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From their docs site:

> Documents are saved as PDF/A format which is designed for long term storage…[snip]

Can someone please tell me what attributes make a given file format more suitable for long term storage over another?

Everything for the document (fonts, images, etc) are all stored within the document file. It's entirely self-contained.

Among other things, it usually means that the file type has wide interoperability (which makes it more likely you can open it in the far future) and comes in a format resistant to damage, so if bits are changed or removed, you can still recover the rest of the document (usually this means avoiding compressed formats). As to how well-suited PDF/A is for these aspects, I'm not experienced enough to say.

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