly relate to Adobe products. If a TIFF file is incompatible with an Adobe product (for example, the file won't place or print), our goal is to isolate and understand the problem so that it may be corrected in future releases. Adobe Technical Support is available to assist you with these issues.

The level of technical knowledge required for one company to support the current TIFF specification is prohibitively high. Adobe manages the specification's distribution, but does not provide direct TIFF support to developers. TIFF is a mature specification, and we're confident developers can support each other. Visit Adobe's website for a list of developer resources.

TIFF development

In order to avoid conflict with other developers, we encourage developers to contact us and register for a block of private application-specific or proprietary tags. We will assign you one to five TIFF tags at no charge.

To request private TIFF tags, send an e-mail message to the Adobe Solutions Network Developer Program at psdevsup@adobe.com. Please include your name, company name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, number of tags requested, and what the tag(s) will be used for.