New Adobe Document Services advances PDF for the new realities of work

Adobe Document Services extends the power of PDF into your systems and apps.

As remote work has become the norm, businesses of all sizes are working with PDFs at a faster pace than ever before. According to a recent Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Adobe, 97 percent of organizations with minimal digital document processes are seeing a negative impact on productivity.

This accelerated growth in digital documents is a challenge for developers and publishers. To keep up with the reality of business today, we’re announcing new advances and partner momentum for Adobe Document Services, the platform that extends the power of PDF into your systems and apps. Document Services includes over 25 operations to create efficient, end-to-end document processes. These include PDF Embed API for embedding and customizing a PDF viewer in your own web and app experiences, PDF Tools API for creating and manipulating PDFs, as well as the PDF Viewer Core Component for Adobe Experience Manager. Over 6,000 developers have been using our comprehensive set of APIs to date.

During the pandemic, companies like K2/Nintex have been using Document Services APIs to develop fast, easy, automated, and low contact methods for managing employee experiences like self-screening tests and remote worker tracking.

Here’s what we’ve been working on across Adobe Document Services:

Businesses can now easily build digital document workflows without writing any code with the new Adobe PDF Tools connector for Microsoft Power Automate. The connector includes over twenty PDF actions that can automate common document tasks like creating a PDF from documents in a OneDrive folder, then sending it out in an email. The PDF Tools API connector joins other Adobe connectors for Power Automate including Adobe Sign for automating common e-signature workflows.

Multi-step processes like converting images to PDF, applying optical character recognition (OCR) to PDFs, and sending the document out for signature are just as easy to create. Popular Microsoft applications and services like SharePoint, Microsoft 365, and Dynamics 365 also integrate with the PDF Tools API connector. Soon we’ll include templates for automating common document tasks to build workflows even quicker.

Building for good with worldwide developer communities

In addition to our new advances across popular productivity platforms, we’re also excited about partnering with leading, worldwide developer communities to help businesses adapt to the realities of today and thrive in the future.

Over the summer, we worked with Topcoder, an open-talent platform with more than 1.5 million developers and designers worldwide on the COVID Challenge Series. Participants in the Series used Document Services to solve challenges for public service agencies and education with digital solutions. Here’s a look at highlights from the program:

Unlocking the full potential of PDF

We continue to work on more great services to deliver seamless, consistent PDF experiences across all web and mobile apps. Our teams are working on ways to tap into Adobe Sensei, our machine learning and artificial intelligence platform, to open new ways of working with PDF. Imagine creating an app that generates a quick content summary of multiple PDFs or automatically extracts critical data from PDFs. We’re looking forward to what’s next!