The inventor of portable document format (PDF) and co-founder of Adobe Dr John Warnock died at the age of 82 due to pancreatic cancer, Guardian reported.

“John’s brilliance and technology innovations changed the world. It is a sad day for the Adobe community and the industry for which he has been an inspiration for decades,” Adobe said.

He along with Dr Charles Geschke co-founded Adobe in 1982 during their time as colleagues at Xerox.

Adobe Inc., originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California.

“Their first product was Adobe PostScript, groundbreaking technology that sparked the desktop publishing revolution. Dr Warnock retired as CEO in 2000 and he was chairman of the board, a position he shared with Dr Geschke, until 2017. He was a member of the Board of Directors since then,” Adobe stated.

In an email to employees, Adobe Chair and CEO Shantanu Narayen reported the death of Dr John Warnock.

He is survived by his wife, Marva Mullins, three children and four grandchildren.

Former US president Barack Obama awarded him the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, one of the nation’s highest honors bestowed on scientists, engineers and inventors, in 2008; he received the Computer Entrepreneur Award from the IEEE Computer Society; the American Electronics Association Medal of Achievement; and the high honor of the Marconi Prize for contributions to information science and communications.