I just noticed there was new project on Adobe labs code named “Mars“. It’s a new document format based on SVG. Just like a PDF doc, you can have all the embedded images, objects, annotations etc. all crunched into one document. According to the labs page, there is going to be an Acrobat plug-in that renders the Mars format natively. This new format is very exciting because it’s based on open standards and it’s very easy to work with. Although it’s too early to tell, it does sound like a logical direction for the PDF standard.