Adobe and Microsoft tussle over PDF

Well, I hate to say "I told you so", but it looks like Adobe has finally revealed that its "open" standard for PDFs was, in fact, a double standard. I've been warning colleagues for years about PDFs and urging them to avoid them in favor of a more truly "open" format, but my arguments tended to fall on deaf ears. Perhaps now that Adobe has refused to allow Microsoft to incorporate "save as PDF" into its new Office suite, I'll have an easier time of it.

I'm a bit curious what the experts here think: What's the closest free alternative to PDF? I work with a lot of librarians who are heavily invested in digital archiving and would like to be able to point them in the right direction.

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